First Slovak satellite prepared for Space

The first Slovak satellite named skCUBE will be carried into space in May. It was developed and built by Slovak engineers and scientists. They presented it in Bratislava on Thursday. Slovak Organisation for Space Activities Chairman Jakub Kapuš said: "... we want to show that there's potential for Slovakia to carry out such projects, as space projects don't have be performed by NASA alone". The skCUBE satellite is in the shape of a cube. It measures 10x10x10 centimetres and weighs about one kilogram. Its operational orbit will be 450-720 km above the Earth. It will orbit the Earth approximately every 90 minutes at a speed of 28,000 km per hour. The skCUBE consists of an onboard computer, an electricity supply system and a communications system. It also features a sensory system, an orientation control system and a small camera. The main experiment will concern the reception of very long radio waves coming from deep space and from the upper layers of the atmosphere. SOSA was behind the inception of the whole project in 2012. The project was carried out by Žilina University and Košice Technical University. Its development was partly supported by the Government Office, the Education Ministry and the Transport Ministry.