VULCAIN Satellites - Nanosats Database

Spacecraft	VULCAIN
Form factor	CubeSat
Units or mass	12U
Organization	Politecnico di Milano
Institution	University
Entity type	Academic / Education
Headquarters	Italy
Manufacturer	AIVT by ?
Operator	?
Partners	LEONARDO, Leaf Space, Flysight
Oneliner	Acquiring multispectral images of selected volcanoes to monitor the important scientific activity.
Description	The VULCAIN mission aims at acquiring multispectral images of selected volcanoes to monitor the important scientific activity. The mission, led by Politecnico di Milano, will fly a formation of two 12U CubeSats positioned on a Very Low Altitude Circular Polar Earth Orbit, which poses technical and scientific challenges. To reach its objectives, VULCAIN embarks a specifically developed miniaturized Thermal Infra-Red (IR) imager and a Visible (VIS) camera, for multispectral imaging, and flies in formation to get a baseline for stereoscopic imaging of the Earth with particular relevance on volcanos and coastal areas. To push forward the border of high-quality science with nano-satellites, VULCAIN will demonstrate in orbit the possibility to reach high relative positioning precision and control, thanks to RF inter-satellite ranging and low thrust control in very perturbed orbits. Laser retro-reflectors will also be embarked in order to achieve high accuracy absolute orbit determination using laser ranging techniques from ground.
Sources	[1] [2]
Photo sources	[1]
Keywords	VLEO (Very Low Earth Orbit), Formation flying, Propulsion, Intersatellite links

Related Spacecraft

Satellite	Status	Launcher	Launch date	Orbit
VULCAIN A	not launched	not launched	2026-12-31	not launched
VULCAIN B	not launched	not launched	2026-12-31	not launched

Last modified: 2023-11-04