On Saturday, a satellite the size of a shoebox was launched into orbit from New Zealand's Mahia Peninsula.
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The satellite was the M2 Pathfinder and it was designed and built in Canberra through a collaboration between UNSW Canberra Space researchers and engineers and the Royal Australian Air Force.
UNSW Canberra Space director Professor Russell Boyce said it was an important milestone for his team and Australia's budding space industry.
"It's a very important step in the growth and maturity of our capability," he said.
It took about 10 months for the mission team of 20 to design, build and assemble all of the components and subsystems and develop and test the software.
The satellite was launched on Rocket Lab's 12th mission, called Don't Stop Me Now, after a one-month delay caused by the coronavirus lockdown. The Canberra team nervously waited, hoping the battery would not discharge to the point where the system wouldn't turn on when launch day finally arrived.
The team has not yet declared the mission a success, but things are off to an excellent start. From the ground station hosted by Cingulan Space near Yass, two-way communication has been established between the satellite and the lab.
Professor Boyce said the team had a socially distanced celebration.
"This is a big moment for our team for many reasons. There was a lot of smiles, a lot of cheers. We've had to do the celebrating virtually."
The satellite is now orbiting Earth at 7.5 kilometres per second. At that speed it would only take half a minute to travel from Canberra to Sydney.
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Tests will be done over the coming months as part of the project. After a few years, the orbit will slow as air molecules create aerodynamic drag, slowly pulling the satellite back to Earth. It will eventually burn up in the atmosphere leaving no space junk behind.
The M2 Pathfinder is a major step forward for the more complex M2 mission. Imagine the satellite to be like a school bus and the kid on board are the payload - the instruments used to make observations. M2 Pathfinder was testing that the bus was in working order before the passengers are allowed on board for the M2 mission.
"M2 pathfinder was about carefully testing all of those subsystems that the M2 will depend upon before adding the additional things such as telescopes," Professor Boyce said.
"You can do powerful things if you have many [satellites] working together in a network constellation."
The overarching mission of UNSW Canberra Space is to combine miniaturised satellites with artificial intelligence to help people make quick decisions on Earth.
"A lot of legitimate money and effort is spent on space exploration but most importantly space activity is useful for solving problems and challenges and opportunities on the ground."
Professor Boyce said interest in the space industry had exploded in Australia since the Australian Space Agency was established in 2018. He said the country needed to have a careful, strategic plan to become leaders in niche areas and reap the benefits by exporting those ideas to the world.
"The rest of the world has been doing it for many decades and they're just as clever as us.
"If we try to catch up in scattergun approach, we'll always be playing catch-up."
The M2 mission is likely to be launched next year.