This project, with an estimated cost of between 80,000 and 100,000 euros (not including launch costs), took shape within the framework of LEODIUM (Lancement En Orbite de Démonstrations Innovantes d'une Université Multidisciplinaire/Low Earth Orbit Demonstration of Innovation in University Mode). This programme was initiated by the Liège Espace group, which acts as an umbrella for university laboratories and commercial companies in the Liège area, who are all players in the field of space systems technology. It is presided by Pierre Rochus, Head of Space Instrumentation Department (CSL). On the 6^th of June 2008, the whole team was informed that their project had been selected by ESA.

On route towards a world's first !

This project really took form on the 18^th of September during a telephone conversation, Luc Halbach suggested to professor Jacques Verly the idea of designing and constructing, at the University, an educational Cubesat equipped with the new D-STAR technology. The D-STAR amateur radio digital communication protocol allows simultaneous transmission of voice and digital information (GPS, files, etc.), routing and roaming on a global scale, including the internet. Now installed at the University of Liège, it allows you to contact from your own car an amateur radio operator driving in New York! This high quality transmission is only possible if the amateur radio user is within range of a D-STAR relay station or is connected to the web. But in isolated areas or areas that are difficult to reach following a disaster, an inexpensive satellite whith digital communication capabilities will prove crucially useful. This is what the University of Liège's nano-satellite intends to demonstrate, on a global scale.

OUFTI-1’s payload consists of a micro-miniaturised D-STAR telecommunications relay station (repeater), adapted for space and designed to be tested in orbit by the amateur radio community. Its ULg control station, to be installed on the Sart Tilman campus, will establish a vital link between the satellite and its users. Amateur radio operators the world over, thanks to specific frequency bands reserved for their use, will be able to help the Liège students to keep track of how OUFTI-1 is operating. In exchange they will have access to the Liège nano-satellite.

In a few months this OUFTI-1 project has already succeeded in stirring up really keen. A team of Liège students is on the way to being established around the initial core group. As a result of winning a spot o, VEGA, the OUFTI-1 hasbeen reinforced in preparation for the next academic year. Not only university students, but also students from the Haute Ecole HEMES-Gramme (multi-skilled industrial engineers) and the Haute Ecole Rennequin Sualem/ISIL (Liège industrial engineers). The latter has already distinguished itself in the field of space technology, as it has taught and trained an industrial engineer who was Director of Operations for the Ariane 5 launches at the Guyana Space Centre.

It is moreover from this Centre that the first Vega rocket launcher should take flight during the year 2009: under its shroud, beyond a small Italian geodesy satellite, there will be an international armada of educational nano-satellites. Nine have just been selected by ESA’s Education Department: they will be developed by teaching institutions in Belgium (Liège), Spain (Vigo), France (Montpellier), Italy (Rome, Trieste, Turin), Poland (Warsaw), Romania (Bucharest) and Switzerland (Lausanne). Priority has been given to students who are taking their firsts steps in developing original systems for space.