Kuwait's first Satellite on track for June launch

Kuwait's first Satellite on track for June launch.  Image: Orbital Space

"These test verify the satellites ability to perform all tasks as expected, including power management, attitude determination and 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," said Nada Alshammari, director of educational programmes at Orbital Space.

Orbital Space aims to support the transformation of the Arab World into space-faring nations by promoting space research and technology development through educational programmes for the Arab youth.

"QMR-KWT space mission is to 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," Alshammari added.

"We are already seeing engagement from students with our QMR-KWT educational programme ‘Code in Space’ ...and We are currently accepting student proposals for this out of the world opportunity,” the director informed.

QMR-KWT is slated to be launched from the United States in June 2021 on the second Vigoride demo mission onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

“Our goal is to make space accessible to all, and we are excited and honoured to be working with our partner, Endurosat, in achieving this” said Bassam Alfeeli, founder and general manager of Orbital Space.

He added, “QMR-KWT’s functional testing is being done at EnduroSat facilities and in the coming months it will be integrated with Momentus Vigoride spacecraft as part of the plan to put it in orbit.”

QMR-KWT completed its space qualification tests in September 2020 at CIRA - Italian Aerospace Research Centre.