An Australian constructed and operated dice satellite tv for pc has received the SmallSat Mission of the 12 months award on the AIAA Small Satellite tv for pc Mission of the 12 months Awards in Salt Lake Metropolis, USA.
The Waratah Seed-1 – Australia’s first ‘rideshare’ satellite tv for pc – launched 12 months in the past and beat 10 rival finalists from world house consultants consists of NASA, the European Area Company, and Johns Hopkins College.
An artist’s impression of Waratah Seed-1
The CubeSat, constructed at College of Sydney, is at present in Solar-synchronous orbit 513km above Earth and travelling at round 27,00kmh. It has a scientific and industrial payload of 9 initiatives to check – right here’s who’s on board – and show the perform and functionality of their novel applied sciences.
After launching aboard a SpaceX mission on August 17, 2024, Waratah Seed-1 has survived double its projected lifespan, and eight of the 9 native expertise payloads on board had been efficiently demonstrated in house.
The 6U-sized satellite tv for pc (roughly the dimensions of a small microwave) was partly funded by NSW Authorities and developed by the ARC Coaching Centre for CubeSats, UAVs, and their Functions (CUAVA), primarily based on the College of Sydney, with the assist from a number of NSW-based companions: Saber Astronautics, Macquarie College, the Delta-V Area Hub, ACSER at UNSW and UTS.
The SmartSat CRC dedicated $1 million to the initiatives aboard.
Discussions are actually underway to evaluate business and funding curiosity in a sequence of recent Waratah Seed missions, with Waratah Seed-2 nominally deliberate to launch in 2027.
The undertaking a part of CUAVA the federal government-backed ARC Coaching Centre for CubeSats, UAVs and their purposes, was the one Australian finalist within the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SmallSat Mission of the 12 months awards.
Mission chief and CUAVA director Professor Iver Cairns from the College of Sydney College of Physics mentioned they’re all thrilled with the win.
“It is testament to the engineering and scientific ingenuity of our team at the University of Sydney, UTS, Macquarie University and our industry partners at Saber Astronautics, Delta-V and the Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research at UNSW,” he mentioned.
“We thought our little Aussie satellite tv for pc, full of an unlikely 9 scientific and industrial payloads, would final in house for six months. However now, simply three days shy of a 12 months in house, it’s nonetheless orbiting Earth.
“It will next pass over Sydney tonight at 10.26pm, so we will give it a little wave. It shows Australia has a great future in the space industry.”
