ISTSAT-1 — the first nanosatellite to be fully developed, from scratch, in Portugal — is set to be launched from the Ariane 6 rocket later this year. ISTSAT-1 has been developed by researchers and students from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), including Moisés Piedade (retired full Professor at IST and INESC-ID Emeritus Researcher) and coordinated by Rui Rocha (Professor at IST).

The ISTSAT-1 nanosatellite began its development in 2017 and has its digital eyes set on the remote detection of airplanes from space. Mission control for ISTSAT-1 will be implemented at IST TagusPark, and so fully controlled from Portugal.

ISTSAT-1 has also been featured in IST’s 110 Histórias, 110 Objetos podcast.

Moisés Piedade was honoured last year by INESC-ID as Emeritus Researcher in recognition of his outstanding career in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of IST.