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:
- Satellite built by Virginia Tech undergraduates ready for launch into space | Virginia Tech Daily
- Students at VT plan to launch satellite into space next week – Virginia First
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:
- Kyrgyz space program: what we have done since the beginning of summer | Kyrgyz Space Program on Patreon
- Satellite team promotes women’s STEM – the Kyrgyz space program – Electronics Weekly
- Young women are crowdfunding Kyrgyzstan’s first satellite — Quartz
- A bold step: Meet the young women in Kyrgyzstan’s satellite program – ideas.ted.com
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:
- Nunavut Arctic College CubeSat Project – CPSX-CubeSat Project – Western University
- Nunavut reaches for the stars with CubeSat | Nunatsiaq News
** 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:
- CubeSat projects
- NASA CubeSat To Make Most Detailed-Ever Map Of Water Ice At Moon’s South Pole – Forbes.com
- NASA Demos CubeSat Laser Communications Capability – NASA JPL
- Australian CubeSat to use 76 GHz – AMSAT-UK
- AMSAT-India Successfully Launches APRS Satellite – ARRL.org
- Eu:CROPIS – DLR – “The launch of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) Eu:CROPIS satellite on 3 December 2018 marked the beginning of DLR’s mission with the same name, in which a satellite equipped with two greenhouses – each containing a symbiotic system consisting of bacteria in a biofilter, tomato seeds, single-celled algae and synthetic urine – orbits the Earth. The aim of the mission is to determine whether biological waste can be recycled in space and used to grow fresh food. Astronauts on long-duration missions would benefit from fresh vegetables, but so too would people in extreme terrestrial habitats. The two greenhouses will operate for a total of 62 weeks – one under Martian gravitational conditions, and the other under lunar gravitational conditions, which will be simulated by adjusting the satellite’s rotation rate.”
- Resources:
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