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Category: Space experiments and small satellites

Yes210 years after YES, the successor, the Young Engineers' Satellite 2 (YES2) was flown. The YES2 was a 36 kg student-built tether satellite part of ESA's Foton-M3 microgravity mission. The YES2 satellite employed a 32 km long tether to deorbit a small re-entry capsule "Fotino."

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Category: Space experiments and small satellites

Yes1In 1997, the European Space Agency launched its first true skunkworks satellite, developed by Delta-Utec: the Young Engineers' Satellite (YES), of about 200 kg, sent into Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) with a 35 km double-strand tether, and planning to deorbit a probe at near-interplanetary speed by swinging deployment of the tether system. It successfully performed a number of technology demonstration experiments, such as a commercial computer (PC104) and CCD camera payload, student-developed sunsensors, radiation experiments (scintillating fibers, RADFET) and the first GPS operational beyond the GPS constellation. A space computer (JORIS!) with RISC processor and FPGA was also developed, qualified and flown. The tether experiment was prepared in simulation and hardware, tested extensively in on-ground facilities and launched, however, due to the unfavorable orbit that was reached, the tether experiment could not be safely performed and it was cancelled. 

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Category: Space experiments and small satellites

T-RexT-Rex was developed by an international team led by the Kanagawa Institute of Technology/Nihon University to test a new type of electrodynamic tether (EDT) that may lead to a generation of propellantless propulsion systems for LEO spacecraft.