Clyde Space has confirmed today that Scotland’s first satellite, UKube-1, is set to carry a live haggis into orbit. This will be the first time a haggis, alive or otherwise, will leave Earth on a space adventure. The team at Clyde Space have worked extremely hard to first catch a haggis small enough to fit inside a CubeSat and then train the haggis for the mission. The lucky haggis, now affectionately known as ‘Archie’ by the engineers, has it’s own specially designed space helmet which will allow Archie the freedom of venturing outside of UKube-1 during the mission.
Haggis are native only to Scotland and can be found roaming Scotland’s mountains. Similar in size to a small, fat, hairy dog, its legs on one side are shorter than the other to allow it to run faster around the mountains. This characteristic would make them ideal for a future a colonisation of mountainous regions of Mars, as well as a tasty source of food for future human colonists (assuming that Martian neeps and tatties are also available).
Clyde Space has UKube-1 is confirmed for launch on June 19, 2014 from the Baikonur Cosmodrrome, Kazakhstan, where it will be launched on a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket. UKube-1 is a 3U CubeSat has been designed and manufactured by Clyde Space at their high-tech facility on the West of Scotland Science Park in Glasgow. This CubeSat is one of the most advanced of its kind, the complexity of the spacecraft highlighted by the nature of the 6 independent, advanced payloads being flown by the mission. The UKube-1 mission is the pilot for a collaborative, national CubeSat programme bringing together UK industry and academia to fly educational packages, test new technologies and carry out new space research quickly and efficiently.
In addition to Archie the Haggis, payloads on UKube-1 include: the first GPS device aimed at measuring plasmaspheric space weather; a camera that will take images of the Earth, and test the effect of radiation on space hardware, using a new generation of imaging sensor; an experiment to demonstrate the feasibility of using cosmic radiation to improve the security of communications satellites and to flight test lower cost electronic systems; an advanced mission interface computer to enable serious number crunching on tiny spacecraft; a high rate S-Band transmitter and patch antenna; an outreach payload that allows school children to interact with the spacecraft.
CubeSats
CubeSats are tiny fully functional satellites with typical mass of 4kg and dimensions of around 100mm x 100mm x 340mm. CubeSats typically piggy-back on other launches and can be flown within a year of inception. The rapidly increasing capabilities of CubeSat related technologies, commercial availability of these and the low relative costs opens up a large number of possibilities for carrying out detailed space science studies.
Clyde Space
Clyde Space is an award winning supplier of small satellite, nanosatellite and CubeSat systems. We design and build high performance power subsystems, DC-DC Converters, lithium polymer batteries, high efficiency solar panels, attitude determination and control systems, reaction wheels, sun-sensors, de-orbiting devices, communications systems and complete CubeSat platform solutions. Clyde Space is a World-leading CubeSat vendor, and pioneered the CubeSat Shop – an online shop for satellites and subsystems. The company is also producing an advanced CubeSat mission, called UKube-1, for the UK Space Agency which will carry 6 payloads and will launch June 2014.
PRESS CONTACTS
Craig Clark
Clyde Space
craig.clark@clyde-space.com
