The country’s third and fourth nano-satellites, Maya-3 and Maya-4, will be launched to the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday, Aug. 28.
The cube satellites (cubesats) will leave Earth aboard SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket’s Dragon C208 at 3:37 p.m. (Philippine time) as part of the SpaceX Commercial Resupply Mission-23 (SpX-23) to send scientific research and technology demonstrations to the ISS.
But before witnessing this new milestone in the country’s space technology program, here are the things you need to know about Maya-3 and Maya-4, according to the Space Technology and Applications Mastery, Innovation, and Advancement (STAMINA4Space).
First Philippine university-built satellites
The two cubesats are the first Philippine university-built satellites designed and developed by the first batch of scholars under the STAMINA4Space Program: Project 3 - Space Science and Technology Proliferation through University Partnerships (STeP-UP).
The STeP-UP Project is a graduate program with a nano-satellite engineering track housed within the University of the Philippines-Diliman (UP) Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute.
The project, which is funded and supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) with scholarship grants from its Science Education Institute (SEI), is implemented by the UP Diliman in collaboration with the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan.
Technical Overview
Maya-3 and Maya-4 measure 10 x 10 x 11.35 centimeter with an estimated mass of 1.1 kilogram.
Both satellites are equipped with two deployable antennas, solar array panels, Global Positioning System (GPS) patch antenna, and a lever switch.
The cubesats also carry two five megapixels visual cameras mainly to capture images of the home country and for general visual assessment of landmass and bodies of water.
One of the cameras installed in the Maya-4 is a near-infrared camera for technology demonstration.
Missions
Once deployed into space, the cubesats will be performing these following missions:
- Demonstration of Ground Data Acquisition using Store and Forward
- Commercial off-the-shelf Automatic Packet Reporting System Message Digipeater (APRS-DP) Payload Demonstration on cubesat
- Image and Video Capture
- Demonstration of Near-Infrared camera, for Maya-4 only
- GPS Chip Demonstration
- Detection of and protection from Single Event Latch-up due to space
- radiation
- Magnetic Field Measurement in Space using an Anisotropic
- Magnetoresistance Sensor
The STAMINA4Space is the country’s space research and development program funded by the DOST and implemented by DOST-Advanced Science and Technology Institute (ASTI) and the UP.
The program aims to further develop deep expertise that enable and sustain the growth of a local scientific-industrial base in space technology and applications in the Philippines.
To watch the launch in real-time, visit the National Aeronautics and Space Administration live feed. #