More CubeSats to ride Orbital’s Cygnus

Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., is preparing its first commercial resupply journey after completion of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.

 

The Orbital-1 mission’s Antares rocket is planned to launch Jan. 8, 2014, from Wallops Flight Facility in eastern Virginia (weather permitting). Antares is scheduled to deliver the Cygnus spacecraft full of new research investigations, supplies and other space station hardware to the space station on Jan. 12.

 

Onboard, among the science packages, are small, relatively inexpensive satellites, collectively referred to as CubeSats. These CubeSats will test their capabilities in orbit after being deployed from the International Space Station.

 

The CubeSats will provide a variety of technology demonstrations using the NanoRacks Smallsat Deployment Program to launch the satellites from the station’s Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) airlock. The NanoRacks CubeSats are deployed using the JEM Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (J-SSOD).

 

Using crowdsourcing methods for funding, the NanoRacks-ArduSat-2 investigation will test advanced electronics and hardware in the space environment with only minimal adaptation. Built and operated by NanoSatisfi of San Francisco, Calif., sensors on the NanoRacks-ArduSat-2 are set to determine potential commercial applications for CubeSat data collection and commercial off-the-shelf electronics. Testing these sensors through this mini-satellite format may contribute to technological information that helps lower the cost of applications that use low-Earth observation techniques.

 

Another small satellite investigation, the NanoRacks-Planet Labs–Dove Flock-1, will use a fleet of 28 CubeSats – individually known as the Dove satellites – to capture imagery of Earth for use in humanitarian and environmental applications. Built and operated by Planet Labs Inc. of San Francisco, imagery from these CubeSats will help pinpoint areas for disaster relief and improving growth of agricultural products in developing countries around the globe. In addition, information from the Dove CubeSats will focus on environmental protection measures, such as monitoring deforestation and changes to polar ice caps. The data collected by Planet Labs' CubeSats will be freely available for anyone to use.

 

A third example of some of the CubeSats launching with the Orbital-1 mission is the NanoRacks-SkyCube, developed by Southern Stars Group LLC of San Francisco. NanoRacks-SkyCube will provide an educational demonstration of the capabilities of CubeSats. To get the attention of the public, NanoRacks-Skycube will tweet from space via Twitter, capture imagery in orbit, and use a balloon during its de-orbit and reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.