Student and amateur CubeSat news roundup – April.14.2019

A sampling of recent articles, press releases, etc. related to student and amateur CubeSat / SmallSat projects and programs:

** More on the Virginia university student CubeSat program mentioned in previous roundups here:

In a giant leap for Virginia Tech, the first satellite built by undergraduate students is scheduled to be launched into space on April 17, 2019.

One small step closer to reaching space, a group of Virginia Tech undergraduate students recently delivered their small satellite to Houston to be incorporated into NanoRacks’ commercially developed CubeSat deployer. Virginia Tech’s satellite, along with two satellites from other Virginia universities, is scheduled to launch on the payload section of Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket and then will be headed to the International Space Station.

If the weather is clear, the Antares launch will visible over a large East Coast area: Rocket launch from Wallops Flight Facility to be visible from Hampton Roads, NE North Carolina | WTKR.com.

** An all girls team in Kyrgyzstan is building a smallsat:

Back in January we started crowdfunding on the Patreon platform and by the end of November the amount of donations has reached more than $1,100 per month. This amount has increased particularly after the aforementioned article in Quartz magazine.

Moreover, since November we have a donor-organization in the Kyrgyz space program — the Internews organization will donate sufficient amount of money that will cover expenses on building, testing and launching two (!) nanosatellites.

This does not mean that we no longer need patrons — there are quite a few unforeseen crazy ideas (for example, to test a prototype of the satellite in the mountains of the Issyk-Kul region), the costs of which are not included in the Internews grant, but are necessary to make the satellite launch happen.

** Canada’s Western University and Nunavut Arctic College will build a CubeSat to test

a novel imaging system for the engineering technology demonstration with the potential to provide virtual reality-ready images. This imagin system has future applications in the Earth observation and space exploration.

More at:

** AMSAT news on student and amateur CubeSat/smallsat projects: ANS-104 AMSAT News Service Special Bulletin

  • TAPR/AMSAT Banquet Speaker Announced
  • Seats Still Available for AMSAT Academy
  • AMSAT Activities at Hamvention 2019
  • N8HM to Appear on Ham Talk Live April 18th
  • Last Chance to Bid in ARISS Auction
  • ARISS SSTV Event Continues Through 18:00 UTC April 14th
  • Diwata-2 Designated Philippines-OSCAR 101 (PO-101)
  • March/April 2019 Edition of Apogee View Posted
  • How to Support AMSAT
  • Upcoming Satellite Operations
  • Satellite Shorts from All Over

General CubeSat/SmallSat info:

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