GRIZU-263A: Turkey’s first PocketQube satellite in-orbit
Student built satellite mission turns disruptive space-based Iot startup
In January 2022, Alba Orbital completed its second orbital mission on board SpaceX’s ‘Transporter-3’ Falcon 9 launch. Dubbed ‘Alba Cluster 3/4’, the mission is the largest PocketQube launch to date delivering 13 spacecraft to orbit from 8 different countries.
On board Alba Cluster 3 /4 was Turkey’s first PocketQube, Grizu-263a, designed by a team of students from Bülent Ecevit University. The Grizu-263 space team, established in 2016 by BEU engineering students, set out to launch their first orbital satellite after achieving a host of accolades working on space technologies on an international stage.
‘PocketQubes’ are the smallest commercial class of satellites, no bigger than a rubik’s cube measuring at 5cm per unit or ‘p’. These satellites are dramatically reducing launch costs, and opening access to space for a plethora of new space based applications.
The team won first prize in Turkey’s largest technology and aviation festival (Teknofest, 2019) and have competed in NASA’s satellite competition “AAS CanSat'', ranking 2nd in 2017 and 2018 and 1st place in 2022.
Named after a tragic firedamp (“grizu” in Turkish) explosion that killed 263 miners in the Kozlu district in 1992, the space project has since been a source of great national pride for Turkiye, with President Erdogan congratulating the team on the successful launch: “I congratulate our young people, teachers and supporting institutions that showed the success of taking part in this project that was the first from Turkey,” Erdoğan said on Twitter.
Alba Orbital successfully delivered the Grizu-263a satellite to a low earth sun-synchronous orbit on board SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Rocket on January 13th 2022 at 18:25 CEST. Now having verified their satellite systems in-orbit and having achieved valuable space-flight heritage, ‘Hello Space’ Turkey’s newest space start-up was born.
Hello Space, led & co-founded by Captain Grizu Space Team Muzaffer Duysal, are set to become one of the most prominent and disruptive technology start-ups born in Turkey, as they prepare to launch a fleet of low-cost ‘PocketQube’ satellites to deliver global Internet of Things data services from orbit.
‘Istanbul’, Hello Space’s first IoT PocketQube satellite getting ready for launch in 2023, serves as an in-orbit demonstration mission for the company’s upcoming constellation of 100 pico-satellites. The Turkish technology startup aims to improve device connectivity at much lower cost to existing ground based solutions, to provide end-to-end data services for maritime, agricultural and industrial applications.
Alba Orbital has now launched 23 satellites to orbit with a range of missions hosted on behalf of academic, commercial and government clients alike. After raising a $3.4m seed round with the prestigious Y combinator program last year, Alba Orbital have scaled their launch and manufacturing processes with targets set to launch every quarter and to provide near real time satellite imagery.