We are pleased to announce that on October 31, 2024, negotiations with the European Space Agency regarding the implementation of the project “SPACE WEATHER NANOSATELLITES SYSTEM ENHANCEMENT PHASE 0/A” were completed.
As a result, the consortium Creotech Instruments (consortium leader), CBK PAN (subcontractor) and CBK WEFiM (subcontractor) were awarded the project covering the 0-A (initial) phase of satellite preparation and a space mission analyzing the so-called space weather.
The mission assumes that four scientific instruments will be placed on the HyperSat (Creotech) microsatellite platform: three developed at CBK PAN and one with the charming acronym “ADNREW” from CBK WEFiM.
The ANDREW instrument (Atomic and Neutrals Density Analysis in Space Weather) is an instrument designed to measure the concentration of neutral particles (neutrals density measurement) and the concentration of atomic oxygen (atomic oxygen density).
ANDREW and the three CBK PAN instruments constitute a coherent and complementary set of scientific instruments for studying the components of space weather.
What will “ADREW” be? It will have two measurement channels. The first channel will measure the concentration of neutral particles (neutrals density measurement), in which neutral particles (without charge) will be filtered out first, in order to ionize these particles in the next stage and measure the ion current, which is proportional to the concentration.
The second channel is a miniature mass spectrometer adapted to measure the concentration of atomic oxygen (atomic oxygen density) – we have previously developed such a spectrometer for ESA as part of the ESA Contract No. 4000138011/22/NL/KML “MEMS mass spectrometry” project. What distinguishes the analytical instruments we build? That they are the smallest in the world! We design and manufacture them using MEMS technology (Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems), which is the key to miniaturization.
