Maya-3 and Maya-4, the first Philippine-university built cubesats, have been turned over to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), according to STAMINA4Space.
The country’s third and fourth smallsats were turned over to the JAXA on April 28, the Facebook post reported.
Filipino engineer Izrael Bautista, project manager of Japan’s Kyushu Institute of Technology’s (Kyutech) 4th Joint Global Multi-Nation Birds Satellite (BIRDS-4) Project and Dr. Takahashi Yamauchi of Kyutech’s Laboratory of Lean Satellites Enterprises and In-Orbit Experiemnts( LaSEINE) were present during the event on behalf of the scholars, the STAMINA4Space said.
“The scholarships are part of the STAMINA4Space Program’s STeP-UP Project, a graduate program with a nanosatellite engineering track housed within the University of the Philippines Diliman Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute (UP Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute),” the Facebook page reported, citing the Department of Science and Technology-Science Education Institute (DOST-SEI) continued support of the project.
The STAMINA4Space is the country’s space research and development program funded by the DOST and implemented by DOST-Advanced Science and Technology Institute (ASTI) and the University of the Philippines (UP). The program aims to further develop deep expertise that enable and sustain the growth of a local scientific-industrial base in space technology and applications in the Philippines. During its four-year implementation, the program successfully launched three smallsats: Diwata-1, Diwata-2 and Maya-1.
Smallsats Maya-3 and Maya-4 are in the development and are expected to be launched this year. The Philippines’ fourth satellite and second smallsat, Maya-2, was successfully deployed into orbit from the International Space Station (ISS) on March 14, 2021.