Project Irazú: Space and Ground Systems Engineering of a 1U CubeSat Store and Forward Mission for Environmental Monitoring

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Project Irazú was an innovative space mission that aimed to propel the advancement of the aerospace sector in Costa Rica, by developing a ground to space communication solution for daily monitoring of carbon fixation in forests and tree plantations. Irazú is Central America’s first satellite mission and is a joint endeavor between the Central American Association of Aeronautics and Space and the Costa Rica Institute of Technology, along with national and international partners. The 1U CubeSat developed in this project was deployed from the International Space Station on May 2018, commencing straightaway operations. The scientific mission demonstrated a practical novel solution to monitor daily tree growth by using wireless electronic sensors and a store and forward satellite link. This article presents an overview of the project, along with the mission architecture, summary of the Assembly, Integration and Testing (AI&T) and operations phases, and results from the scientific mission, including the sensor’s performance and measurements of the daily estimated tree diameter during six months. The impacts that the project had on an emerging space nation such as Costa Rica is included as well.