• Question: The Cubesat that you built, Was it a success and if so what sort of information is it communicating back to earth?

    Asked by liam01 to Neil on 11 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Neil Bowles

      Neil Bowles answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      We haven’t launched it yet, we are still working on it. Hopefully it will be launched next year.

      However, we are due to launch a thermal camera type instrument on a small satellite (about the size of a coffee table) in June this year. The spacecraft is called ‘Techdemosat’ http://www.sstl.co.uk/Missions/TechDemoSat-1 and our camera was built with help from RALSpace and the spacecraft built by a company called Surrey Satellite technology in Guildford. One of my colleagues delivered the instrument to the spacecraft by driving it down to Guildford in our department’s van! It was in a special box to protect it, but it sounds less glamorous than shipping stuff out to NASA in California.

      The next stuff we are due to launch is February 2016, when the seismometer we are working on with NASA is due to go to Mars, it is supposed to land in the autumn I think (its called InSight).

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