Meteorix: a cubesat mission dedicated to the detection of meteors and space debris

Here, we present a universitary CubeSat space mission called Meteorix dedicated to the detection and characterization of meteors and space debris. The primary objective is to assess a robust statistics on meteoroids and space debris that enter the Earth atmosphere. At present, their fluxes and properties are not yet determined accurately. These estimates will allow to quantify the delivery of extraterrestrial material on Earth, and possible consequences on aeronomy (e.g. noctilucent clouds and atomic layer). These estimations are also crucial to estimate impact risks for artificial satellites during meteor showers. The knowledge of the flux of space debris will allow to bring some constraints to the space agency models of space surveillance. There are several secondary objectives such as to bring information on ablation, fragmentation, rotation processes by studying photometric variations; to determine the trajectory in connection with Earth-ground network such as FRIPON network developed in France in order to find the dynamical origin of the meteoroid; and also the detection of other fainter luminous atmospheric such as luminous transient events. The technological objective is dedicated to the real-time autonomous detection of meteors on board of a CubeSat. This CubeSat is a 3U developed by students at Sorbonne University. The project has validated the feasibility phase.