Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias - IACTEC-Space

IACTEC-Space is the department of the Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics (www.iac.es) that promotes innovation and development related to the use of payloads and instrumentation for small satellites. We mainly focus on the design and development of payloads for small Earth observation and astrophysics satellites.

Our expertise in the fields of detectors, electronics, optics, mechanics, remote sensing and software has allowed us to develop our own proprietary system for uncooled SWIR detectors. This has led to the successful launch and operation of two Earth Observation SWIR cameras into space in 2021 and 2023, and in late 2023 of the first Canary Islands satellite, ALISIO-1, and the development of a prototype of VINIS, a VIS-NIR-SWIR EO microsatellite.

We are currently designing DRAGO-3, an improved VISNIR-SWIR version of DRAGO, which will form the basis of the future Canary Islands satellite constellation, and IACSAT-DUNE (Discoverer of Nearby Unexplored Exoplanets), a microsatellite that will be the IAC's first space observatory. Finally, we are leading the development of an advanced pointing and focusing correction systems (PFCS) for small satellites to improve photometric accuracy.