On December 14, 2023 a new NL-RIA project was kicked off, entitled “AltiCube – A Dutch CubeSat radar altimetry instrument”. The proposal for this work was approved by NSO after a positive peer review. In an earlier post “Alticube proposal submitted” some details about the project goal were explained. The meeting took place at the Aerospace faculty of TU Delft, hosted by Jian Guo. He is the technical coordinator of the project and gave a presentation to participants, unfolding plans for the coming period. The project will run until September 2025. NSO, TU Delft, Swartvast, Robin radar and RFx Solutions attended the meeting.
In addition to the main goal of realizing a 35 GHz miniature radar altimeter at TRL 5-6 for a cubesat mission, the project has a workpackage to continue the NL-RIA network through meetings. The aim is to continue the successful cooperation in the pre-corona period and to establish new project activities that will raise the position of the Netherlands in RF space missions. For instance a real Alticube mission could be a next step to pursue. An invitation to all members of NL-RIA for a new meeting will follow in 2024. In this meeting current ongoing projects will be presented and plans for future activities discussed.