It has been recognized that Earthquakes bring in tremendous disasters in Taiwan. According to IEEE Spectrum December 2005, ELF magnetic field disturbances caused by Earthquakes can be sensed by satellite observation.

The technical objective of the LEAP satellite project is to analyze a satellite Earthquake precursor observation mission with emphasis on the requirement, specification, and simulation of the satellite and payload. The LEAP satellite project also intends to encourage the space engineering education for students to gain hands-on experience through the project-learning.

This project’s target is to development a satellite, named ESEMS, by National Cheng Kung University, National Central University and Lomonosov Moscow State University. In this project, the work tasks of National Cheng Kung University includes the hardware/software development of the spaceborne computer, the setup of ground station, the testbed of satellite engineering model, the project coordination and the interface integration.

The scope of the project includes the design, analysis, manufacturing, assembly, integration, and test of the CKUTEX with the goal of delivery of a flight model for in-space validation. To realize this mission,The CKUTEX satellite will carry self-developed space-borne GPS receiver (GPSR) and digital sun sensor (DSS) as main payloads. The design and fabrication of the satellite subsystems and payloads will emphasize on the establishment of capability in meeting a high-quality and space-qualified standard.