Aeros MH-1: A Portuguese Nanosatellite Wins Mission Of The Year Award

Aeros MH-1 is a Portuguese Satellite that was released into space on 4^th March. The same Portuguese Nanosatellite receives award “Mission of the Year Award” given by the Small Satellite Conference 2024. It was announced on the website of this conference about the award.

Contents

Aeros MH-1 Wins Mission Of The Year Award What Is The Task Of This Nanosatellite?

Aeros MH-1 Wins Mission Of The Year Award

A small Satellite Conference was conducted from 3^rd August to 8^th August. This conference took place in the state of Utah. The satellite was sent on 4^th March, and it took 15 days for it to establish connections with the Earth. On 19^th March, the Thales Edisoft Portugal company gave the information about contact with the nanosatellite. The information came from their office in the Azores that their Santa Maria teleport had received signals from the satellite.

Also Read: Portugal Wins Gold With Rui Oliveira & Lúri Leitão In Track Cycling

The satellite was a successful mission. It also produced its first-ever image on 2^nd July. The image consisted of a view of Earth from space. This satellite was named after the former minister of science, Manuel Heitor. He was considered to be the man behind this project.

Portuguese Nanosatellite receives award for “Mission of the Year”

This Aeros MH1-1 satellite is the second one that is sent to space by Portugal. The first one was PoSat-1. This was a 50-kilo microsatellite as compared to Aeros MH-1 4.5 kilo nanosatellite. PoSat-1 entered the Earth’s atmosphere in late 1993 but it soon got deactivated after a decade.

What Is The Task Of This Nanosatellite?

This Nanosatellite will be given the task of observing the Atlantic Ocean for about 3 years. It is located about 510 Kilometers from the sea level. The Aeros MH-1 is situated right above the International Space Station. A group of companies formed under the supervision of the Portuguese government are running the satellite which is why they won Portuguese Nanosatellite receives award.

The MIT-Portugal program has allowed some individuals to come all the way from the USA. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will also aid in running this space mission. The support is also provided by several universities like:

Algarve
Porto and Minho
the Instituto Superior Técnico
Imar

This project of Nanosatellite began in the year 2020 and it took almost 4 years to function it. A total of 2.78 million Euros were invested in this project. The European Regional Development Fund was also used by Feder who co-financed this project with 1.88 million Euros.

The last award for the “2023 International SpaceOps Award for Outstanding Achievement” was given to the team of OPS-SAT Mission. OPS-SAT was an initiative to improve the operations of the space mission and their testing. It was the first-ever mission to dedicate the focus to the improvement of mission quality. OPS-SAT was the first nanosatellite that was owned by ESA. They operated the mission themselves and this took them to greater horizons.