upgrade

innov
upgrade 1

upgrade

EU Programme: 

Coordination: 

Participants: 

Starting Year:   

Duration: 

website: 

ISQ Contact:

Areas:

barra Acronym: uPGRADE Project name: uPGRADE – miniaturized Prototype for GRavity field Assessment using Distributed Earth-orbiting assets Project Code: POCI-01-0247-FEDER-045927 and LISBOA-01-0247-FEDER-045927 Main objective: Strengthen research, technological development and innovation Intervention Region: North , Centre and Lisbon Approval date: 11-03-2020 Start date: 01-07-2020 Completion date: 29-06-2023 Total Eligible Cost: EUR 1,943,732.13 Funding amount: EUR 1,395,328.52 – ERDF National public financial support: €266,055.54 – FCT

Goals The 45927 uPGRADE project is intended for the development, integration and preparation for the operation of a sampleprototype of a generic application CubeSat platform with competence for commercial and scientific purposes, such as Earth observation, communications, territory monitoring, support of distributed constellations and/or fractionated nano-satellites, and execution of missions in cislunar and interplanetary space. The demonstration of the capabilities of this platform will be made using the concept of observation of variations of the earth's gravity field and measurement of the neutral thermosphere – in line with the CHAMP (DLR), GRACE (DLR/NASA) and GOCE (ESA) missions. These capabilities will be evaluated on land, through careful and substantive validation of the prototype that will be prepared for flight, with the launch to low orbit outside the context of this project. Still, a plan will be developed for the launch from the Atlantic International Research (AIR) centre in the future. With this application, which has demanding requirements in terms of structural and thermal stability, power management, communication of large volume of data and tight requirements in terms of the accuracy of measurement of the orientation and position of the satellite, we intend to demonstrate the greatest possible applicability in the context of the most promising market niches in the current space sector and enable in an efficient and immediate way the Portuguese industry of experience and know-how to compete in the market international space space.   Expected results The Project is divided into 8 activities:

  1. Project Management and Commercial Planning
  2. Conceptual Mission Project
  3. Preliminary Project
  4. Detailed Project
  5. Development and Implementation
  6. Assembly, Integration, Testing and Verification
  7. Qualification
  8. Promotion and Dissemination of Results

The results of these activities will translate into a satellite – uPGRADE – which will have the function of measuring oscillations in earth's gravity, looking for clues about changes in the distribution of land ice It is a thousand times smaller, a hundred times cheaper and will be as or more effective than its predecessors. The uPGRADE satellite will measure changes in earth's gravity and detect the occurrence of earthquakes. These data can be crucial to understanding changes in the earth's climate – through the detection of the movement of ice masses – and also for the study of earthquakes.    

This project received support from the Operational Program Competitiveness and Internationalization, Lisbon Regional Operational Program LISBON2020; FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology and UT AUSTIN UK barra