Read more about the payloads permitted

56 payloads have been permitted up to 30 June 2020. Of these, 27 have been for commercial organisations, 16 for government organisations, 11 for Academic institutions and 2 for non-profits

Payload purposes

The following summarise some of the approved payload purposes for science (7), technology demonstration (34), remote sensing (12), educational (10) and other commercial (2).

Science

Some examples of scientific payloads that have been launched from New Zealand include:

collecting data from space to investigate whether there is a link between with atmospheric activity and tectonic activity on Earth;

conducting space weather experiments; and

collecting radio signals from outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

Technology demonstration

Some examples of technology demonstration payloads that have been launched from New Zealand include:

demonstrating audio, video and data file transfer capabilities between ground facilities and the payloads;

providing calibration points for ground based radar to assist with the tracking of orbital debris; and

testing efficient battery charging in an orbital environment.

Remote Sensing

New Zealand has launched commercial payloads, such as those that have remote sensing capabilities, which are owned by the United States, France, and Singapore. Remote sensing includes observing the Earth from their respective satellites and providing these images to their customers. Payload missions that New Zealand has launched include satellites gaining real-time images and maritime traffic tracking.

Educational

There are a range of educational missions that we have approved payloads for; this includes for students in Mexico, Australia and several US academic institutions who have developed and built CubeSats that we launched in New Zealand. Some of their missions encapsulate research and development and remote sensing purposes and include:

conducting digital image processing and software improvement experiments as part of their study

broadcasting Morse Code messages across the world on amateur radio frequencies. Students around the world will be able to receive these messages

collecting and recording data on the radiation present in low Earth Orbit

taking photos of the Earth, Moon and Venus with the integrated camera.

Other commercial

Commercial organisations put up a variety of payloads for different purposes including science, remote sensing and technology demonstration and educational. Other commercial purposes which do not fit into these categories include:

Creating artificial meteor showers; and

Providing commercial data connectivity services through providing low-power and low-data rate VHF communications between Earth and Space.

Payload sizes

New Zealand generally launches small satellites, and CubeSats in particular. Note that some permits in this graph are for more than one satellite but are considered as part of one payload. Most of the satellites are at a nanosatellite size (59), followed by picosatellites (18), microsatellites (7) and minisatellites (1). These sizes are defined further below: