University students in Puebla have pushed Mexico deeper into the space age with the deployment of a nanosatellite designed to watch Popocatépetl — the active volcano between Mexico City and Puebla — from orbit.
Gxiba-1, a one-unit CubeSat built by students and professors at 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 last year, the satellite — associated with the larger Ixtli Mission, in which Mexico is aiming to deploy four other observation satellites in coming years — now orbits about 400 kilometers (250 miles) above Earth.
Its main mission is to monitor the activity of Popocatépetl, and wouldn’t you know it, during the same week as the deployment, the volcano colloquially known as “El Popo” or “Don Goyo,” has been acting up.
Mexico’s National Center for Disaster Prevention (Cenapred) issued a yellow phase 2 alert Friday morning, urging the public “not to approach the volcano, especially the crater, due to the danger of falling incandescent fragments.”
The agency reported that there had been 20 low-intensity plumes, formed by gas and ash emissions, in the previous 24 hours, plus one notable 158-minute sequence of continuous gas-and-ash puffs during that period.
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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) above sea level, Popocatépetl ranks as Mexico’s second-highest peak after Pico de Orizaba.
One of Gxiba-1’s main monitoring jobs is to track ash dispersion from space using a visible-spectrum camera. The data will be shared with Cenapred to improve early warning and decision-making in potential emergency situations.
The project was selected in the sixth round of KiboCUBE, a joint program of the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
As part of the Access to Space for All initiative run by UNOOSA, university-built satellites from Kenya, Guatemala, Mauritius, Moldova, Indonesia and now Mexico have been deployed. Mexico’s satellite arrived at the International Space Station aboard an H3 rocket launched from Japan.
“Congratulations to UPAEP for this tremendous accomplishment,” UNOOSA Director Aarti Holla-Maini said in a statement. “Through such international collaboration, our work directly supports capacity development where it is needed and valued.”
UPAEP said roughly 30 to 80 students, backed by teams of professors, led the design, construction and operations, treating the mission as full-scale engineering rather than classroom exercise.
The university describes Gxiba-1 as “the culmination of years of effort, dedication, and talent,” and notes it builds on experience from AztechSat-1, its earlier NASA-partnered nanosatellite.
The word “Gxiba” is reportedly from the Zapotec language and means “universe” or “stars.”
UPAEP Rector (president) Emilio Baños called the mission “a very motivating milestone for Mexico” and its aerospace industry in a post on Instagram.
An hour-and-a-half video about the UPAEP nanosatellite can be seen on YouTube; the live deployment starts at the 58-minute mark, but tune in a bit earlier to catch the mounting excitement of the Mexican team.
With reports from La Jornada and El Economista
