June launch set for first Kuwait satellite

KUWAIT CITY: Orbital Space confirmed the success of the ongoing functional testing of the first satellite of Kuwait – 1U CubeSat QMR-KWT, according to a report published on satellite prome.com recently.

Orbital Space, which is located in Dubai, is known as the first company in the Arab region to offer access to space by using CubeSat technology. It is keen on supporting efforts toward the transformation of countries in the region into space-faring nations through the promotion of research and technology development in the form of educational programs for Arab youths.

According to the company’s Educational Programs Director – Nada Alshammari, the ongoing testing aims “to verify the satellite’s ability to perform all tasks as expected, including power management, attitude determination, amp control, communications and error recovery. During functional testing, a hardware-in the- loop simulation was carried out to emulate in-orbit conditions both virtually and physically.”

Alshammari explained that “QMR-KWT space mission will help empower students to contribute to the advancement of satellite communication technology, and to prepare them as future professionals to operate the next generation of communication satellites. Orbital Space is undertaking this pioneering mission in order to create educational opportunities for students from around the world to learn more about satellite communications.

Opportunity

We are already seeing engagement from students with our QMR-KWT educational program ‘Code in Space’ – an opportunity for students to develop and test new software solutions by writing software code to be uploaded and executed on the satellite’s onboard computer. We are currently accepting student proposals for this out of the world opportunity.”

Meanwhile, founder and general manager of Orbital Space BassamAlfeeli disclosed “our goal is to make space accessible to all. We are excited and honored to be working with our partner – Endurosat – to achieve this goal. QMR-KWT’s functional testing is being done at EnduroSat facilities and in the coming months it will be integrated with MomentusVigoride spacecraft as part of the plan to put it in orbit.”

Founder and CEO of EnduroSatRaychoRaychev said: “EnduroSat is a leading company in CubeSat technology and we are thrilled to see our technology enabling more people to access space. We value our partnership with Orbital Space and we hope, together, to democratize space around the world.”

Mission Manager at EnduroSat Victor Danchev affirmed “QMR-KWT completed its space qualification tests in September 2020 at CIRA – Italian Aerospace Research Centre.

We will continue to do functional testing until it is time to hand over QMR-KWT to Momentus.” CEO of Momentus Mikhail Kokorich added that “Momentus is the first to provide commercially affordable in-space last-mile shuttle services. We are excited to have our technology deliver Kuwait’s first satellite to its final orbit. QMRKWT will launch from the United States in June 2021 on the second Vigoride demo mission onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.”