Three Australian-built cubesats are to be launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in December aboard an Orbital ATK Antares rocket from Wallops Island, Virginia, US.

After a month of their arrival, the cubesats will be deployed from the ISS toward their target region.

The satellites will be launched as part of an international project called QB50, which will send a total of 50 cubesats to study the region between 200km and 380km above Earth.

The three satellites include Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research’s (ACSER) UNSW-Ec0, which has been developed with 3D printing technology and will study the atomic composition of the thermosphere.

Another satellite of the group, INSPIRE-2, will measure the electron temperature and density of plasma in the region. INSPIRE-2 is a joint project between the University of Sydney, University of New South Wales (UNSW) and the Australian National University.

The third satellite, SUSat, is a joint project between the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia.

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“This region is poorly understood and hard to measure."

ACSER director Andrew Dempster said: “This region is poorly understood and hard to measure.

“And yet, it’s the interface between our planet and space. It’s where much of the ultraviolet and X-ray radiation from the Sun collides with the Earth, and generates auroras and potential hazards that can affect power grids and communications.”

Expected to become operational for three to nine months, the cubesats will re-enter the atmosphere and burn up.

In 2002, the Australian-made FedSat experimental microsatellite was launched from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Centre.

Image: Artist’s impression of UNSW-Ec0 in space. Photo: courtesy of UNSW.