The SpIRIT (Space Industry ? Responsive ? Intelligent ? Thermal Nanosatellite) is an Australian-Italian 6U CubeSat supported in Australia by the Australian Space Agency?s International Space Investment ? Expand Capability scheme.
The satellite has following objectives:
- A high-performance Australian-designed and made spacecraft platform (Apogee satellite bus by Inovor Technologies), capable of competing with international suppliers.
- One main science payload for advanced gamma and x-ray remote sensing ? the HERMES (High Energy Rapid Modular Ensemble of Satellites) instrument, developed with funding by the Italian Space Agency (HERMES Technological Pathfinder) and by the European Commission H2020 framework (HERMES Scientific Pathfinder).
- Innovative made-in-Australia products to be space qualified for IP generation, including: The Neumann Space Thruster, a novel high efficiency electric propulsion solution ideally suited for applications in Lunar orbit and beyond Earth; The University of Melbourne Thermal Management Integrated System (TheMIS) for precision temperature control of sensitive instrumentation; The University of Melbourne Mercury module for adaptive autonomous low-latency communications; and The University of Melbourne Payload Management System, designed to facilitate integration of complex instrumentation in off-the-shelf satellite platforms, and to reliably control their operations and carry out advanced data processing on-board.
- Demonstration of an efficient ground segment capable of receiving operations requests, applying user priority levels, and making complex decisions about tasking of multi-band and multi-network satellite communications, opening new opportunities for rapid satellite re-tasking and data dissemination
