Sydney, NSW – The Waratah Seed Space Qualification Mission Consortium is pleased to announce an historic moment for the fledgling Australian space industry – successful deployment by Exolaunch of the Waratah Seed WS-1 rideshare spacecraft, and its sister vehicle CUAVA-2, after a thrilling and flawless launch aboard a Space-X Falcon 9 rocket.
Launching from Vandenberg SpaceForce Base in California at 4:35am this morning Sydney time, the Space-X Transporter-11 dedicated rideshare mission began satellite deployments approximately 52 minutes after launch near 513 km altitude, releasing the WS-1 spacecraft at the 54 minute mark, and the CUAVA-2 spacecraft almost two minutes later. A few minutes after that, the Kanyini spacecraft developed by a consortium led byWaratah Seed co-sponsor SmartSatCRC was also released, making a total of three Australian spacecraft released deployed into a Sun-synchronous Low Earth Orbit on this flight.
"I’m excited and relieved that we are now safely in orbit,” said Professor Iver Cairns, leader of the Waratah Seed consortium.“Our focus now is to establish communications with both spacecraft to ensure they are operating as designed, and that all our partner payloads survived the long journey from lab to space intact. This may take a month to accomplish.”
The Waratah Seed WS-1 spacecraft isunique as Australia’s first commercial rideshare mission, with six space startup company payloads onboard. Sponsored by NSW Government,with contributions from the University of Sydney, UNSW, SmartSat CRC, UTS and others, the WS-1 spacecraft is intended to operate for at least six months allowing for a large cohort of space system engineers and technologists to gain priceless space operations experience. It’s sister CUAVA-2 spacecraft is also carrying a number of instruments, focused on fundamental space environmental research aiming to better understand the Low Earth Orbit domain.
For more information about WaratahSeed visit https://waratahseed.space,or contact Professor Iver Cairns, Director of CUAVA (theAustralian Research Council Training Centre for CubeSats, UAVs, and theirApplications), Lead of the Waratah SeedConsortium, iver.cairns@sydney.edu.auor phone +61 407 483 798.
Waratah Seed is Australia’s first commercial ride-share mission, flying an Australian-built 6U CubeSat and a wide range of Australian payloads into Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
Partly funded by the NSW Government through their Space Industry Development program, Waratah Seed’s mission is to deliver space flight qualification opportunities to NSW startup- and industry-led teams, who get to test and prove the function andcapability of their novel technologies in a real space environment, criticalfor attracting customers and investors. The Waratah Seed consortium includes CUAVA and the University of Sydney, the Australian Space Engineering Research Centre (ACSER) at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Macquarie University, Delta-V Space Hub, and Saber Astronautics.
Professor Iver Cairns
Director, CUAVA - the ARC Training Centre for CubeSats,UAVs and their Applications
iver.cairns@sydney.edu.au
+61 2 9351 3961
https://waratahseed.space
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