ESA’s Young Professionals Satellite, YPSat, being checked out in a cleanroom at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, in preparation for the inaugural launch of Ariane 6, coming soon.

YPSat is a project run in its entirety by ESA Young Professionals to give them direct early experience in designing, building and testing hardware for space. Equipped with cameras – seen here at the top of the payload – a quantum-based magnetic sensor and an amateur radio unit, YPSat’s goal is to capture all the key phases of Ariane 6's first flight.

Members of the YPSat team arrived in French Guiana a week ago to begin an integration process including a battery health check, and various checks to ensure the nominal functionality of all systems. After that the YPSat payload will be bolted to the Ariane 6 launch adapter.

Seen here are Katrin Geigenberger and Martin Nenkov of the YPSat team. Follow further updates on YPSat’s progress via the team’s LinkedIn.

Ariane 6’s first attempt for launch will happen within the first two weeks of July 2024.