Turkish CubeSat team wins satellite contest in US

ZONGULDAK – Demirören News Agency

Turkish space team Grizu 263, which produced and orbited Türkiye’s first CubeSat, has become the world champion in an international satellite design contest held in the U.S.

“This success will serve as a model for the [students of the] Anatolian universities. It is proof that Turkish youngsters can achieve great goals,” Bülent Emekçi, the team coordinator said.

Grizu 263 consists of students from the Bülent Ecevit University located in the northern province of Zonguldak.

The team, which is named after 263 miners who lost their lives in a mining accident in 1992 in Zonguldak, is mostly known for a 5x5x5 cubic satellite sent to space on Jan. 13 with a rocket from the U.S. billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX firm. The CubeSat takes space photos and sends it to the team’s center inside the university compound.

The space team is now back to the country’s agenda for being first in CanSat, a model satellite contest held in the U.S.

The jury of the Virginia-based contest declared Grizu 263 the winner with 99.46 points out of 100, for their new model design satellite, 40 centimeters in length and 12 centimeters at diameter.

The unnamed model satellite is said to take space photos and communicate with and inform the International Space Station about location, slope and pressure.

Emekçi is a professor from the Zonguldak university, coordinating the team since 2016.

“We took this journey six years ago together with the ambitious university students,” he said and added: “We faced many difficulties. However, we overcame them all and started competing with the world.”

Thanking the team members, the professor noted, “They made our university’s name famous across the globe with their successes.”

Zonguldak is a Black Sea coastal province, but mostly known for mines.

“We need to break the taboos,” he said, adding that the technological success the Anatolian university has achieved has become a role model for all other Anatolian universities.

“With the right strategies, all students may walk tech-paths. In the name of all Anatolian universities, the team’s latest success has been a model for all,” he stated.

The expert also promised that “the Zonguldak story, lying between the dark mines and the space abyss, will continue with full force.”

Fatih Demircioğlu, a mechanical engineering faculty student, talked to media about the latest championship on behalf of of team.

“We worked 24/7 for the last eight months. Finally, we ranked first [in CanSat] with a high point gap,” Demircioğlu noted.