UK Students to Launch International Space Mission

Published on: 11 Jul, 2025
Updated on: 12 Jul, 2025

The student team

A team of students from the University of Surrey are, with fellow students from Portsmouth and Southampton Universities, working to fit equipment they have designed, made and tested, to a suborbital launch vehicle which aims to launch 900km into space.

The students travelled to the Etlaq Spaceport in the region of Duqm in Oman, from where their Jovian-O payload is scheduled to launch on the KEA-1 launch vehicle, made by Stellar Kinetics, as part of the Duqm-2 mission.

A small satellite, roughly the size of a shoebox, is a prototype “deploy pod” designed by students at the University of Surrey and built on campus. The payload also contains DAVE (Dual Aperture for Viewing Earth), an Earth observation instrument delivered by students from the three universities.

It incorporates two small cameras, one of which aims to take images and videos of the Earth, and one which will attempt to use a space-facing camera to look for space debris.

After launch, the deploy pod will then release DAVE and film, demonstrating its suitability for use on future orbital missions.

Louise Butt, director of the Space South Central Enterprise Network, said: “This is the first mission to launch under the Joint Universities Programme for In-orbit Training, Education and Research, JUPITER, which Space South Central supports.

“This collaborative initiative equips students with practical, real-world space industry experience and training, enhancing their career prospects and helping to address skills gaps in the space sector in Surrey and Hampshire – and beyond.”

Dr Becky Canning, deputy director for Space at the University of Portsmouth, said: “The JUPITER programme, now with its first launch, is a very exciting opportunity for our students to build and launch their own satellite, to learn about the design, build, test and the launch process in the space sector, to address some key space skills shortages in the UK, and I hope to have a lot of fun doing so.”

And Ieuan Carney, who is leading the group of students behind the Jovian-O payload, said: “We are grateful to our universities for this incredible experience and want to thank the University of Surrey, the University of Portsmouth and the University of Southampton.

“Developing hands-on, industry-ready space engineering skills while we’re still at university gives us a direct pathway to careers in the space sector and the platform we need to stand-out in the jobs market. Coming to Etlaq and working with their staff and the team from Stellar Kinetics ahead of the launch is a unique opportunity giving us practical, real-world experience of the space sector. We’re now mission ready.”