BINAR
Revolutionising access to space.
Led by Professor Phil Bland and Dr Fergus Downey, the Binar team launch student-designed and developed hardware into low-earth orbit onboard 1U cube satellites. Binar (pronounced BIN-ah) is the Noongar word for “fireball”.
This is small spacecraft engineering, re-imagined. Binar is a highly integrated platform leveraging commodity electronics manufacturing, with an entire spacecraft on a single circuit board. Binar-1 was WA’s very first spacecraft, launched in 2021, and followed by Binar-2,3 and 4 in 2024.
With cost-effective manufacturing, rapid iterative prototyping, and large payload capacity, Binar represents a sovereign capability for Australian universities, industry and defence, to advance our understanding of the solar system, and lower the barrier for operating in space.
The Binar and Binar-X programs are supported by Curtin University and the state government Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation.
BINAR-X
Putting space in the hands of WA.
The BinarX program sees West Australian students design and prototype science payloads for the Binar cubesat, and then build those projects for launch on-orbit with the Binar Space Program at Curtin University.
Payload concepts will be directed by students and teachers, but might include sensors to study earth and space environment, samples for testing in microgravity, or samples for testing in a vacuum. They may also include a software-only payload running on Binar’s flight computer.
Coordinated by Meg Berry, and funded by Curtin and the WA state government, BinarX currently has 130 students participating in teams from nine high schools across WA.
