We are thrilled to share that this morning Sydney time both the CUAVA-2 and Waratah Seed-1 CubeSats were deployed into orbit by Exolaunch and SpaceX (first image) and that both satellites are alive, well, and communicating with us (second image).
Congratulations and thank you to the many team members and partners that have made this possible, including all those at the ARC Training Centre for CubeSats, UAVs, and their Applications (CUAVA) , Waratah Seed Space Qualification Mission , and the SatNOGS and Nova Systems Australia ground station projects.
We also thank the Australian Research Council, Investment NSW, SmartSat CRC, University of Sydney, and the Waratah Seed-1 payload clients for funding, plus the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) and Australian Space Agency for constructive advice and help.
With active communications established for at least now, as well as beacon reception and decoding, the satellites are time-synced and the EPS status determined (battery voltages near 15.9 V). Our focus now shifts to commissioning the satellites and making active communications accomplished. We envision this taking 1 month. Before mid-October we envisage holding separate “Status and Initial Results” press conferences. In the meantime payload and instrument teams may release details of their devices.
We wish our fellow Transporter-11 satellites, especially our Aussie peers Kanyini, and ourselves good luck, clear skies, and not too much space weather.
You can follow the CUAVA-2 mission on our dashboard.
Go CUAVA-2! Go Waratah Seed-1!
