A project by the Advanced Microsatellites Laboratory at Skoltech’s Center for Engineering Systems and Sciences has won a grant from the Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education as part of the national “Space” project for 2026–2030. The project aims to study the impact of space environment factors on memory chips and to develop technologies for promising small spacecraft.
By December 2026, the team will build a small spacecraft based on a Skoltech-developed satellite platform with a 3U+ form factor. An engineering model for ground testing and a flight version of the spacecraft will be manufactured. A distinctive feature of the platform is its increased payload volume, which allows virtually the entire interior of the satellite to be dedicated to scientific instrumentation.
Various types of MRAM, FRAM, and SRAM will be tested under real spaceflight conditions: temperature fluctuations, exposure to ionizing radiation, and variations in voltage and rewrite frequency. In the event of failures such as SEUs and MBUs, error correction algorithms will record information about the events for subsequent analysis on Earth.

A team of scientists and engineers from the Microsatellite Systems Laboratory is leading the engineering implementation of the project, under the direction of Pavel Kolesnikov, the laboratory’s technical director. Students from the center will be involved in the work as part of project-based learning: they will gain practical experience in the development, assembly, and testing of spacecraft and will be able to go through the main stages of creating a real space system alongside the team.

An important part of the project will be training specialists for the space industry. As part of the project, a professional development program titled “Engineering of Small Spacecraft and Onboard Data Storage Systems” will be developed and implemented. The program will cover the design of small spacecraft, the development of onboard systems, and data storage technologies for operation in space.

“An idea alone doesn’t fly. To turn it into a functioning system in orbit, you need engineering training, testing, accountability for every decision, and a team capable of seeing the concept through to completion. This is precisely what cannot be taught solely from a textbook. Our students go through the full cycle of creating a real spacecraft — from concept and design to testing, launch, and operation in orbit. For us, the main purpose of the project is not just to build a satellite. We are developing people who will be able to create new space systems in the future. Technological leadership doesn’t begin at the spaceport — it begins much earlier, in a university laboratory,” noted Tatiana Podladchikova, director of Skoltech’s Center for Engineering Systems and Sciences and project leader.

The experience gained from the previous mission involving the Skoltech B1/B2 satellites in 2022–2024 provides a solid engineering and scientific foundation for the next phase of development of Skoltech’s microsatellite systems.