World's First Long-Term Planetary CubeSat Study by Korea’s Institute for Basic Science and NanoAvionics

Kongsberg NanoAvionics (NanoAvionics), a  small satellite bus manufacturer and mission integrator, has been selected by the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in South Korea to build the first CubeSat for the world’s first long-term planetary science campaign which will use a series of CubeSats to monitor Venus from low Earth orbit.

This long-term Venus observation initiative, the CLOVE project (Chasing the Long-term Variability of Our Nearest Neighbor Planet Venus) has been a research project within the IBS Planetary Atmospheres Group since 2022. Its first satellite, CLOVESat-1, an 8U CubeSat bus to be designed and manufactured by NanoAvionics, is scheduled to launch in 2026. IBS plans to launch a new satellite every three years over a 15-year period to span at least one full solar activity cycle (11 years).

Under the contract, NanoAvionics will also integrate the scientific payload provided by IBS, conduct environmental testing, arrange launch services, and manage launch and early orbit operations (LEOP).
CLOVESat-1 will investigate Venus’s atmospheric temporal variabilities of cloud top altitude, vertical structure of clouds, gaseous sulfur dioxide abundance, and mysterious unknown absorber(s).