The Philippines’ Maya-3 and Maya-4 cube satellites have been successfully delivered to the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday night, Aug. 30.
The country’s first Philippine university-built satellites were among the cargos that hitchhiked aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket that left Earth on Aug. 29.
In a tweet, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said the SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon successfully docked at the ISS at 10:30 a.m. Eastern time (10:30 p.m. Manila time).
"@SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft arrived at the @Space_Station, delivering over 4,800 pounds of @ISS_Research, equipment, supplies, and cargo to the crew,” it added.
Contact and capture are confirmed at 10:30am ET (14:30 UT). @SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft arrived at the @Space_Station, delivering over 4,800 pounds of @ISS_Research, equipment, supplies, and cargo to the crew! pic.twitter.com/p104d8zWe8
— NASA (@NASA) August 30, 2021
The Mayas were designed and developed by the first batch of scholars under the Space Technology and Applications Mastery, Innovation, and Advancement (STAMINA4Space) Program’s Space Science and Technology Proliferation through University Partnerships (STeP-UP).
They are Christy Raterta, Marielle Magbanua-Gregorio, Gladys Bajaro, Lorilyn Daquioag, Renzo Wee, Bryan Custodio, Judiel Reyes, and Derick Canceran.
“Stay tuned for news about the Maya-3 and Maya-4 CubeSats’ deployment from the ISS in the coming weeks,” the STAMINA4Space said. “Once the CubeSats are released to space, the ground team can begin to check for its health and prepare for operations.”
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.
Funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), the project is implemented by the UP Diliman in partnership with the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan.