Government officials and industry representatives will be among the guests at the official send-off ceremony for ZACube-2, South Africa’s most advanced CubeSat to date.
ZACube-2 is a triple unit CubeSat - three times the size of its predecessor - which was called TshepisoSat.
Nano-satellites are small satellites weighing between 1kg and 10kg. A CubeSat is a square-shaped version of a nano-satellite.
ZACube-2 was developed by F’SATI’s Satellite Programme and will be launched into space later this year.
F’SATI director Prof Robert van Zyl said ZACube-2 would now be shipped to The Netherlands where it would be integrated with other CubeSats. It would then make its way to India from where it will be launched.
The main payload on the satellite is an AIS (automatic identification system) receiver with which navigational data will be received from ships along our coast. This data, which includes the ships’ GPS coordinates, registration information, speed and direction of travel, will assist the authorities to track ship traffic in our exclusive economic zone and improve the safety of ships.
ZACube-2 will also carry an advanced camera, which will detect forest and veld fires.
Van Zyl said ZACube-2 serves as a precursor mission for two future satellite constellations - the one for Maritime Domain Awareness in support of Operation Phakisa and the other a FireSat constellation to track fire on the African continent.
The ZACube-2 mission is an initiative funded by the Department of Science and Technology, the South African National Space Agency, the National Research Foundation and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.
Our technology partners include the CSIR, Stone Three, Stellenbosch University (CubeSpace), Astrofica, Luvhone, Etse, Spaceteq and Clyde Space,
- Operation Phakisa is an initiative of the South African government aimed at implementing priority programmes better, faster and more effectively.
