With more and more students from across the world interested in building satellites, KAIST is embarking on one such journey. To know more about this exciting news of the KAIST Satellite, The KAIST Herald met with Professor Hyochoong Bang, from the Department of Aerospace Engineering, who is on his way to realize this dream.

Can you please introduce yourself?

I have received my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Aeronautical Engineering from Seoul National University in 1985 and 1987 respectively before moving to the United States for my Doctoral Studies at the Texas A&M University, which I received in 1992. After my Ph.D, I served as a faculty member at the U.S Naval Postgraduate School. I moved back to Korea to work for the Korea Aerospace Research Institute and later joined KAIST as a faculty member in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. I have been dealing with some niche areas in Aerospace Engineering such as Attitude Control Systems for Satellites, Navigation Systems and more recently into the areas of Deep Space Exploration and Unmanned Arial Vehicles.

We have heard recently that you are working on a KAIST Student Satellite; can you please explain more about it?

Yes, we are in the process of developing two satellites made by the students: one is a NanoSat and the other is a CubeSat. The difference between them is that a NanoSat weighs around 10 kilograms and a CubeSat weighs less than 1 kilogram. It’s a very big challenge to have all the components required and incorporating them into a satellite given the weight and volume constraints. As of now, the progress that we are making is quite satisfactory and we expect to come up with the engineering models quite soon.

Where did this idea of a student satellite originate from and how has it taken shape over the years?

Being a faculty member in Aerospace Engineering with interests in Space Systems, I have been following the progress that is being made in various parts of the world and that has motivated me to come up with the idea of a satellite built by our students, which is a common phenomenon in the West, especially in the United States and Europe. Another reason that has motivated me was the fact that our Aerospace Engineering department, though involved in many research topics, never launched a satellite due to various constraints on budget and technology. As space is becoming more and more accessible to us, I have decided to embark on a journey of building a satellite with KAIST students and present Korea with its first student-made satellite. A satellite built by students would also open up new frontiers in the field of space technology by slowly replacing the large satellites with smaller, more efficient ones.

Can you please tell us about your future plans for the satellite project?

Right now we are working on a NanoSat as well as a CubeSat. We have agreed to participate in QB50, an international network of 50 CubeSats headed by the European Space Agency and NASA for in-situ measurements in the low earth orbit, which has previously never been undertaken on such a large scale. We were one of the ten finalists out of 62 worldwide entries of novel concepts using a NanoSat constellation for the Mission Idea Contest in 2011. Currently we are at the stage of developing an engineering model for the satellite and once it succeeds, we will go into actual model development. During the course of the development and launch of the NanoSat and CubeSat, we are also planning to contribute to the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Apart from that, through the launch of these satellites, we want to make contributions to the advancement of Korea’s space technology.

What will be the impact of such a project on society, especially KAIST?

Considering that the students are involved in the development, it will help hugely to lower the costs of scientific missions and eventually it will make space more and more accessible to society. On the other hand, it will also enhance the visibility of KAIST on an international level as one of the potential players in the field of space sciences, attracting international collaboration.

Do you have any last comments for KAIST students?

I hope all students of KAIST will have their dreams like space, which is unlimited and a challenge to explore.