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A machined aluminium cube with stepped square patterns on its faces, mounted on a purple 3D-printed base with metal brackets, held in two hands.
SYS-PLPayload· 2024–2026

Payloads

Science on board: CubeSat experiments and sensing payloads, built by students.

01Overview

What it does

ARD's competition rockets carry student-built experiments. Kronos flies a 2U CubeSat that measures how soil retains water under the g-loads of flight.

02Lineage

How it evolved

Each step built on the last, rocket by rocket.

  1. 2024

    Cooling payload

    A CO2 and liquid nitrogen cooling system, designed to make ice cream.

    Flown onProject Myriad (2024)

  2. 2025

    1U microfluidics CubeSat

    A 1U CubeSat biological experiment on microfluidics in microgravity, in 6061 aluminium with a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, developed as a University of Adelaide honours project.

    Flown onProject Myriad

  3. 2025

    Wildfire-detection camera

    A FLIR Lepton 3.5 thermal camera on a PureThermal board, run by a Raspberry Pi 3.

    Flown onProject Lightning

  4. 2026

    2U soil-moisture CubeSat

    The CubeSat grows to 2U: CNC aluminium, two capacitive moisture sensors, an Arduino Nano logging to SD and a 10,000 mAh battery.

    Flown onProject Kronos

03Flown on

The rockets

All rockets
Circuit schematic of a payload electronics board built around a Teensy 4.1, with strain gauges and amplifier, pressure sensor, altimeter, temperature sensors and a MOSFET-driven DC motor.
Level 3 payload electronics schematic (Teensy 4.1).

Build what comes next.

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