Congratulations to SmartSat Industry Partners Myriota, Neumann Space and Fleet Space who successfully launched payloads into space on the recent SpaceX Transporter-12 on Wednesday, 15 January 2025.
Myriota‘s payload onboard two LEMUR 3 satellites, designed and operated by space-to-cloud data and analytics company Spire Global, included a specialised antenna that enables direct-to-orbit communications that expands on their constellation of IOT satellites. These latest additions will join the constellation currently hosting South Australian Space Mission satellite, Kanyini, which was launched in August 2024.
The original Neumann Drive, the precursor to the new and improved ND-50 (image courtesy of Neumann Space)
Neumann Space also deployed its next generation Neumann Drive, the ND-50, for its first in-orbit demonstration. The first-generation Neumann Drive was demonstrated successfully onboard the SpIRIT nanosatellite, a project led by the University of Melbourne and hosted on an Inovor Technologies bus, which was launched last year. The latest iteration, which promises to be more powerful, is hosted onboard Danish satellite engineering company Space Inventor’s EDISON 8U Satellite.
Dr Paddy Neumann, Chief Scientist at Neumann Space said of the ND-50: “The design of the recently launched version of the Neumann Space electric propulsion system, called the Neumann Drive® ND-50, takes into account some learnings that were derived from the SmartSat co-funded project P2.28. That project involved experimental work to observe and quantify plasma spots while firing the pulsed arc cathodic thruster.”
Mock up of Fleet Space Technologies’ Centauri 7 and Centauri 8 satellites (image courtesy of Fleet Space Technologies)
Finally, Fleet Space Technologies successfully deployed Centauri 7 and Centauri 8 satellites, the company’s most advanced satellites to date. These satellites promise to increase the capacity of its proprietary satellite network to support the expansion of its end-to-end mineral exploration platform, while building on its world-first, microsatellite-enabled SATCOM capabilities. Both these satellites are similar in design to the Centauri 6, which was launched last year and was instrumental on demonstrating the Safety from Space & SmartSat developed tactical waveform under the Defence funded ASCEND2LEO project.
Dr Sarah Cannard
Industry Director