Soon to be on board is a small satellite that's exemplifying a big leap into space for a study program in Western Australia.
According to a report from The Conversation, the said satellite called Binar-1, named after a Nyungar word for the English term "fireball," was designed and constructed from scratch by a team at the Space Science and Technology Center Curtin University.
This said report also specified that a SpaceX rocket is also blasting off from Florida-based Cape Canaveral later this month, transporting supplies to the International Space Station.
The developers said they chose the name for a couple of reasons. One is to acknowledge the Noongar Nation's Watdjuk people. The other is to acknowledge the link between the satellite program and the Desert Fireball Network of Curtin, which has successfully looked for meteorites in the deserts of Australia.
The Binar-1 Satellite
Binar-1 is a type of small satellite called CubeSat that's built from 10-centimeter cube-shaped modules. It comprises just a single such module which means it is technically a 1U CubeSat.
The main objective is to prove the efficacy of this technology in space, thus taking an initial step towards future missions in which the developers are hoping to ultimately send small satellites to the Moon.
According to a similar AJ Post report, this particular CubeSat is equipped with a pair of cameras with a couple of objectives. The first is to take photos of Western Australia from space, thereby investigating the performance of the researchers' instruments, with the hope of capturing the young WA students' imagination. The second objective is to capture images of stars.
The star camera will accurately identify which way the satellite is facing. This is a critical capability for any future mission in Moon.
ISS Astronauts to Unload Binar-1
Onboard, the ISS will unload Binar-1 and have it deployed from an airlock in the Japanese Kibo module. To begin with, the satellite will stay in the same orbit as the station, roughly 400 kilometers above Earth.
At that particular altitude, there is adequate atmosphere to lead to a small amount of drag that will eventually result in the satellite falling into the atmosphere's thicker part.
In conclusion, as its name suggests, it will turn into a fireball, and if extremely fortunate, one will capture images of the fireball on one of the ground-based observatories.
This is expected to occur after around 18 months, although this time frame can differ due to numerous factors like solar weather, for one.
Australia's Moon to Mars Mission
As part of the Mon-to-Mars initiative of the Australian Government, the developers are conducting a feasibility study for their Binar Prospector mission, which they are hoping will involve a pair of six-unit CubeSats that make close-up observations of the Moon while in a lunar orbit with low altitude.
The earliest this mission is expected to launch is 2025, when the space agency launches its commercial lunar payload service.
There are many opportunities to launch the small satellites to the Moon by the end of this decade. Therefore, there will be plenty of choices.
Related information about CubeSats is shown on NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's YouTube video below:
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