Puebla students build nanosatellite to keep Mexico safe from volcanic eruptions

University students successful Puebla person pushed Mexico deeper into the abstraction property with the deployment of a nanosatellite designed to ticker Popocatépetl — the progressive volcano betwixt Mexico City and Puebla — from orbit.  

Gxiba-1, a one-unit CubeSat built by students and professors astatine the Popular Autonomous University of the State of Puebla (UPAEP), was released this week from the Japanese Kibo module of the International Space Station, according to the United Nations Information Service and media reports.

Constructed past year, the outer — associated with the larger Ixtli Mission, successful which Mexico is aiming to deploy 4 different reflection satellites successful coming years — present orbits astir 400 kilometers (250 miles) supra Earth.

Its main ngo is to show the enactment of Popocatépetl, and wouldn’t you cognize it, during the aforesaid week arsenic the deployment, the volcano colloquially known arsenic “El Popo” oregon “Don Goyo,” has been acting up.

Mexico’s National Center for Disaster Prevention (Cenapred) issued a yellowish signifier 2 alert Friday morning, urging the nationalist “not to attack the volcano, particularly the crater, owed to the information of falling incandescent fragments.” 

The bureau reported that determination had been 20 low-intensity plumes, formed by state and ash emissions, successful the erstwhile 24 hours, positive 1 notable 158-minute series of continuous gas-and-ash puffs during that period.

🌋 ¿Ya vieron al #Volcán #Popocatépetl? 😮

Vista #Tinaguismanalco:https://t.co/dAezOGcUxl

Vista #Tlamacas:https://t.co/PB2E9OfrXT

Vista #Altzomoni:https://t.co/Y2QFkGX1Qh

🚦 Alerta Volcánica: #AmarilloFase2.
Radio de exclusión: 12 km. 🚷
Vía: #CENAPRED @CNPC_MX. pic.twitter.com/tFN935HL05

— Webcams de México (@webcamsdemexico) January 28, 2026

At 5,400 meters (17,716 feet) supra oversea level, Popocatépetl ranks arsenic Mexico’s second-highest highest aft Pico de Orizaba.

One of Gxiba-1’s main monitoring jobs is to way ash dispersion from abstraction utilizing a visible-spectrum camera. The information volition beryllium shared with Cenapred to amended aboriginal informing and decision-making successful imaginable exigency situations.  

The task was selected successful the sixth circular of KiboCUBE, a associated programme of the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

As portion of the Access to Space for All inaugural tally by UNOOSA, university-built satellites from Kenya, Guatemala, Mauritius, Moldova, Indonesia and present Mexico person been deployed. Mexico’s outer arrived astatine the International Space Station aboard an H3 rocket launched from Japan.

“Congratulations to UPAEP for this tremendous accomplishment,” UNOOSA Director Aarti Holla-Maini said successful a statement. “Through specified planetary collaboration, our enactment straight supports capableness improvement wherever it is needed and valued.”  

UPAEP said astir 30 to 80 students, backed by teams of professors, led the design, operation and operations, treating the ngo arsenic full-scale engineering alternatively than schoolroom exercise.

The assemblage describes Gxiba-1 arsenic “the culmination of years of effort, dedication, and talent,” and notes it builds connected acquisition from AztechSat-1, its earlier NASA-partnered nanosatellite.

The connection “Gxiba” is reportedly from the Zapotec connection and means “universe” oregon “stars.”

UPAEP Rector (president) Emilio Baños called the ngo “a precise motivating milestone for Mexico” and its aerospace manufacture in a station connected Instagram.

An hour-and-a-half video astir the UPAEP nanosatellite tin beryllium seen connected YouTube; the unrecorded deployment starts astatine the 58-minute mark, but tune successful a spot earlier to drawback the mounting excitement of the Mexican team.

With reports from La Jornada and El Economista