MANILA — Maya-2, the country’s second cube satellite, was launched at the International Space Station early Sunday.

It boarded the Northrop Grumman S.S. Katherine Johnson Cynus spacecraft from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility together with cube satellites from Japan and Paraguay.

Maya-2 was assembled by engineers Izrael Zenar Bautista, Mark Angelo Purio, and Marloun Sejera who are taking their doctoral degree in Kyushu Institute of Technology.

The engineers included some updates from the first cube satellite, Maya-1, that can help in collecting more data.

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“We improved on the communication link by changing the antennas and upgrading the transmitter/receiver. We also included an active attitude control. Maya-1 used passive attitude control,” Bautista said.

“Aside from these, Maya-2 is going to demonstrate new technologies in space such as the Perovskite solar cell and latch-up detection chip. They will also demonstrate the use of satellite structure as an antenna,” he added.

Bautista said they are hoping more information on space will be gained with this experience and can be applied in future projects.

“We expect Maya-2 to deliver more data that would be useful for future satellites we will build. Also, we expect the satellites to send data that can be used by our scientists and researchers.”


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