news, local-news, andreas antoniades, maitland, space, satellite, space station, education

A Maitland lad is taking his latest business venture into outer space aboard the International Space Station. Andreas Antoniades and his team have set up Obelisk Systems, an aerospace hardware engineering start-up, focusing on miniature satellite hardware for space exploration and scientific experimentation. In layman’s terms the company designs educational hardware for classrooms and universities and its latest project is set to go to the ISS on board the rocket SpaceX Falcon 9. “Our first offering is the Asimov Education Kit, a classroom experiment kit we designed,” Mr Antoniades said. “It has a lot of different sensors and activities the schools learn to program with. This will go to the International Space Station next month. “Schools will get an opportunity to run their experiments in space and then the results are beamed back to earth from the space station for them to play with.” Mr Antoniades and team members Lewis Quill, Luke Hackworth and Levi Weitenberg are all graduates of the University of Newcastle. Mr Antoniades said demand for the product was high from universities, technical institutes and private firms that wished to run experiments in orbit. “The demand is really part of the fact that humanity is recognising the merit in space exploration,” Mr Antoniades said. “Our future is in the stars. We need to understand the universe around us so we can survive and expand.” IT’S BIG: The International Space Station (ISS) is bigger than a football field. The total length, from end to end, is about 109 metres. IT’S FAST: The ISS is moving at 27,745 kilometres an hour. It orbits the Earth every 90 minutes. IT’S EXPENSIVE: At an estimated cost of $100bn dollars, the ISS is the most expensive single object ever built by mankind. IT’S HEAVY: The ISS weighs more than 320 cars. It’s is primarily composed of 15 pressurised modules and four large solar panels. It weighs 420,000 kilograms.

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