Satellites built as part of Curtin University’s Binar Space Program were recently handed over to Japanese launch provider Space BD ahead of ferrying to the International Space Station.
The satellites will travel onboard a Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) resupply mission in August. The mission will, alongside Curtin’s satellite, take essential items to the astronauts and cosmonauts onboard the ISS.
Senior Engineer Dr Fergus Downey said Curtin’s Binar-234 mission was the next step in Western Australia’s space journey, after launching the state’s first spacecraft, the BINAR-1 CubeSat, in 2021.
“Our cubesat design minimises the space occupied by typical spacecraft subsystems, maximising the available payload space for science,” he said. “The Binar team travelled to Japan to hand-deliver the highly-advanced cubesats, which will launch onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for an ISS deployment, before burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere after 6-12 months.”
“The team can now begin developing much larger satellites to achieve space research objectives while increasing sovereign space capabilities with industry partners.”
