BIRDS-1 1U CubeSat Design

BIRDS-1 was the common 1U CubeSat design used by five spacecraft built through Kyushu Institute of Technology’s first Joint Global Multi-Nation Birds project. The approximately 1 kg, 10 cm cube platform supported satellite engineering, imaging and radio experiments with a network of seven ground stations. Its physical articles were TOKI, GhanaSat-1, Mazaalai, Nigeria EduSat-1 and BRAC Onnesha. All five travelled to the International Space Station aboard Dragon CRS-11 in June 2017 and were deployed from Kibo on July 7. The programme’s July 2019 orbital-decay report placed their atmospheric reentries in May 2019. Subsequent BIRDS generations changed the design and mission complement; their specifications should be treated separately.