Waratah Seed Space Qualification Mission

15/08/2025

“We are all thrilled to have won this award. It is testament to the engineering and scientific ingenuity of our team at the University of Sydney, UTS, Macquarie University and our industry partners at Saber Astronautics, Delta-V and the Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research at UNSW.

We thought our little Aussie satellite, packed with an unlikely nine scientific and commercial payloads, would last in space for six months. But now, just three days shy of a year in space, it is still orbiting Earth nearly 500 kilometres above ground and sending back data at the cool speed of 27,000 kilometres an hour.

It shows Australia has a great future in the space industry. Thank you to the NSW Government for backing the mission.”

~ Waratah Seed Mission Director, Professor Iver Cairns, from CUAVA at the University of Sydney.

12/08/2025

Vote for the Little Aussie Satellite, Waratah Seed!
We are the only Australian satellite finalist for the AIAA Small Satellite Mission of the Year, up against heavyweights like NASA. Vote #1 for Waratah Seed!
https://sites.google.com/aiaa-smstc.org/moty/voting

Built by CUAVA, the Australian Research Council Training Centre at the University of Sydney, carrying technology payloads designed by UTS: University of Technology Sydney, ACSER at UNSW and 5 payloads designed by Australian space technology start-ups, Waratah Seed launched nearly 1 year ago, and is still operational in orbit.

Supported by Investment NSW, with special funding from SmartSat CRC, University of Sydney and Raytheon Australia

Follow the Waratah Seed at our mission dashboard https://ws1.dashboard.space

, , , , , , , , , , , , Australian Space Agency, The Andy Thomas Space Foundation,

10/08/2025

Our little Aussie satellite is up for a BIG award, and You Can Vote! We're the only Australian satellite in the finals. Vote #1 for Waratah Seed!

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Faculty of Science, University of Sydney, Australian Research Council, Saber Astronautics, Wolfpack Space Hub

28/01/2022

Waratah Seed congratulates our WS-1 Payload Competition Winners!

With our launch date now confirmed as April 2023, we look forward to working with the Payload Competition Winning Teams to integrate their payloads into the Waratah Seed satellite over the coming months.

The Winning Teams are:

EurokaPower and Spiral Blue, Joint First Prize,
Extraterrestrial Power and Sperospace, Joint Second Prize, and;
Dandelions, Third prize.

Looking ahead, we are planning information and workshop sessions with Commercial Clients to learn more about what you need, and the opportunities and services the Waratah Seed ride-share mission can provide.

Stay tuned - more details are coming soon!

26/11/2021

Exciting news for all aspiring Australian astronauts - your time has come!

Making space flight easy. Saber is a global provider of next generation space visualisation products and services for planning and operation missions.

16/11/2021

We're excited to launch our official website - Waratah Seed Space is now officially online! Head on over to find out more about this unique Australian satellite mission.



https://www.waratahseed.space/

14/10/2021

More exciting Australian space news today!

An Australian-made rover is set to be launched to the Moon as part of a NASA space mission this decade.

14/10/2021

You may know that William Shatner (aka ) launched into yesterday, but did you know that
Chris Boshuizen (aka Dr. Chrispy) was also on board? If you missed the livestream of 's NS-18 launch, you can catch it now on YouTube.

Blue Origin successfully completed the second human spaceflight on board New Shepard on Wednesday, October 13, 2021. The flight included four private citizen...

06/10/2021

Commercial Payload Clients are invited to apply for a ride-share on the Waratah Seed WS-1 CubeSat mission in 2022. The Commercial Clients Selection Process is open to all, whether industry, government, or academic and whether NSW, Australian, or internationally-led.

To find out more watch the video, head to waratahseed.space, or contact us! [email protected].

19/09/2021

Just in case you think 'nothing' Space 2.0 is happening here in Australia, here's a quick round up of all the activity at the 12th Australian Space Forum run by the Andy Thomas Space Foundation, which wrapped last week.

.0, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

19/09/2021

SpaceX Inspiration4 mission has safely touched down! Now officially into Space 2.0 territory.
The successful 3 day mission on Crew Dragon, which took four civilians into space for 3 days, was live-streamed extensively by SpaceX so check out their YouTube if you somehow missed it.
A new generation is experiencing the excitement of space - like the Moon Landing 52 years ago, but with better pictures!

, , .0, , , , , , , , , , ,

After three days on-orbit, Dragon and the Inspiration4 crew – the world’s first all-civilian mission to orbit – will return to Earth on September 18, splashi...

16/09/2021

2 Dragons now docked at the ISS, one carried the Inspiration4 crew, the other carried my sister-satellite, CUAVA-1, which is now waiting to deploy. Exciting times in the Space Industry!

Two Dragons 🐉🐲, the SpaceX Cargo Dragon at bottom and the Crew Dragon at top, are pictured flying high above the southern Pacific Ocean while docked to the station. https://flic.kr/p/2mqMxCe