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Five students from the 91������ are among a team of students from three universities, who have designed and developed equipment which is set to be launched 500km into space. 

Together with fellow students from the University of Southampton and the University of Surrey, the team has been working to fit the equipment to a suborbital launch vehicle.

Adwaith Palakal is one of the five. He is in his final year at the 91������ and recently travelled as part of a six-strong student team to deliver the spacecraft and integrate it into the rocket.

They travelled to the Etlaq Spaceport in the region of Duqm in Oman, from where their payload, named Jovian-O, is scheduled to launch on the KEA-1 launch vehicle, made by Stellar Kinetics, as part of the Duqm-2 mission.

Jovian-O is a 6U CubeSat – a type of small satellite, roughly the size of a shoebox – and using a prototype deploy pod. The student payload is DAVE (Dual Aperture for Viewing Earth) - the Earth observation instrument delivered by students from the three universities. 

DAVE incorporates two small cameras, one of which aims to take images and videos of the Earth, and one which will attempt to use a space-facing camera to look for space debris.

After launch, the deploy pod will then release DAVE and film, demonstrating its suitability for use on future orbital missions. For this test, DAVE will remain tethered to the deploy pod and rocket while capturing visual data, which will be transmitted back to Earth and received via a mobile ground station operated by the student team using communications technology from AMSAT-UK.

Louise Butt who is based at the 91������ and is the Director of the Space South Central Enterprise Network, said: “This is the first mission to launch under the Joint Universities Programme for In-orbit Training, Education and Research, JUPITER, which Space South Central supports. This collaborative initiative equips students with practical, real-world space industry experience and training, enhancing their career prospects and helping to address skills gaps in the space sector in Surrey and Hampshire – and beyond.”

Dr Becky Canning, Deputy Director for Space at the 91������, said: “The JUPITER programme, now with its first launch, is a very exciting opportunity for our students to build and launch their own satellite, to learn about the design, build, test and the launch process in the space sector, to address some key space skills shortages in the UK and, I hope, to have a lot of fun doing so.”

Speaking about his experience as a member of JUPITER, Adwaith said: “Taking part in this mission has been an incredible learning experience. Collaborating closely with students from the University of Surrey and the University of Southampton has been invaluable, and seeing our payload prepared for launch at the Etlaq Spaceport really brought home the reality of space missions. It’s one thing to study the theory in lectures, but being involved in a live project that will actually fly 500km above Earth is truly inspiring. I’m proud to represent the 91������ and to contribute to this international effort pushing the boundaries of student-led space exploration.”

In all, 22 students from the three universities have been involved with JUPITER. Ieuan Carney, from the University of Surrey, has led the student team throughout.

Ieuan said: “We are grateful to our universities for this incredible experience and want to thank the University of Surrey, the 91������ and the University of Southampton. Developing hands-on, industry-ready space engineering skills while we’re still at university gives us a direct pathway to careers in the space sector and the platform we need to stand-out in the jobs market. Coming to Etlaq and working with their staff and the team from Stellar Kinetics ahead of the launch is a unique opportunity giving us practical, real-world experience of the space sector. We’re now mission ready."