The first Philippine university-built cube satellites Maya-3 and Maya-4 were successfully deployed from the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday, Oct. 6.
The cube satellites developed under the Space Technology and Applications Mastery, Innovation, and Advancement (STAMINA4Space).
Following the deployment, the satellites will stay in low earth orbit, around 400 kilometers above the ground, circling the planet every one and a half hours.
Maya satellite engineer Renzo Wee said the deployment marks a significant milestone in the Philippines timeline of initiatives in space science and technology.
"It shows that we're already capable of developing satellites domestically. This is all thanks to the continuous efforts of various people passing the proverbial torch from one to another. Knowledge and skills learned abroad being proliferated to Filipinos here and now in the Philippines," Wee said.
The engineer hopes the team will become assets of the Philippines' space science and technology sector and by sharing their knowledge and experience with the next satellite builders.
"I would like to congratulate the members of the Space Science and Technology Proliferation through University Partnership (STeP-UP) Project under the STAMINA4Space program for the sucessful launch of our newest nanosatellites Maya-3 and Maya-4 into space," Philippine Space Agency Director General Joel Joseph Marciano said.
Satellites' mission
The satellites will be testing red, green, and blue (RGB) and near-infrared (NIR) cameras for taking images and videos.
Their mission is to allow the collection of data from remote ground sensors such as temperature, humidity, and wind speed.
The STeP-UP Project is a graduate program with a nano-satellite engineering track housed within the University of the Philippines-Diliman Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute.
Funded by the Department of Science and Technology, the project is implemented by UP Diliman in partnership with the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan.