Innovative Satellite Technology Demonstration Program

According to JAXA, the goal of this program is to test high risk, innovative technology that will lead to the space industry gaining competitiveness in the international field.

[3] Payloads flown on the mission were tested in space for a year, and the operational data gained were given to the developers.

Rapid International Scientific Experiment Satellite (RISESAT), previously called Hodoyoshi 2, was a microsatellite developed by Tohoku University.

RISESAT's high resolution multispectral camera was capable of measuring the growth rate and health of crops from space.

[6] RISESAT's remote sensing instrument, High Precision Telescope (HPT) utilizes a liquid crystal tunable filter.

[15] OrigamiSat-1 (COSPAR 2019-003B, SATCAT 43933) was a 3U CubeSat developed by Tokyo Institute of Technology to demonstrate the deployment of large structures from a small, folded state.

The pulsed plasma thrusters developed by NTU gave the CubeSat maneuvering capabilities, a necessity for a future lunar mission, as the Moon's irregular gravity field requires orbiters to perform orbit maintenance to extend its mission lifetime.

[24] On 22 January 2021, Shizuoka University's STARS-X microsatellite was additionally selected, bringing the total number of themes to 15.

Of the three microsatellites, KOYOH will conduct astronomical observation of transient sources, PETREL will demonstrate a multispectral camera, and STARS-X will extend a 1 km long tether and collect space debris.

On 19 April 2022, IHI Aerospace (IA), the manufacturer of Epsilon rocket announced that it signed a contract with iQPS for the launch of two satellites.

[26] In a subsequent press release JAXA announced that the two iQPS satellites will be launched together with Innovative Satellite Technology Demonstration-3, and that the three microsatellites originally manifested for the flight (KOYOH, PETREL, and STARS-X) will instead be launched on another rocket, which will be arranged by IA.

[30] The call for proposals for Innovative Satellite Technology Demonstration-4 was released by JAXA on 17 June 2022,[31] and in September 2022 three CubeSats, KOSEN-3, OrigamiSat-2 and Mono-Nikko were selected.