UK’s Cubesat books a ride on Russian rocket 20 Sep 2012 UKube-1
– the UK’s first Cubesat mission – has ‘booked’ its journey into
space on a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket. The launch from the Baikonur
Cosmodrone in Kazakhstan is expected to take place in March
2013. (JPG, 2.2 Mb) Credit: Clyde Space. The UKube-1
nanosatellite is a collaboration between the UK Space Agency,
industry and academia. It will allow the UK to fly educational
packages, test new technologies and carry out new space research
quickly and efficiently. It is envisaged as the pilot for a full
national CubeSat programme. Dr David Williams, Chief Executive
of the UK Space Agency, said, “UKube-1 is almost ready to fly;
the platform is nearly complete, 4 of the missions 5 payloads
are mission-ready and we have now secured a launch with
Roscosmos. We are eagerly awaiting the start of the innovative
experiments that this small but mighty satellite will perform
once in orbit around our planet.” The winning UKube-1 payloads
from the UK Space Agency’s payl