SIMBA (Sun-earth Imbalance) is a Belgian 3U CubeSat, designed by the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgiumw ith the participation of the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium, the University of Leuven and ISIS-Innovative Solutions In Space as a technology demonstration mission.
The satellite will have three objectives:
- The scientific payloads objectives are to study the feasibility to monitor with the same instrument both the incoming solar radiation and the earths outgoing radiation. To achieve this, the main payload sensor is an electrical substitution cavity radiometer designed for the absolute measurement of total radiation. The cavity radiometer is normally pointing towards the earth for a good sampling of the earths outgoing radiation and will be occasionally pointing towards deep space and the sun for calibration.
- The ADCS system is a newly developed system, including a non mission critical startracker, that will have its maiden flight in the SIMBA satellite. Two mission goals related to that are the in orbit testing of the ADCS system and the in orbit testing of the startracker subsystem.
- Embed a FM transponder that will be accessible to the radio amateur community after the end of the nominal mission and at weekends.
The satellite was to be originally part of the QB50 constellation, but dropped out later. Launch into a sun synchroneous orbit is now planned for 2018.
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