ROBUSTA is a nano-satellite scientific experiment developed by University of Montpellier II

Montpellier 2 University

Montpellier 2 University is a French university in the académie of Montpellier. It is one of the three universities formed in 1970 from the original University of Montpellier...

 as part of a National Center for Space Studies

CNES

The is the French government space agency . Established under President Charles de Gaulle in 1961, its headquarters are located in central Paris and it is under the supervision of the French Ministries of Defence and Research...

 (CNES) initiative to develop ideas for student projects in the field of orbital systems.

The satellite is defined Cubesat

CubeSat

A CubeSat is a type of miniaturized satellite for space research that usually has a volume of exactly one liter , has a mass of no more than 1.33 kilograms, and typically uses commercial off-the-shelf electronics components...

[1], the name given to a series of nano-satellites developed as part of student projects. The ROBUSTA mission is to check the deterioration of electronic components, based on bipolar transistors, when exposed to in-flight space radiation. The results of the experiment will be used to validate a test method proposed in the laboratory.

Implementation of the project

The duration of the ROBUSTA project is 6 years, beginning in 2006. The satellite was launched in 2009, and the end-of-life is expected to be in 2012.

The staff

ROBUSTA is a federative project, as it allows CNES and several teams from the University of Montpellier II to work together. These teams are spread over several sites:

• The mechanical design
  Satellite bus
  A satellite bus or spacecraft bus is the general model on which multiple-production satellite spacecraft are often based. The bus is the infrastructure of a spacecraft, usually providing locations for the payload .They are most commonly used for geosynchronous satellites, particularly...
  
  , is located at the IUT GMP of Nîmes;
• Energy management
  Power management
  Power management is a feature of some electrical appliances, especially copiers, computers and computer peripherals such as monitors and printers, that turns off the power or switches the system to a low-power state when inactive. In computing this is known as PC power management and is built...
  
   is in the IUT GEII of Nîmes;
• The ground segment and communication cards are supported by the IUP PGII Montpellier.
• The controller card is studied by Polytech Montpellier and IUT GEII Montpellier
• The card experience is managed by the department of Montpellier II with the whole EEA