CubeSats are now serving a wide range of applications beyond their original educational intent. Private companies are deploying large constellations for Earth observation and machine–to–machine communications. Their growing popularity and increased performance have raised the demand for reliability and costs. Today, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find subsystems providers, and the trend is to find fully integrated platforms on the market. Therefore, paradoxically, CubeSats are becoming less accessible to universities and research institutions than a few years ago. To overcome these problems, the PocketQube concept was invented. PocketQubes measure 50 × 50 × 50 mm³ and offer a cost-effective option, notably for education. These picosatellites can perform simple missions like Internet of Things communications or upper-atmosphere observations, ionosphere studies, or signal integrity tasks, while students face design challenges similar to larger satellites. This article presents the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS) “Open PocketQube Kit” educational initiative. Developed by the NanoSat Lab at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), it is an affordable open source educational kit featuring a complete PocketQube structure with all the subsystems: an electrical power supply (EPS), attitude determination and control system (ADCS), an STM32-based onboard computer (OBC), long-range (LoRa) communications, and payload. Three different PocketQube models have been developed: ^Po Cat-1, with a video graphics array (VGA) camera, and ^Po Cat-2 and ^Po Cat-3 for monitoring radio-frequency interference (RFI) at the L-band (1–2 GHz) and K-band (24–25 GHz) to track 5G spectrum emissions.

中文翻译：

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IEEE 地球科学和遥感协会“Open PocketQube Kit”：一种经济实惠的开源地球观测任务方法 [遥感教育]

立方体卫星现在服务于广泛的应用，超出了其最初的教育目的。私营公司正在部署大型星座用于地球观测和机器对机器通信。它们的日益普及和性能的提高提高了对可靠性和成本的要求。如今，寻找子系统提供商变得越来越困难，趋势是在市场上寻找完全集成的平台。因此，矛盾的是，与几年前相比，大学和研究机构越来越难以接触到立方体卫星。为了克服这些问题，PocketQube 概念应运而生。 PocketQubes 的尺寸为 50 × 50 × 50 mm³，提供经济高效的选择，特别是在教育领域。这些皮卫星可以执行简单的任务，例如物联网通信或高层大气观测、电离层研究或信号完整性任务，而学生则面临与大型卫星类似的设计挑战。本文介绍了 IEEE 地球科学与遥感协会 (GRSS)“Open PocketQube Kit”教育计划。它由加泰罗尼亚理工大学 (UPC) 的 NanoSat 实验室开发，是一款经济实惠的开源教育套件，具有完整的 PocketQube 结构以及所有子系统：电源 (EPS)、姿态确定和控制系统 (ADCS)、基于 STM32 的机载计算机 (OBC)、远程 (LoRa) 通信和有效负载。已开发出三种不同的 PocketQube 型号：^Po Cat-1，带有视频图形阵列 (VGA) 摄像头，以及^Po Cat-2 和^Po Cat-3，用于监测 L 频段 (1– 2 GHz）和 K 频段（24-25 GHz）来跟踪 5G 频谱发射。