2024 marks 10 years in orbit for CubeSpace.
As we celebrate our remarkable journey of a decade in orbit, we find ourselves reflecting on the growth, innovation, and triumphs that have defined the past 10 years. From the moment we launched our first two ADCS’s into the cosmos back in 2014, delivering to clients on every continent by 2017, having CubeADCS components orbiting the moon in 2018, launching a revolutionary new Gen2 product line in 2022, to serving over 300 satellites with an impressive array of more than 3000 components to 200 clients to date, our voyage has been nothing short of extraordinary.
Through our clients’ missions, we are constantly making Earth a better place from space through Earth observation for enhanced environmental monitoring which include climate change, floods, drought, wildfires, disaster management and food security. Furthermore, our clients’ IoT constellations addresses global connectivity issues in remote industries such as Agriculture, Livestock, Transportation and Maritime sectors. Further highlights include:
Gazing into the Cosmos
The TOLIMAN Space Telescope is a mission led by The University of Sydney and is funded by Breakthrough Watch. The project uses a 16U satellite bus provided by Endurosat, which has our ADCS on board. The telescope has a very fine pointing stellar observation mission requiring the incorporation of payload in the loop feedback to our ADCS control loop.
Elevating Pointing Precision
Our partnership with Sodern, along with two years of research and development, makes it possible for us to integrate the Auriga Star Tracker as part of our ADCS solution, enabling us to provide our clients with improved pointing performance and stability.
Creating a Sustainable Aerospace Economy
Hawaii Space Flight Laboratory’s HyTI (Hyperspectral Thermal Imager) was launched from the ISS on April 18th, 2024. HyTI is a demonstration mission by the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, “designed to demonstrate how high spatial resolution, high spectral resolution and long-wave infrared image data can be acquired to monitor water resources using a 6U CubeSat.” With our ADCS on board, the team celebrated alongside HSFL on a successful deployment! Watch HyTI’s deployment from the ISS.
Mission to MicroSats
We are undertaking 6 microsatellite missions while collaborating with third party actuator suppliers, however we are expanding our capabilities to control satellites up to one ton through our new range of large reaction wheels. These wheels will include a high-efficiency precision electrical motor developed in-house to address an urgent need in the satellite constellation market for high-performance, low-cost reaction wheels that can be delivered in high volumes, for demanding schedules.
Funding for global expansion
This year will mark another revolutionary year for CubeSpace, as an investment of R47 million from The University Technology Fund and Savant was announced in February 2024. The funding will assist in our international expansion to the US and European markets, solidifying our position as the preferred global ADCS supplier.
Our new home
We are delighted to share that we have moved to a new 1,350sqm facility in Stellenbosch, South Africa! The team celebrated the big move in our new upper level floor consisting of the cafeteria, barista bar and games room.
The past few months leading up to the big move in March proved to be a gigantic renovation job to get the facility people and product ready. We broke down walls, ripped up floors, and built our 80sqm ISO 7 certified cleanroom from scratch.
We designed the ducting system in-house to distribute downward flow of air evenly throughout the room to achieve our desired air circulation rate. A HEPA fan unit was also installed to circulate and filter 5,500m3/hour of air. Yes, that is over 2 Olympic swimming pools per hour!
We also added a brand new addition to our in-house capabilities which include two 6.5 meter dark optics tunnels for sensor testing. We transitioned from a single dark room to multiple modular light sealed tunnels, enabling us to double our optical calibration and production capacity. The black, low reflectance coating and light baffles dramatically reduce internal reflectance, providing a more controlled dark environment. Their modularity gives us the ability to add more tunnels in the future.
Employee spotlight
Douw graduated in Electrical and Electronic engineering at Stellenbosch University in 2013 and immediately continued on with his masters degree in the Electronic Systems Laboratory, studying Satellite Systems. After graduating his masters in 2015, he started working with the rest of the CubeSpace team to deliver some of our first ADCS bundles.
Over the past 10 years, he has had the opportunity to work on several of our products which include our torquer rods, reaction wheels and our fine sun sensors, and even developed the drive system for The MBRSC Lunar Rover.
His current project is a new set of larger reaction wheels, designing the motor from scratch in order to use bearings that are much more reliable than those typically available from motor suppliers. Designing it in this way allows us to address several of the key issues in reaction wheel reliability during launch while still remaining competitive in performance.
The new wheels will be easy to manufacture in large quantities and allow us to provide them at low cost to a market that, until now, had to wait months on procurement.
It is easy to see why, apart from being a founding member of CubeSpace, Douw is also an asset to the company and the wider NewSpace community with a wealth of information on the intricacies of ADCS electronics.
Meet us at our next event
- 4S Symposium, Mallorca, Spain: 27-31 May 2024
- Small Satellite Conference, Utah, USA: 3-8 August 2024
- IAC 2024, Milan, Italy: 14-18 October 2024
