CUAVA was officially opened on June 17th, 2019, by Senator for New South Wales, the Honorable Arthur Sinodinos AO. “This new training centre puts Australia on the world map for advanced manufacturing in the space industries,” Senator Sinodinos said. “The international collaboration between leading universities, government and industry will fundamentally change the capabilities and applications of CubeSats, making the international satellite market more accessible and economical than ever before.”
Director of CUAVA, Iver Cairns said: “We are thrilled to be working with our 11 partners, including three industry partners, four government labs, and three Australian universities and two American universities. We have five PhD students and four Postdoctoral fellows engaged and making exciting progress on our research and commercialisation projects. Within the next year we will be launching our first satellite and new instruments into orbit, and performing our first Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAV) campaign.”
‘CUAVA-1’ is the first satellite being developed by CUAVA, with the purpose of certifying advanced communication, remote sensing, GPS, and space environment instruments in order to provide their data to users on Earth.
The Australian Research Council (ARC)’s Chief Executive Officer, Professor Sue Thomas said that the council was proud to support the training centre as it would be sure to boost capacity and capabilities in the Australian space industry.
“The applications of Cubesats and Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles will have great importance to the Australian economy, improving satellite communications and observations, and making space more accessible than ever before.”
We were honoured to host distinguished guests from the Australian Space Agency, NSW Department of Industry, CUAVA Advisory Board and our partners to celebrate our achievements and officially launch the Centre.
