An Adelaide-built satellite is bound for the International Space Station where it will play a key role in studying the upper reaches of earth's atmosphere.
The CubeSat miniaturised satellite is the work of 50 University of Adelaide students and staff, and will join a network of 50 similar satellites to be deployed into the thermosphere, the layer of the atmosphere between 95 and 500 kilometres from the earth.
The satellite blasted into space on board a NASA Atlas V rocket early on Wednesday morning, with the rocket scheduled to dock with the space station on Saturday.
It will be deployed in about a month, to take measurements to help understand the thermosphere's relationship to other levels of the atmosphere and its impact on the earth's climate.
Data will be collected up to three times per day through the University of South Australia's Institute for Telecommunications ground station at Mawson Lakes.
"The launch of a South Australian-made satellite is a remarkable achievement which will provide information that will be used by climate researchers around the world," the state's Science Minister Kyam Maher said.
University of Adelaide research fellow Matthew Tetlow said the SA satellite would play an important part in climate research.
"The whole project has been an invaluable and unique experience for the many students who have worked on it," Dr Tetlow said.
"It's not everyday student engineers get to help build a satellite to be launched by NASA."
The satellite was one of three Australian 'cubesats' onboard the rocket that launched from Cape Canaveral Airforce Station in Florida.
The development of the two other satellites were each led by the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales.
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