Israeli students have launched a small satellite with the help of NASA as part of the European Union’s QB50 Thermosphere research program.
More than 80 high school students from Ofra, Ofakim, Yerucham and Herzliya and Hura built the Duchifat-2, one of 28 Cubesat satellites from 23 nations in the program, according to Globes. A prior satellite, the Duchifat-1, was launched in 2014 and is still in orbit, where it is used to help find people located in areas without cell phone coverage.
But the Israeli Duchifat-2 is the only one built by students. The project took two years and was funded by the Israel Space Agency under the supervision of the Herzliya Science Center, with assistance from engineers employed by Israel Aerospace Industries and the Israel Space Agency.
All 28 Cubesats were launched on a U.S. Atlas-5 rocket on Tuesday (April 18) from Cape Canaveral in Florida; they’re headed to the International Space Station (ISS) for placement in orbit six weeks from now.
The Israeli students are to study the data beamed from the orbiting Cubesats to the Herzliya Science Center.
According to NASA, “CubeSats are small research spacecraft called nanosatellites.” They are built to standard dimensions of 1 unit (1U), which is equal to 10x10x10 cm. They can be 1U, 2U, 3U or 6U in size, weigh less than 3 lbs (1.33 kg) per U – 6U may be up to 6.3 lbs (14 kg) and are deployed from standardized dispensers.