Falcon 9’s first stage booster previously supported launch of Crew Dragon’s second demonstration mission, the ANASIS-II mission, a Starlink mission, and launch of Dragon’s 21st cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. Following stage separation, SpaceX will land Falcon 9’s first stage on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.On board this launch are 133 commercial and government spacecraft (including CubeSats, microsats, and orbital transfer vehicles) and 10 Starlink satellites – the most spacecraft ever deployed on a single mission. The Starlink satellites aboard this mission will be the first in the constellation to deploy to a polar orbit.
It seems Momentus moved their payload from a Starlink rideshare to the December SSO rideshare.Aurora to test deorbit tether on Momentus missionQuoteFinnish startup Aurora Propulsion Technologies signed a contract at the SmallSat Symposium to fly a deorbiting technology demonstration on a Momentus Space Vigoride mission.Aurora plans to send a 1.5-unit cubesat into orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in December 2020 before riding with Momentus’ Vigoride service to sun-synchronous orbit.
Finnish startup Aurora Propulsion Technologies signed a contract at the SmallSat Symposium to fly a deorbiting technology demonstration on a Momentus Space Vigoride mission.Aurora plans to send a 1.5-unit cubesat into orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in December 2020 before riding with Momentus’ Vigoride service to sun-synchronous orbit.
Nanoracks, the world’s leading commercial space station company, has booked a launch mission like no other, leveraging the recently announced SpaceX Rideshare program. Onboard a Falcon 9, targeting launch in late 2020, Nanoracks has booked deployment of eight small satellites as well as the Company’s first in-space Outpost-demonstration mission.
If a MicroSat is what you are looking for – we have you covered up to 175kilograms.
Exolaunch says it has procured capacity on SpaceX's first Falcon 9 rideshare mission, due to launch no earlier than December, 2020. The German company's adapter is designed to accommodate multiple microsats and cubesats on a single Falcon 9 ESPA port.
Swarm Technologies has struck an agreement with California-based Momentus for the launch of a dozen telecommunication satellites, each the size of a slice of bread, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in December.
The December rideshare mission is the first of a series that Momentum plans to execute for Swarm, continuing into 2021 and 2022. Swarm plans to have 150 satellites launched over the next couple of years for a communication network in low Earth orbit.
The first 12 SpaceBee satellites covered by the agreement announced today will be deployed into orbit from the Falcon 9. The inch-thick satellites fit into a 3U CubeSat deployer that’s about the size of a large loaf of bread.
R2 Space was founded in 2018 in order to provide cutting-edge commercial satellite technology to address the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance needs of the United States Government (“USG”). R2 Space plans to launch and operate eight XR satellites over a series of launches. The XR-1 satellite will be the first deployment of the XR constellation with an anticipated launch date of December 16, 2020. R2 Space plans to launch the XR-1 satellite using the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, which will be launched out of the Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc, California. The XR-1 satellite is projected to be in a Sun-Synchronous Orbit (“SSO”) and have an operational altitude of 550 kilometers with a 97.7-degree inclination angle. All of the XR satellites are expected to be identical. Each XR satellite has a stowed form profile measuring 0.66 x 0.51 x 0.40 meters, with a total mass of 90 kilograms (85 kilograms dry mass).
Additional XR satellites will be launched subsequently thereafter. R2 Space will provide details regarding the follow-on XR satellite launches when such information becomes available and prior to launch. R2 Space has identified Falcon 9 and Electron as two potential launch vehicles for the subsequent XR satellite launches. The Falcon 9 vehicle would be launched out of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida or the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The Electron vehicle would be launched out of the Rocket Lab facility in Wallops Island, Virginia.
Satellite builder Alba Orbital and propulsion company Momentus signed a contract to launch as many as 10 "PocketQube" satellites on a SpaceX Falcon 9 dedicated rideshare mission in December 2020.
Momentus, provider of in-space transportation services for satellites, and Alba Orbital, builder and designer of the world's smallest commercial satellite platforms, today announced a contract for three Alba Albapods to ride on plaza deck of the Falcon 9 vehicle, which will launch in December 2020 from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.Alba Orbital is actively working with customers to launch clusters to their mission requirements via PocketQube deployers suitable for 1p, 1.5p, 2p or 3p PocketQube format satellites. A PocketQube is a type of miniaturized satellite for space research that usually has a size of 5 cm cubed (one eighth the volume of a CubeSat), has a mass of no more than 250 grams per unit or 'p'.Alba Orbital’s PocketQube satellites are integrated into the Albapod deployers and mounted alongside Vigoride onto the ESPA Grande ring interface provided by SpaceX on their dedicated rideshare missions. Momentus is enabling Alba Orbital to have a regular launch cadence and mission flexibility in the future to ensure drop off orbital altitudes where their customers need it.Based in both Glasgow, Scotland, and Berlin, Germany, Alba Orbital wants to get more people building and launching their own satellites by democratizing access to space via the PocketQube standard. They provide a hub of support for PocketQube satellites, by not only building their own platforms, but ground stations and launch services to companies, universities and space agencies around the world. Momentus’ flexible shuttle service is a perfect complement to Alba’s offering.“We are very excited to be partnering with Momentus on their first rideshare mission in December where we plan to deploy a record number of PocketQubes in orbit,” said Tom Walkinshaw, CEO and Founder of Alba Orbital. “The flexibility which Momentus offers enables access to proven rocket platforms, increasing our mission reliability and performance.”“Alba Orbital is a key partner for Momentus, enabling Alba Orbital to service PocketQube customers with demonstration missions in form factors even smaller than cubesats,” said Mikhail Kokorich, CEO of Momentus. “We look forward to launching 10 PocketQubes in December as well as many more in the near future.”A graduate of the prestigious Y Combinator program and based in Santa Clara, California, Momentus announced a $25.5MM Series A raise last year, bringing total funding to nearly $50M. Momentus employs new and proprietary technologies, including water plasma propulsion to enable revolutionary low cost orbital shuttle and charter services. The prototype of the Vigoride vehicle, “El Camino Real”, was launched and tested last year. The first full-scale Vigoride test mission is planned for Q4 of 2020 on the SpaceX dedicated rideshare mission.About MomentusMomentus is the first company providing in-space transportation services for satellites. The company was founded in 2017 in Santa Clara, CA. Momentus designs and builds transfer vehicles propelled by proprietary water plasma thrusters. The vehicles ferry satellites to a custom orbit after they are delivered by conventional rockets to their initial orbit. Momentus is a 60 person team growing rapidly.For more information visit http://www.momentus.spaceAbout Alba OrbitalAlba Orbital is the world’s leading PocketQube satellite manufacturer and launch broker. The company was founded in 2012 in Glasgow, Scotland and recently opened its second office in Berlin, Germany. To date, Alba launch has successfully deployed 6 PocketQube satellites into orbit including the Unicorn-2 platform. Unicorn-2 is the world's most capable Picosat by specification. Albaconnect, a ground station service developed by Alba, completes the full end-to-end service to newspace users and operators. Alba has 20+ customers on 3 continents.
General Atomics-EMS(2) A general description of the system:The purpose of the Laser Interconnect & Networking Communications System (LINCS) experiment is to evaluate a pair of SWIR cameras and focal plane and to flight qualify our high data-rate laser communication terminals. To expand, General Atomics Electromagnetics (GA-EMS) has developed a free space optical laser communication terminal (LCT) for space applications. The system operates at 1550 nm and utilizes on-off keying (OOK) to support a data rate of up to 5Gbps. The amplifier, based on a GA-EMS, TRL9 system for airborne applications, has been redesigned for space applications and is currently TRL6 based on a T-VAC test conducted in 2018. The system utilizes a software defined On-Off Keying (OOK) modulation scheme that can change between non-return to zero (NRZ) and return to zero (RZ) to support various cross-link distances. Although many modulation schemes are available, OOK was chosen for maximum compatibility with lasercomm terminals and will allow it to connect to non-GA-EMS terminals to include the NASA Lasercomm Relay Demonstration (LCRD) to be launched in 2021. Additionally, the LCT uses a novel acquisition scheme that enables rapid acquisition and connection even when the bus level pointing accuracy is in excess of 350 μrad. This results in a bus agnostic LCT architecture that can be used on multiple missions without necessitating extensive redesign and qualification. These capabilities will be validated on the LINCS mission.GA-EMS is also launching a SWIR camera on the same platform that will allow a number of imaging experiments to include stereo viewing (18 degrees of parallax) from separate satellites, dual imaging (for super resolution) and spectral fusion.GA-EMS is launching these cubesats as a rideshare with a Launch Readiness Date (LRD) of December 2020 and will conduct experiments in 2021 and 2022.The anticipated insertion orbit is 550Km in Apogee and 550km in Perigee with an inclination angle of 97.6 degrees. The orbital period is approximately 95 minutes.
Hmmmm, a rideshare flight to 550km SSO in December, what could it be...
Quote from: gongora on 05/19/2020 03:43 amHmmmm, a rideshare flight to 550km SSO in December, what could it be...What surprises me is the insertion orbit. 550km circular means that these cubesats will piggyback on starlink sats until in their final orbit, instead of deploying before/during/after the starlink sats have been yeeted from the second stage.Maybe they won't even detach from the starlink sats they're piggybacking on, and use them as a real-world scenario for testing this technology.
I think this is a dedicated SSO launch. Starlink doesn't go to SSO.
This isn't a Starlink flight.
