Kanyini, Waratah Seed and CUAVA-2 satellites launched successfully by SpaceX

The South Australian owned and manufactured microsatellite Kanyini has been launched successfully onboard a SpaceX rocket from the United States. Communications have been established with the satellite so commissioning is now under way.

Kanyini was one of 108 spacecraft deployed on the rideshare mission, including two other Australian satellites, the Waratah Seed WS-1 spacecraft and its sister vehicle CUAVA-2.

Kanyini is the first State Government-funded satellite in the nation and was built by a team of South Australian-based companies – SmartSat CRC, Inovor and Myriota.

“Putting anything into space is an extraordinary feat, and the success of this launch of the Kanyini satellite is an excellent achievement, not only for the Kanyini team, including Inovor, but ​also ​for the South Australian space sector as a whole,” said Inovor CEO Matthew Tetlow.

The $6.5 million mission is helping to create hi tech jobs in the state’s space sector and develop vital space capabilities in the State, says the SA Space Industry centre (SASIC).

Now that Kanyini is in orbit it will communicate through an operations centre located at Inovor Technologies in Lot Fourteen, Adelaide. Once fully commissioned, Kanyini will deliver critical space data for use by government and research institutions, particularly in the areas of sustainability and climate impacts.

“We have now realised our mission of seeing homegrown South Australian space technologies launched into low Earth orbit,” said SmartSat CRC CEO Andy Koronios. “The coming months will be crucial as the team works to fully operationalise Kanyini and begin reaping the benefits of its data-gathering capabilities.”

The research initiatives to be undertaken by Kanyini include early bushfire detection – with technology that can detect fires from space 500 times faster than traditional processing. The satellite will also support a program – led by South Australian Department for Environment and Water and Greening Adelaide – to sense urban heat islands in the state.

Data collected by Kanyini will also be used to develop robust and trustworthy predictive AI capabilities that can accurately predict natural disaster events such as landslides and flooding, being led by Queensland University of Technology and European Space Agency Phi-Lab.