Don’t want to belittle the achievement but they launched it as in „had it launched by the commercial launch provider SpaceX“, not on a self-developed rocket as it sounds like on the first read.
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Don’t want to belittle the achievement but they launched it as in „had it launched by the commercial launch provider SpaceX“, not on a self-developed rocket as it sounds like on the first read.
Very few organizations and even countries can develop both a launch vehicle and a satellite. Botswana has done fine to develop a satellite that integrates onto a rideshare launch. They aren't working with anything close to the headcount or budget of NASA or even the ESA.
Edit (rather than reply and make the comment chain long): It's fine that you read it that way. I figure that if the article were about a launch vehicle then it would have been the rocket's name in the title, and if the article were about the satellite then it would have the satellite's name (BOTSAT-1). If Botswana had developed both an orbital launch vehicle and their first satellite then I'd bet the headline would have been sensational.
> Very few organizations and even countries can develop both a launch vehicle and a satellite.
I would remove the last three words from that.
Launch vehicles are hard. Satellites are easy. This is a cubesat, even.
Where’d you read that this is a cubesat? The article implies it’s not:
> These included BOTSAT-1, 26 satellites as part of the Transporter-13 rideshare mission, and a trio of CubeSats for NASA’s Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE) mission; Arvaker 1, the first microsatellite for Kongsberg NanoAvionics’ N3X constellation.
"BOTSAT-1 is a 3U hyperspectral Earth Observation satellite"
3U is a cubesat size, the most common one.
You can tell it's a cubesat from the picture in the article, and even better from the picture linked at "collaboration with EnduroSat". https://www.endurosat.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/BotSat-...
