Momentus Signs Australian Research Center as Customer for Vigoride Deployment

Rendering of the CUAVA-2 in space. Photo: CUAVA Training Centre

Momentus will deploy a cubesat for the CUAVA Training Centre at the University of Sydney to its final orbit under an agreement announced Monday. Momentus will deploy the CUAVA-2 cubesat with its Vigoride orbital service vehicle on a SpaceX Falcon 9 mission set for October 2023.

CUAVA-2 will be the second satellite to be launched by CUAVA. It is a CUAVA-2 is a 6U cubesat with two primary payloads and multiple secondary payloads and technology demonstrations. The first payload is a hyperspectral Imager developed by the Space Photonics group in the School of Physics at the University of Sydney to provide high resolution spatial and spectral data for agriculture and forestry and coastal and marine environments. The second payload is a GPS reflectometry payload developed by the Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research (ACSER) at the University of New South Wales.

“The CUAVA-2 cubesat is the culmination of several years of hard work by the satellite team and our partners,” said CUAVA Director Professor Iver Cairns. “We are looking forward with great excitement to the launch with Momentus, and to gathering unique data from the many advanced payloads and technology demonstrators on CUAVA-2 once in orbit.”

Momentus has agreements with SpaceX to fly Vigoride vehicles on every upcoming Transporter rideshare mission through 2023.