Author Topic: SpaceX Falcon 9 : Spaceflight SSO-A : December 3, 2018 - DISCUSSION  (Read 301029 times)

Online gongora

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Nevada Museum of Art’s ‘Orbital Reflector’ project gets $50K donation
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City National Bank and RBC Wealth Management announced May 14 they provided the Nevada Museum of Art with $50,000 in support of artist Trevor Paglen's Orbital Reflector project, scheduled to launch in October.

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Spaceflight is keeping their customer list confidential this time, but they have made an FCC filing with more detail on the SSO-A payload stack than we've seen before.  Launch period is currently September 30 to October 30.

FCC File Number: SAT-STA-20180523-00042

The mission now has 114 payloads planned.  There will be two free-flying dispenser structures that each deploy multiple satellites, and four more satellites deploying from the base of the stack which stays attached to the second stage of Falcon 9.  The Upper Free Flyer has 12 microsatellites and 46 cubesats.  The Lower Free Flyer (which is exposed after the Upper Free Flyer separates) has 52 cubesats.  The Multi-Payload Carrier (MPC) has 4 microsatellites.  After deploying their payloads, the two dispenser structures (Upper Free Flyer and Lower Free Flyer) will deploy drag sails to decrease their time in orbit.

The SSO-A Request for STA file has most of the information.  The separate ODAR file has a page (20) that was missing from the ODAR appendix in the Request for STA file.

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SWARM filed for another experimental license for their 1U cubesats, launching on SSO-A.  Time to go make some popcorn...

FCC File Number:    0976-EX-ST-2018

Offline whitelancer64

SWARM filed for another experimental license for their 1U cubesats, launching on SSO-A.  Time to go make some popcorn...

FCC File Number:    0976-EX-ST-2018

Are these the smae cubesats that had their license revoked after their unauthorized launch?
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SWARM filed for another experimental license for their 1U cubesats, launching on SSO-A.  Time to go make some popcorn...

FCC File Number:    0976-EX-ST-2018

Are these the smae cubesats that had their license revoked after their unauthorized launch?

Yep.

Offline jcm

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SWARM filed for another experimental license for their 1U cubesats, launching on SSO-A.  Time to go make some popcorn...

FCC File Number:    0976-EX-ST-2018

Are these the smae cubesats that had their license revoked after their unauthorized launch?

Yep.

Except that the unauthorized ones were 1/4 U tablets, these ones are 1U cubes - interesting change.
Also appears that each one has a different mass 0.4, 0.7, 0.9 kg
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Offline Skyrocket

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SWARM filed for another experimental license for their 1U cubesats, launching on SSO-A.  Time to go make some popcorn...

FCC File Number:    0976-EX-ST-2018

Are these the smae cubesats that had their license revoked after their unauthorized launch?

Yep.

Except that the unauthorized ones were 1/4 U tablets, these ones are 1U cubes - interesting change.
Also appears that each one has a different mass 0.4, 0.7, 0.9 kg

Those, were the authorization was revoked after the issues with the 0.25U versions, were the four 1U cubesats, which were to be launched on the first operational Electron.

http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/spacebee-5.htm

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SWARM filed for another experimental license for their 1U cubesats, launching on SSO-A.  Time to go make some popcorn...

FCC File Number:    0976-EX-ST-2018

Are these the smae cubesats that had their license revoked after their unauthorized launch?

Yep.

Except that the unauthorized ones were 1/4 U tablets, these ones are 1U cubes - interesting change.
Also appears that each one has a different mass 0.4, 0.7, 0.9 kg

The one that was canceled is 0026-EX-ST-2018.  As Gunter noted it was four of the 1U cubesats on Electron.  It looks like the new application is for 3 of those sats.

edit:  It says they vary the mass to help the sats separate from each other in orbit.
« Last Edit: 06/08/2018 12:50 am by gongora »

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The one that was canceled is 0026-EX-ST-2018.  As Gunter noted it was four of the 1U cubesats on Electron.  It looks like the new application is for 3 of those sats.

The new app mentions Spacebee 9, 10 and 11 so I guess they are new sats, with 5 to 8 still waiting for a ride
« Last Edit: 06/17/2018 06:06 pm by gongora »
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Quote from: gongora
The one that was canceled is 0026-EX-ST-2018.  As Gunter noted it was four of the 1U cubesats on Electron.  It looks like the new application is for 3 of those sats.
 

The new app mentions Spacebee 9, 10 and 11 so I guess they are new sats, with 5 to 8 still waiting for a ride

Hmmm, I didn't read that far :)  (Got distracted looking at Theia, which could be interesting.)

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EAGLET-1 (Italy)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325152032_NANOSATELLITE_EAGLET-1_READY_FOR_LAUNCH
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The first OHB nanosatellite for Earth Observation has reached its final testing stage and is ready for launch, with Space Flight, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, during August 2018. Eaglet is a 3U+ satellite with 5m panchromatic resolution capabilities, using a 300-mm focal length telescope with an aperture of 85 mm. The overall mass is less than 5 kg. The satellite has a precise attitude control system based on Earth, Sun, Star Tracker and GPS sensors. The attitude control system makes use of reaction wheel and utilizes magneto-torquers for their desaturation. In addition to the EO mission, Eaglet shall embark an AIS payload. The Eaglet QM has undergone thermal vacuum tests at the end of 2017 and vibration test in early 2018, showing full compliance with the specification.



Successful IMDC launch sequencer testing
By Andra
 April 26, 2018
Innovative Solutions In Space (ISIS) and a dedicated team from Innovative Space Logistics (ISL) are looking back on a successful and valuable trip to the US last week related to its iMDC – ISIS Modular Deployment Controller. During this trip, the compatibility of mechanical and electrical interfaces of the iMDC with the corresponding Launch Vehicle subsystems was verified, as well as the various functionalities of the iMDC.

This sequencer, which already has 100% successful flight heritage on several launch vehicles, will be used in the upcoming ISL20 mission manifested on a SpaceX Falcon 9 later in 2018. On this same mission, more ISIS products will be implemented, such as ISIS’ deployers, including a plethora of type of the venerable QuadPack and its derivative the DuoPack.



Astrocast

Astrocast adds $1.1 million to seed round
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Spokesperson Julie Fornaro told SpaceNews the first two satellites are launching one on a SpaceX Falcon 9 and another on an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, both next year.






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Spaceflight posted another blog entry on their website (thanks to Reddit user Straumli_Blight for noticing it.)

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[Spaceflight: June 13, 2018] TESTING IS IN FULL SWING FOR SSO-A MISSION
By Hilary Meyerson

We’re deep in the process of testing for our upcoming SSO-A mission at our Auburn integration facility. Adam Hadaller, our lead integration engineer, gave us a run down of some of the preparations. To support the requirements of this mission, we actually built out a new facility, which includes a new certified ISO 8 cleanroom (<100,000 0.5µm particles/ft3), a 3-ton bridge crane to move manipulate hardware and integrate dozens of discrete spacecraft. The cleanroom has an airlock for moving hardware in and out, a gowning room, and an electrostatic dissipative floor. The air is constantly being scrubbed by filters and its conditions are controlled to keep humidity and temperature within required levels. At our facility we also have a portable cleanroom tent capable of ISO 7 (<10,000 0.5µm particles/ft3) for smaller integration work, such as CubeSat-to-dispenser integration . We’ve also built a lab for bench testing, so we can test new software/firmware on non-flight hardware before we test it on the flight hardware in the cleanroom environment.

We conduct many layers of avionics testing, over the life of the program, from bench-level testing to full system-level, to make sure our on-orbit deployment platforms, which we call Upper Free Flyer and Lower Free Flyer, are ready for customer payload integration, flight, and eventual operations. Initially, we check out all hardware received from vendors, to make sure it was built up to specifications. Then we bring in our software, getting more complicated at each step, until we are finally running the actual mission scripts that will run during launch. The final tests look at the entire mission duration, from going to internal power on the launch pad, the moment of separation from the launch vehicle, through our on-orbit passes over our ground stations. The Mission Simulation Tests can last as much as 16 hours. During those tests we simulate data collection and dissemination, sending those data to our mission management team who will eventually send those data to our customers, so they can locate and communicate with their spacecraft.

Thorough testing keeps us on our toes. Sometimes, we get a part that isn’t manufactured up to our specifications, and we need to send it back. Often times with a mission as large as this, our customer manifest changes, because a customer is no longer ready to launch. Luckily we have a large backlog of customers ready to take their place, and we can move someone else up because Spaceflight works to have a large and diverse launch capacity. However, customer manifest changes mean potential changes to harnesses, mission sequences, etc., which we must rigorously test.

All our tests are geared to incrementally build on previous tests to give us the most confidence we can have in the Upper and Lower Free Flyers to operate successfully on orbit. We’re looking forward to finishing up this phase before we move on to spacecraft integration.

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Spaceflight posted another blog entry on their website (thanks to Reddit user Straumli_Blight for noticing it.)

Online gongora

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Hmmmm....

File No.:  0469-EX-CN-2018
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The overall goal of the WeissSat-1 mission, is to establish The Weiss School hardware heritage
based on the NearSpace Launch FastBus by collecting inflight telemetry and validating a novel labon-a-chip
for investigating extremophile bacteria viability in space.

The satellite will be launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, from Vandenberg AFB, California,
no earlier than December 1, 2018. It will be inserted into an orbit approximately 575 km apogee
and perigee, on an inclination from the equator of 97.7 degrees.

edit:  It doesn't explicitly say this is on SSO-A, but I'm not sure what other flight on the near-term manifest would be carrying cubesats to SSO.
« Last Edit: 07/17/2018 09:15 pm by gongora »

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[Manufacturers' Monthly] Fleet Space Technologies unveils partners for first two nanosatellite launches
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Australian Internet of Things (IoT) startup, Fleet Space Technologies, has today announced launch plans for its first two nanosatellites, Centauri I and II, in 2018.

...the first of its nanosatellites is under contract to launch with Spaceflight aboard an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) by Antrix/ISRO.

... second nanosatellite will launch on Spaceflight’s SSO-A mission;

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Novawurks/DARPA eXCITe with Raytheon SeeMe (originally scheduled on the canceled SHERPA flight).

Raytheon SeeMe (launches attached to eXCITe)
Call Sign WH2XYX
0540-EX-PL-2015
0089-EX-ML-2016
0215-EX-CM-2017
0209-EX-CR-2018

Quote
This application is for renewed authorization for the launch and operation of a micro-satellite
that incorporates a number of commercial-off-the-shelf technologies to prove a concept of how
one could build and quickly launch an inexpensive satellite to address short-term, immediate
imaging needs. The launch has been delayed, so that this filing is needed to keep Raytheon
authorized for when it may finally be able to launch.

1. Launch Schedule:
Currently, the satellite launch is scheduled for October to November 2018, depending on
delivery of the space vehicle, weather, and other factors that are not in the control of the
applicant.
2. Launch vehicle source:
SpaceX SSA space vehicle

27kg

http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/seeme.htm
http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/excite.htm
http://www.novawurks.com/applications/darpa-seeme-program/
https://spacenews.com/satlets-crazy-idea-or-ingenious-concept-this-weeks-test-on-iss-will-offer-clues/
https://www.raytheon.com/news/feature/small_satellites
« Last Edit: 07/13/2018 05:07 am by gongora »

Offline Skyrocket

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Hmmmm....

File No.:  0469-EX-CN-2018
Quote
The overall goal of the WeissSat-1 mission, is to establish The Weiss School hardware heritage
based on the NearSpace Launch FastBus by collecting inflight telemetry and validating a novel labon-a-chip
for investigating extremophile bacteria viability in space.

The satellite will be launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, from Vandenberg AFB, California,
no earlier than December 1, 2018. It will be inserted into an orbit approximately 575 km apogee
and perigee, on an inclination from the equator of 97.7 degrees.

edit:  It doesn't explicitly say this is on SSO-A, but I'm not sure what other flight on the near-term manifest would be carrying cubesats to SSO.

Weisssat-1, as well as Irvine 02, are confirmed to be on SSO-A on NASA's ElANa update

https://www.nasa.gov/content/elana-missions-scheduled/

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IRVINE02 (1U cubesat) - 0254-EX-CN-2018

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Mission description: IRVINE02 will be dispensed from a PPOD 3U CubeSat dispenser into an
estimated orbit of 500 km Apogee and 500 km Perigee with an inclination of 97 degrees. The
mission is expected to remain in orbit for a maximum of up to 4.923 years. During this time, the
main payload will communicate using laser diodes. IRVINE02 will also continue taking pictures
of celestial objects (focusing primarily on Venus) where they will be sent to the ground station,
where they will be used for educational purposes. Other data will be collected using sun sensors,
GPS, and other necessary equipment. In addition, magnetorquers will be used for attitude
control, and solar panels will be used for power.
...
Description of all propulsion systems (cold gas, monopropellant, bipropellant, electric,
nuclear): There is an electric thruster (one Accion Systems TILE-50) and there will be 3
magnetorquers on board, to adjust the orientation and heading of the cubesat.

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Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics  14 hrs · Facebook

MinXSS-2 getting prepped for delivery

The second LASP-built Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer CubeSat (MinXSS-2) is just two weeks from its scheduled August 2 delivery to Spaceflight Industries in Seattle, WA.

MinXSS-2 is slated to be shipped to Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, where it will launch—with a stack of satellites heading into a Sun-synchronous polar orbit—on Spaceflight’s SSO-A rideshare mission. The mission will launch small payloads for nearly 50 government and commercial organizations from 16 countries, including the United States, Australia, Finland, Germany, Singapore, and Thailand.

The SSO-A rideshare mission is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon-9 from Vandenberg Air Force Station in late September or early October.

Prior to shipment, the MinXSS team of University of Colorado Boulder students and LASP professionals have a lot of work to do.

Read more about plans for the next two weeks, here: http://bit.ly/MinXSS-2_0718.
Best quote heard during an inspection, "I was unaware that I was the only one who was aware."

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