China launches three CubeSats to track aircraft

Beijing: China has successfully launched first of its kind of three cube satellites (CubeSats) which will help in tracking civil aircraft and ships and avoid tragedies like the missing flight MH370, official media said.

The three CubeSats in a mission coded STU-2 were launched on September 25 and have entered their designed orbit, according to the mission's chief designer Wu Shufan.

The three spacecraft - weighing only 6.8 kgs in total - are equipped with polar region observation cameras as well as automatic identification system receivers for information from ships and automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) receivers for messages sent from civil flights.

The ADS-B system was developed to be installed?on civil aircraft and transmit readings of the flight's position, height, speed, direction and other information automatically every second to receivers on the ground or in the air.

Currently, more than 70 per cent of aircraft have such systems installed.

As of September 28, the STU-2 CubeSats had collected hundreds of thousands of ADS-B messages from more than 12,400 aircraft flying within receiving range, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The paths and traffic flow of civil flights within the satellites' monitoring area may be collected in real time.

"If there are enough satellites in orbit to cover a region wide enough, a specific flight could be tracked and that may help with spotting, search and rescue in cases like Malaysia Airlines flight MH370," Wu said.

Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200, MH370 went missing with 239 people on board, including five Indians, on March 8, 2014 enroute to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.

Some aircraft wreckage discovered on Reunion Island in France were from the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370.

CubeSats may also be used to provide information support for ship operations such as the Chinese icebreaker Xuelong (Snow Dragon) in polar regions.

Wu said the STU-2 mission, the first of its kind by China, is a step in the country's satellite network development for civil aircraft and ship monitoring.

China is currently developing its own global position system (GPS) Beidu to rival US GPS.

Wu also called for more international cooperation to expand the network's reach.

Like a Rubik's cube, a CubeSat is a satellite composed of smaller cubic units. Depending on its different uses, a CubeSat may contain two, three or more such units.

Compared with other integral satellites, cube spacecraft are generally smaller, lighter and much more economical in development and production costs.