The observation of the ionospheric plasma environment is a fundamental tool for the study of electromagnetic phenomena in space and their interaction with objects in orbit. Conventional Earth based observations are limited to the band of the electromagnetic spectrum that is not absorbed by the atmosphere, and space based systems are not freely accessible and higly complex. This thesis proposes the architecture and engineering model for a low cost wideband radio spetrometer in a cubesat payload form factor, based around the Versal AI Edge FPGA module and a previously designed software defined radio. The system consists in a power delivery unit, a software defined radio, a microcontroller, the FPGA module and auxiliary support systems.The system has been assembled on a PCB and evaluated against the design requirements.The preliminary results indicate that the project is feasible at a cost affordable by most research centers, yet a full characterization campaign to validate the analysis algorithm and processing pipeline is required.