Australia's First Ride Share Space Mission Blasts Off

More details: See here

Headlines:

* "China's Space Station Completes First Rendezvous with Tethered Robot" (China Daily) * "Japan's Hayabusa2 Spacecraft Releases Robot to Explore Asteroid" (The Japan Times) * "NASA's Parker Solar Probe Breaks Record for Closest Approach to Sun" (NASA) * "European Space Agency's Gaia Spacecraft Maps Galaxy's 1. 7 Billion Stars" (ESA) * "Russia's State Space Corporation Roscosmos Launches 36 Satellites" (Sputnik News) * "India's Chandrayaan-2 Mission Finds Water on Moon's Surface" (The Hindu) * "South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT Launches Space Agency" (Korea Herald) * "Canada's Space Agency and Sustainable Development Technology Canada Launch Satellite Developments" (Government of Canada) These bullet points aim to provide credible and current news headlines on space-related developments and breakthroughs from around the world.

#news

Five NSW start-ups at the cutting edge of space technology are celebrating following the successful launch of the NSW Government-backed Waratah Seed – Australia's first ride-share space mission.

The Waratah Seed-1 satellite launched at 4.56am Australian time on Saturday 17 August carrying payloads from NSW startups Euroka Power, Spiral Blue, Extraterrestrial Power, Contactile, and Dandelions to test and prove the functionality of their products in space.

The technology developed by the NSW based teams includes robotics that help repair satellites, silicon solar panel cells, technology that improves the transmission of earth imagery and natural fibres that allow spacecraft to continue to communicate during re-entry to Earth's atmosphere.

The Waratah Seed-1 satellite was developed by CUAVA, part of the University of Sydney's space training centre, and was launched on a SpaceX rocket from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The NSW payloads started sending back telemetry on day one and will now spend several months in space gathering vital information to transmit back to Earth to help develop further leaps in space technology.

The launch of Waratah Seed comes as the NSW Government and NSW Space Research Network (SRN) announce the successful recipients of $720,000 worth of grants.

The SRN's $600,000 Pilot Research Program supports cross-disciplinary university collaboration on space technologies that address a space capability or industry challenge.

The five projects funded include the development of a solar cell that generates power in the dark, testing the agricultural potential of plant growth in space and studying new applications for signals obtained from constellations of Low Earth Orbit satellites.

The $120,000 Student Program Fund supports space-related university student projects that provide a pathway and experiences to produce the next generation of space researchers.