SMM-2000S (probe microscope)

2023: Launch into Space

At the end of June 2023, Russia was the first in the world to launch a satellite with a scanning probe microscope. This was reported by the press service of the Sirius educational center, which took part in the implementation of the project.

We are talking about a scanning probe microscope (SMM-2000C), which is necessary in order to determine what effect is on the surface of spacecraft in space. This is necessary in order to further improve the materials for their manufacture.

The team of the Sirius educational center, which worked on the probe microscope SMM-2000S

The pupils of Sirius created a prototype of a space scanning probe microscope and special antennas that will receive data from it on the impact of the space environment on the surface of aircraft. The pictures will be transmitted to Earth, where scientists will investigate the information received. This work will again be joined by the participants of the "Big Challenges," who will come to the 2023 program. Schoolchildren will analyze the data coming from the microscope and assess the state of various materials located in space. The work will take place within the framework of the Nanotechnology direction.

In the process, schoolchildren improved probe microscopes in the laboratory of the JSC «Proton» plant and created a flight version of the SMM-2000S space microscope. Later, new partners joined the project: the Innovation Promotion Fund, the S. M. Budenny Military Academy of Communications, Moscow State University, the N. I. Lobachevsky NNSU, IFM RAS, Sputnik LLC and others. In addition, a patent has been obtained for an invention with a world priority, "said Boris Loginov, leading designer of the JSC «Proton» plant, one of the project leaders.

This spacecraft is fully domestically produced. The project is being implemented with the support of the Innovation Assistance Fund using the satellite platform of Sputnik LLC.

On June 27, 2023, from the Vostochny cosmodrome, the Fregat upper stage launched 42 spacecraft into orbit, which were launched together with the Meteor-M satellite. One of them was Nanozond-1, which housed the SMM-2000S probe microscope.

The Nanozond-1 satellite was created by the Oryol State University named after I.S. Turgenev in order to study the influence of near-Earth space on the surface of the spacecraft.^[1]

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