VERTECS first images press conference

VERTECS completes initial operations and releases its first images of the sky

Press release by National Chung Hsing University (NCHU) on 2026/9/8.

The VERTECS CubeSat, launched on JAXA's H3 rocket on 2026/6/12, has completed its initial on-orbit check-out and moved into routine observations. Following the launch, the team verified the satellite's power, communication, attitude control, data handling and science instrument, then pointed the telescope at several selected sky fields for test observations. The satellite pointed accurately and held a stable attitude during the observations, and all systems are working normally in orbit.

The first images released by the project show the Cygnus Loop, the Lagoon Nebula and the North America Nebula, each covering a field of view of about 3 degrees (about 6 times the apparent diameter of the Moon). The images were processed with the data pipeline developed by the Taiwan team at NCHU and NTHU, which corrects the optical distortion of the images and masks bad pixels on the detector so that the raw data can be used for precise brightness measurements. The instrument splits the light into several bands; the team will next combine them into four-color data to study the extragalactic background light and the history of star and galaxy formation in the Universe.

VERTECS (Visible Extragalactic background RadiaTion Exploration by CubeSat) is led by Kyushu Institute of Technology with Kwansei Gakuin University, Tokyo City University, Kanazawa University and the University of Tokyo, in collaboration with NCHU and NTHU. It is the first space mission of the Ministry of Education UAAT-KOOU program "Space Technology Exploration and Data Science Applications".

Taiwan team PI: Prof. Tetsuya Hashimoto (NCHU). Co-PI: Prof. Tomotsugu Goto (NTHU).

NCHU official news release: https://www2.nchu.edu.tw/news-detail/id/62489

Project website: https://vertecs-project.com/

Image: the Cygnus Loop (top), the Lagoon Nebula (bottom left) and the North America Nebula (bottom right) taken with the VERTECS visible-light telescope. Brightness and contrast are adjusted for visibility. (Credit: VERTECS Project)