Student and amateur CubeSat news roundup – Dec.17.2019

A sampling of recent articles, press releases, etc. related to student and amateur CubeSat / SmallSat projects and programs (find previous smallsat roundups here):

** Indian rocket orbits Duchifat-3 CubeSat built by Israeli high school students:

Firstpost:

Duchifat 3 is the third in the series of Israeli student-made satellites.

Jointly built by Herzliya Science Center and Sha’ar HaNegev High School students, the satellite is designed to serve children from across the country to “observe the Earth”.

“It is a photo satellite used for ecological research of Earth from space. The size of the satellite is 10x10x30 cm (3U) and it weighs 2.3 kg. The students worked for almost two and a half years to build it. The satellite will be of good help to agriculturists,” one of the donors for the project and head of ICA Foundation Zeev Miller told PTI.

** Brazilian student built Floripast CubeSat included on upcoming Chinese launch: Chinese-Brazilian satellite scheduled to be launched on 20 December – Macauhub

Bolsonaro also said in his tweet that besides the CBERS-4A, nano-satellite Floripast (cubeSat) would also be launched, a project developed by students of bachelor, master and doctorate courses in Electrical Engineering, Automation and Mechanical Engineering of the Federal University of Santa Catarina, in partnership with the Uniespaço programme of the Brazilian Space Agency.

** ORBITAL SPACE startup company is encouraging CubeSat development in Kuwait: Exploring a new space opportunity in Kuwait with Orbital Space – SatellitePro ME

In 2013, Alfeeli moved to the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science, where he has worked ever since. Orbital Space takes up his evenings and weekends, as he manages several initiatives in parallel. He has set up a basic ground station called Um Alaish 4, after its predecessor, to receive signals from CubeSats. Orbital Space is also involved in building the country’s first CubeSat, with a group of around 15 Kuwaiti volunteers. The Kuwaiti engineer initiated the CubeSat project as a tool to attract space enthusiasts.

“The idea is to create a platform to bring together a community of space enthusiasts in Kuwait. There is interest from the young generation, but there is no project that engages them to create that critical mass. I figured we needed a hub where people can come together and do that. So Orbital Space has now created that opportunity and is open to anyone who wants to join us to promote space in Kuwait,” Alfeeli says.

By creating greater awareness through public talks on the history of the ground station in Kuwait and hands-on workshops on CubeSats for kids, he hopes to plant the seeds of a space programme in Kuwait. In addition to all the other initiatives, Orbital Space has also launched a competition for high-school students and undergraduate students in partnership with US-headquartered space commercialisation company Nanoracks, with the winning experiment to be sent to the International Space Station (ISS).

Find more about the student competition at Experiment In Space.

** AMSAT news on student and amateur CubeSat/smallsat projects: ANS-359 AMSAT News Service Special Bulletin