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News on TPA-1 Mission

The TPA-1 CubeSat mission from University of Auckland’s Te Pūnaha Ātea – Space Institute (TPA-SI), serves as a technology demonstration and a validation of in-house processes and infrastructure for mission development, delivery and operations. It is the first of a planned series of missions aimed at building capacity for future, application-led missions and demonstrates our end-to-end capability from initial concept to mission delivery.

Launch and Early Operations

TPA-1, a 3U CubeSat which incorporates a platform from Nanoavionics, was delivered to ISISpace in the Netherlands for integration in April. From here it went to the launch site in the US and was successfully launched on June 23, 2025, from Vandenberg SFB aboard the Transporter-14 rideshare Falcon 9 rocket. Deployed into a 515km Sun-Synchronous orbit, the spacecraft began beaconing as planned two hours after deployment. The first signals were successfully received at the University’s Ardmore ground station near Auckland on June 24, 2025.

Payloads

Primarily a technology demonstrator, the TPA-1 spacecraft hosts payloads developed, qualified and integrated by the Space Institute, including an Earth observation and deployables imager, a thermal monitoring payload, a deployable inspection boom, and a miniaturized dragsail for end-of-life disposal.

The imager payload uses four commercial-off-the-shelf Raspberry Pi cameras, supported by two Raspberry Pi Compute Modules for on-board image processing. This approach provides an educational and outreach opportunity for students to get hands-on experience by developing Python applications that can be uploaded and run on the spacecraft. This configurable payload is already providing stunning imagery from around the country and the world.

The inspection boom system is designed to provide visuals of the spacecraft in orbit. This is a demonstration of a system that may find utility supporting in orbit mission resilience by allowing operators to better understand the condition of the host spacecraft for anomaly investigation or to support servicing by a second spacecraft. The spacecraft hosts components treated with Paint-Free Colour developed by Cirrus Materials Science Limited based in Auckland to act as a colour calibration target on the spacecraft for the inspection boom and to assess the coating for any changes in the harsh space environment. The boom mechanism itself is versatile, and can be used to host a range of boom tip payloads from magnetometers to robotic modules.

To avoid contribution to “space junk”, the satellite is equipped with a miniaturised drag-sail which will hasten the deorbiting of the satellite at the end of the mission. This module is designed to fit in a tuna-can sized extended volume on the satellite, so as not to take up valuable space from other payloads.

Finally, the Thermal Monitoring Unit developed for this mission provides additional temperature data points for operational safety of the mission and development of thermal models. The versatile module is forming the basis for other sensing payloads under development by students.

Commissioning and Training

Since deployment, the TPA-1 team has been hard at work commissioning the satellite and its ground segment. The commissioning process has been happening in parallel for both the spacecraft and the ground station to optimise tracking and data throughput. The team are commissioning payloads and already downlinking initial imagery.

A student intern programme has given several students a hands-on taste of operating the spacecraft from early commissioning through to imaging operations. The mission is also contributing to the development of future missions and a robust, in-house platform through the TPA-2 program, which will incorporate UG and PG student projects.

A National Capability

The mission validates the processes, facilities, and planning required for developing the hardware and operating a space mission from New Zealand having been integrated in the TPA-SI Cleanroom and qualified at the National Satellite Test Facility. Moreover, the Ardmore ground station has been established to complement the Mission Operations Control Centre (MOCC) to support domestic missions and international partnerships, demonstrating this capability with TPA-1. The regular passes of the spacecraft, offer continuous opportunities for students and staff to engage with the satellite, capture telemetry, and download data files and imagery.

Path to Commercialisation

Moreover, the mission has demonstrated a complete “concept-to-orbit-to-market” cycle, with the boom system and dragsail developed for this mission now commercially available from the space institute’s spin out company Frond Space Systems and with derived commercial products now on orbit. The company is co-located within the space institute and provides an opportunity for students working alongside founders in the lab to gain perspectives on commercial space as well as academic developments.

An overview of the mission can be found here https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2024/all2024/3

The mission has been supported by the Tertiary Education Commission – Entrepreneurial Universities Grant and MBIE’s Strategic Science Investment Fund (SSIF).