UNSW's miniature cubesat is ready to launch Monday, 24 October 2016

A miniature satellite engineered by a team from UNSW Canberra is ready for launch after passing gruelling tests that stimulated the harsh environment of space.

UNSW Canberra is the University of New South Wales' campus at the Australian Defence Force Academy. Their space engineers, along with a team from the Defence Science and Technology Group put the satellite through its paces in 24/7 thermal cycling, with the help of spacecraft test engineers form the Australian National University at the Advanced Instrumentation Technology Centre.

The miniature satellite, also called a cubesat, is the first of two in a joint program dubbed "Buccaneer" to build Australian capabilities in develop and fly satellite missions.

Buccaneer will perform calibration experiments for Australia’s world-leading over-horizon Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) from Low Earth Orbit, several hundred kilometres above the surface of the Earth.

It will play a major part in developing collision avoidance capabilities in space, in order to safeguard the space-based technologies upon which the world depends. Buccaneer will also contribute to aspects of UNSW Canberra Space’s research program, looking at ways to more accurately predict the orbits of space objects.

According to Professor Russell Boyce, Director of UNSW Canberra Space, satellites and space debris move around erratically due to space weather and atmospheric drag, even at high altitudes.

"These movements are not well understood and so are very hard to predict, and are a major reason why collisions in space are a serious risk,", he explained.

Buccaneer is a stepping-stone to an increasingly sophisticated home grown Australian space capability that can take advantage of rapidly transforming technology and a boom in the Asia-Pacific space sector.

With electronics and sensors becoming increasingly miniaturised, and satellite launch costs dropping, small spacecraft can be utilised to great effect, opening up new ways to inexpensively perform remote sensing and improve communication links in applications such as environmental monitoring, national security, and much more.