There is a growing interest in small spacecraft technology, which in recent years has proven to be a cheaper, faster, and reliable solution for space missions. Owing to their low mass and cost, small spacecraft have created new opportunities for universities and research institutes to engage in spacecraft development.

This seminar presents the design of a 6U spacecraft developed to investigate the relationship between solar activity and radio scintillation in the high-altitude ionosphere. The propagation of RF signals through the ionosphere is a critical issue for maritime navigation and military operations.

The spacecraft is equipped with two scientific payloads: a mass spectrometer and a multi-frequency radio beacon. The beacon will be used to monitor scintillation along lines of sight to ground-based receivers, while the mass spectrometer will measure the effects of solar energetic particles and solar flares on the atmosphere.

Dr. Farahat is an Associate Professor of Physics at KFUPM. He earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the Florida Institute of Technology, USA, and completed his postdoctoral research with the Canadian Department of National Defense. He has extensive experience working with spacecraft data and design in collaboration with Boston University, the University of California, Berkeley, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). In 2023, he served as the Principal Investigator of the “Cloud Seeding in Microgravity” experiment, which was launched to the International Space Station with the Saudi Space Agency (SSA).

All faculty, researchers and students are invited to attend.