Post by Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG)

🛰️🎉 Happy Birthday Buccy! On 15 March 2026, DSTG’s Buccaneer CubeSat marked one year in orbit circling the Earth. The milestone was celebrated with cake, and in a moment of sentimentality, the team sang happy birthday to “Buccy”. The Primary Payload Team recorded the birthday song and transmitted it to the satellite, where the high-frequency payload received, processed, and downlinked it back to Earth. The Buccaneer Team continues to excel in spacecraft operations, but their singing performance may still need refinement. Buccaneer thankfully heard the birthday wishes! Buccaneer has completed many high-frequency data collections, continuing its mission to improve our understanding of radio wave propagation through the ionosphere. The Manoeuvrable ANtenna Terrestrial and self-Imaging System (MANTIS) is an optical instrument on Buccaneer that features a mirror assembly that deploys out of the spacecraft, permitting the capture of satellite self-images, as well as images of Earth’s surface. MANTIS features a world-first demonstration of using a liquid lens in space for image focusing that has been very successful. It is tedious and error prone for human operators to plan image captures using MANTIS. However, a collaboration with the University of Sydney and SmartSat CRC has solved that problem by developing a system for autonomously developing the required mission plans. The human operator creates a mission plan and uplinks it to the spacecraft with the click of a mouse, greatly reducing operator workload. The mission plan takes into account spacecraft constraints such as the practical limits on power generation and data storage. In addition, DSTG’s and international partners’ optical ground stations have successfully interacted with the laser hosted on the Buccaneer satellite exploring Space-to-ground optical communications. DSTG is very grateful for collaboration with numerous Australian and international partners including Inovor Technologies and the US Department of War Space Test Program. This 12-month milestone reflects the robustness of the satellite and payload designs, and the extensive testing and verification underpinning mission success. #DSTG #DefenceScience #DefenceInnovation #SpaceTech #collaboration

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