We are excited to announce that we will be inviting WA high schools to apply for the next cohorts of the BinarX Student Payload Development Program 2027 – 2029. Students, supported by members of the Binar Space Program and Perth Aerospace Student Team, will propose a mission and design a payload to be flown into the stratosphere. Using student-built ground stations, students will track the flight in real time, while our experienced balloon team is deployed to recover the payload when it lands. Students will be given their flight data for processing and analysis to complete their mission objectives. Top teams will be invited to further develop their payload for an orbital space mission on board a future P.A.S.T. CubeSat!
WHO CAN APPLY?
There will be no cost to selected students or teachers for participation in the program, thanks to the support of the WA State Government’s Department of Energy and Economic Diversification and Curtin University. Schools will need to support their students and teachers to attend a kick-off event at Curtin University’s Bentley Campus (regional and remote participants will be given the option to join online), as well as the high-altitude balloon launch at the end of the program (location TBD), which are generally conducted between 100-300km outside of the Perth Metro area. Balloon flights can be tracked remotely if schools are unable to travel to the balloon launch location.
The BinarX Student Payload Development Program 2024-2026 mentored West Australian students to design and prototype research payloads (hardware and/or software experiments) for the Binar CubeSat platform, and then build those projects for launch on-orbit with the Binar Space Program at Curtin University.
The program’s pilot phase wrapped up at the end of 2023, and thanks to the efforts of our pilot schools John Curtin College of the Arts and Joseph Banks Secondary College, the program welcomed an additional 7 schools in 2024 and has engaged over 100 year 7-11 high school students.
Payload concepts were selected, developed and built by the students and supported by their teachers and members of the Binar Space Program. In June 2025, those students handed over their payloads which have now been tested and fully integrated into the Binar-5 CubeSat by team at the Binar Space Program as part of the upcoming Binar-567 mission. The satellite was handed over to the team at JAXA’s Tsukuba Space Centre on August 25, 2026. From there, Binar-5, along with Binar-6 and 7 will be launched onboard a SpaceX rocket in Q4 2026 on the CRS NG-25 mission destined for the International Space Station where it will be deployed into orbit from JAXA’s Kibo module and start the operations phase of the mission. The countdown to orbit is on!
During the mission, which is expected to last several months, the student payloads will gather data to fulfill their mission objectives, and using a combination of student-built SatNOGs ground stations and the one built by the Binar Space Program at Curtin University, will track their satellite and receive data from their payloads.
The program follows the same design reviews, milestones and qualification that our own Binar CubeSats go through as we build our spacecraft, and the students and their teachers travelled to Curtin University to present their progress at these key milestones to the engineers, HDRs, academics and professionals at the Binar Space Program team, Space Science and Technology Centre, and WA space industry heavyweights. This has connected those students not only to the knowledge and skills required to get a payload into orbit, but has also provided a direct line of sight from their high school careers up into post-secondary pathways through this pipeline of skill-building and mentorship, connecting them to WA’s growing space sector.
IMAGE: Binar-2, 3 & 4 are deployed into orbit from the ISS. Binar-5 carrying the student payloads are scheduled for deployment in Q4 2026 as part of the Binar-567 mission. Credit: NASA/JAXA
Now entering its 4th year, the BinarX School Holiday Program (SHP), originally designed for Y7-11 students, ran for the first time for Y5-6 students in January 2026 at Curtin’s Bentley campus and for the first time in Regional WA in the July 2026 school holidays at Curtin’s Kalgoorlie Campus. Eager students in years 5 and 6 learned how to build and launch their own payload in a model rocket that they personalised (and got to take home!). The rockets and student-built payloads on-board allow the students to use sensors to explore rocketry, data analysis, and electronics in new and exciting ways, while also learning to communicate that work with impact for a broader audience.
We thank The Fogarty Foundation, WA Government’s Department of Department of Energy and Economic Diversification and the Curtin University School of Earth and Planetary Sciences , Resources Technology Critical Minerals Trailblazer and Curtin University STEM Outreach for making this possible.
We are also developing the BinarX SHP into a micro-credential for teachers wishing to enhance their STEM experience and begin or continue delivery in their classrooms of this out-of-this-world program.
Progress updates, teaching resources, and full instructions on building a payload for the Binar platform are available on the BinarX YouTube page.
If you’re a WA high school student or teacher interested in joining future intakes of the BinarX program, drop us your contact details below, and we will send you any updates on future intakes or other BinarX activities!
