• February 9th, 2020

    10’000 orbits around the Earth!

    At around midday on Feb 9th, 2020 1KUNS-PF performed its 10’000th orbit around the Earth, still transmitting data to ground. The mission has lasted 639 days so far, and more are to come! In the GIF is a sped-up sunset captured by 1KUNS-PF

  • April 13th, 2019

    1’000’000 packets from SatNOGS!

    The 1KUNS-PF team wants to thank the radioamateur community for achieving such great results and helping the project. As of now, 1KUNS-PF is the third CubeSat most received by SatNOGS, regarding packets!

  • December 1st, 2018

    300 images downloaded!

    The first day of December marks the 300th full-size image downloaded!

  • November 5th-8th, 2018

    Software Update #2

    Following the development of the software for another CubeSat, several improvements were brought to 1KUNS-PF: A higher transmission rate of the telemetry, a faster indexing of the files, an improved on-board scheduler. This update consisted in a 334kB image file uploaded over four days.

  • October 20th, 2018

    Picture of the Earth and Moon

    On this day a picture that incorporates both the Earth and Moon has been downloaded.

  • September 18th, 2018

    200 images downloaded

    200 images is a huge milestone for 1KUNS-PF. The rate of images downloaded greatly increased after the software update and even more images are being downloaded.

  • August 8th-10th, 2018

    Software Update

    Several improvements were made to the software to improve the functionalities of 1KUNS-PF and fix some bugs. The update consisted in the upload of a 300kB image over the arc of three days. After consinstency check, the software was switched over on August 10. The new update allowed higher resolution images to be downloaded and a higher data-density beacon.

  • August 6th, 2018

    100 images downloaded

    This day marks the day when the 100th high-resolution image was downloaded.

  • June 8th, 2018

    Baudrate upgrade

    After improvements to the Rome Ground Station, the baud rate of the on-board transceiver was increased from 1200 to 9600, allowing an eight-fold increase in data transmission.

  • May 21th, 2018

    First high-resolution image

    This day marks the download of the first high-resolution image, taken over the Pacific Ocean.

  • May 11th, 2018

    Deployment from the ISS

    Credit JAXA

    1KUNS-PF is deployed from the International Space Station on May 11th, 2018, approximately at 10.15 UTC. The deployment is broadcasted on a Youtube live video by JAXA (available at this link).

  • April 2nd, 2018

    Launch

    Credit NASA / SpaceX

    1KUNS-PF is launched on-board the Dragon CRS-14 capsule, with the Falcon 9, from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral (Florida, USA).

  • January 16th, 2018

    Hand-over to JAXA at the Tsukuba Space Center

    The satellite is prepared for launch and handed-over to JAXA in the Tsukuba Space Center.
    Link to press releases from UN and JAXA.

  • September 2017

    Agreement with Supporting Companies

    The two Italian companies NPC-New Production Concept srl and Roboptics srl set up an Agreement with the University Nairobi with the donation of most of the satellite on-board hardware and offering technical support.

  • June 2017

    Technical meetings with JAXA in preparation for launch

    A team of four students from Kenya is at the Sapienza University of Rome ,with scholarships provided by the Italian Space Agency, to participate in the satellite development and in preparation for the launch on the ISS with JAXA personnel.

  • December 2016

    Italian Students at University of Nairobi

    A team of four Italian students visits University of Nairobi, to participate in the building and set-up of the satellite ground station and solar panel development.

  • September 27th 2016

    Kick-Off Meeting at the IAC in Guadalajara

    Kick-Off Meeting at the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico

  • September 2016

    KiboCube selection announcement”

    Official public announcement of the KiboCube selection at the UN-IAF Workshop in Guadalajara, Mexico.

  • August 2016

    1KUNS-PF is selected

    The mission 1KUNS-PF from University of Nairobi selected as the first beneficiary of the KiboCUBE program.

  • March 2016

    Application for KiboCube

    University of Nairobi applies for the First Round of the KiboCube program, proposing 1KUNS-PF (proposal available at this link), a 1U Cubesat as a precursor flight for IKUNS, with the support of Sapienza University of Rome.

  • November 2015

    Start of IKUNS Project

    The IKUNS project starts with an Agreement between Sapienza and ASI in support of University of Nairobi to develop a Italy.Kenya University NanoSatellite