This news is a few months old, slipped my notice at the time.

Two Australian made research satellites re-entered in December 2018. UNSW-EC0 came down in the Atlantic on 3 Dec, and INSPIRE-2 in the Pacific on 20 Dec.

Both satellites were part of an international study called QB50. During orbit and descent, these small cubesats made coordinated observations of the thermosphere (which extends from about 90 km to 500 km above the Earth’s surface). So far some 36 of these satellites have been built and launched by various countries. The Australian satellites were launched from Virginia, USA.

There was a third Australian contribution, SuSat, but to my knowledge this did not respond and is still in orbit.

All three satellites, along with several others, were launched by Atlas rocket from Cape Canaveral to the ISS, and then released into a 380 km orbit.

UNSW-EC0 was built by UNSW students and faculty. The key piece of science hardware was the Ion Neutral Mass Spectrometer. It neutralises and analyses incoming ions. INSPIRE-2 was a University of Sydney, UNSW and ANU project joint project. Its key hardware pieces were a visible light spectrograph and radiation counter.

https://upload.qb50.eu/listCubeSat/
http://www.acser.unsw.edu.au/news/unsw-ec0-reaches-end-of-mission

dv said:

This news is a few months old, slipped my notice at the time.

Two Australian made research satellites re-entered in December 2018. UNSW-EC0 came down in the Atlantic on 3 Dec, and INSPIRE-2 in the Pacific on 20 Dec.

Both satellites were part of an international study called QB50. During orbit and descent, these small cubesats made coordinated observations of the thermosphere (which extends from about 90 km to 500 km above the Earth’s surface). So far some 36 of these satellites have been built and launched by various countries. The Australian satellites were launched from Virginia, USA.

There was a third Australian contribution, SuSat, but to my knowledge this did not respond and is still in orbit.

All three satellites, along with several others, were launched by Atlas rocket from Cape Canaveral to the ISS, and then released into a 380 km orbit.

UNSW-EC0 was built by UNSW students and faculty. The key piece of science hardware was the Ion Neutral Mass Spectrometer. It neutralises and analyses incoming ions. INSPIRE-2 was a University of Sydney, UNSW and ANU project joint project. Its key hardware pieces were a visible light spectrograph and radiation counter.

https://upload.qb50.eu/listCubeSat/
http://www.acser.unsw.edu.au/news/unsw-ec0-reaches-end-of-mission

I didn’t know there were up.

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

This news is a few months old, slipped my notice at the time.

Two Australian made research satellites re-entered in December 2018. UNSW-EC0 came down in the Atlantic on 3 Dec, and INSPIRE-2 in the Pacific on 20 Dec.

Both satellites were part of an international study called QB50. During orbit and descent, these small cubesats made coordinated observations of the thermosphere (which extends from about 90 km to 500 km above the Earth’s surface). So far some 36 of these satellites have been built and launched by various countries. The Australian satellites were launched from Virginia, USA.

There was a third Australian contribution, SuSat, but to my knowledge this did not respond and is still in orbit.

All three satellites, along with several others, were launched by Atlas rocket from Cape Canaveral to the ISS, and then released into a 380 km orbit.

UNSW-EC0 was built by UNSW students and faculty. The key piece of science hardware was the Ion Neutral Mass Spectrometer. It neutralises and analyses incoming ions. INSPIRE-2 was a University of Sydney, UNSW and ANU project joint project. Its key hardware pieces were a visible light spectrograph and radiation counter.

https://upload.qb50.eu/listCubeSat/
http://www.acser.unsw.edu.au/news/unsw-ec0-reaches-end-of-mission

I didn’t know there were up.

And now they aren’t so you were ahead of the curve