EMERGING SMALL SATELLITE OPERATIONS IN TURKEY: INTERPLANETARY MISSION INFRASTRUCTURE AND BENEFITS IN THE SPACE SECTOR

摘要

Turkey is in the stage of developing, producing and operating communication satellites, Earth observation satellites and scientific CubeSat itself. The space road map of Turkey describes that a variety of spacecraft systems shall be tested for upcoming space events. Moreover, Turkey intends to have own launch systems in the future. Most of the developed subsystems are ready to flight, but some of them may be scalable for small satellites. In order to estimate the needs of satisfied future missions and show the benefits of small satellites, an interplanetary mission would be the next step to keep pace with the rapidly developing area of space technology. The results and benefits of this case study may serve to the developing space awareness and space plans of Turkey. This paper presents the emerging subsystem technologies that are planning to be used for interplanetary small satellite missions. In addition to create an interplanetary mission infrastructure, proposed small satellite Moon mission case requires more than $100M including launch, operation and development costs. Therefore Turkey should create a concrete roadmap including international collaborations to accomplish the Moon missions. Organizational challenges, educational benefits and outcomes for the space sector are also discussed. In addition, collaboration among universities, government and the private sector is a crucial point which impress (1) project based university education, (2) social media, (3) press and information activities such as TV programs and news, (4) long-term internship opportunities, (5) relations between students and young professionals, (6) leadership and knowledge management, and (7) public outreach activities to foster space in the society.