{"id":13470,"date":"2018-12-03T21:19:03","date_gmt":"2018-12-03T13:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spaceflights-64-satellite-rideshare-mission-set-to-last-five-hours\/"},"modified":"2018-12-03T21:19:03","modified_gmt":"2018-12-03T13:19:03","slug":"spaceflights-64-satellite-rideshare-mission-set-to-last-five-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spaceflights-64-satellite-rideshare-mission-set-to-last-five-hours\/","title":{"rendered":"Spaceflight\u2019s 64-satellite rideshare mission set to last five hours"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>EDITOR\u2019S NOTE: The&nbsp;Falcon 9 rocket launched on the SSO-A mission at 10:34:05 a.m. PST (1:34:05 p.m. EST; 1834:05 GMT) Monday, Dec. 3. Story&nbsp;updated at 4 p.m. EST (2100 GMT) to remove ROSE 1 from the payload list.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ls7z7CWmoC8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Video credit: Spaceflight Industries<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>When SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket takes off with 64 small satellites \u2014 a payload cache representing 34 customers in 17 nations \u2014 it will be just the first act in a nearly five-hour sequence to deftly deploy each of the spacecraft, which range in size from a Rubik\u2019s cube to a refrigerator.<\/p>\n<p>The mission, dubbed SSO-A SmallSat Express, is set for takeoff aboard a Falcon 9 rocket at 10:31:47 a.m. PST (1:31:47 p.m. EST; 1831:47 GMT) Monday from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.<\/p>\n<p>The multi-payload rideshare mission was arranged by Spaceflight, based near Seattle, a company specializing in securing launch bookings for small satellite operators. Spaceflight has booked satellite launches on Antares, Dnepr, PSLV, Soyuz and Vega missions, but the company had never purchased the full capacity of a rocket until announcing plans for the SSO-A rideshare mission in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the satellites on the SSO-A mission, which includes 15 microsatellites and 49 CubeSats, were installed on two free flyers at Spaceflight\u2019s facility in Auburn, Washington, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>The deployment structure developed by Spaceflight consists of two hubs \u2014 an upper and a lower free flyer \u2014 carrying satellites and CubeSat dispensers. Both free flyers will separate from the Falcon 9 rocket once it enters a polar, sun-synchronous orbit around 357 miles (575 kilometers) above Earth.<\/p>\n<p>Curt Blake, president of Spaceflight, said the free flyers are based on Spaceflight\u2019s Sherpa space tug, which the company intended to launch for the first time on a Falcon 9 flight shared with Taiwan\u2019s Formosat 5 Earth observation satellite. But delays in Formosat 5\u2019s launch, caused in part by a Falcon 9 rocket explosion on a launch pad in 2016, prompted Spaceflight to cancel the mission and find alternative launch opportunities for the smallsats reserved on the Sherpa flight.<\/p>\n<p>The Formosat 5 mission finally launched last August.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGenerically, we call it the Sherpa,\u201d Blake said of the SSO-A mission in an interview with Spaceflight Now earlier this month. \u201cBut it is actually more than one hub. There\u2019s an upper free flyer and and a lower free flyer. There\u2019s a lot of spacecraft on each of those. It\u2019s kind of a combination stack.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A few of the larger passengers on the SSO-A mission were shipped directly to the Falcon 9 launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where technicians mated them to the free flyers. In addition to the 60 payloads on the free flyers, four microsatellites are attached directly to the Falcon 9\u2019s second stage, which will command their separation after arriving in orbit.<\/p>\n<p>The entire payload stack riding into orbit on the Falcon 9 rocket will weigh around 4 metric tons \u2014 nearly 9,000 pounds \u2014 at the time of launch.&nbsp;Once in orbit around minutes after liftoff, the Sherpa modules, or free flyers, will release from the rocket and begin releasing the smallsats.<\/p>\n<p>Both free flyers and the four microsatellites attached to the Falcon 9\u2019s second stage will be released in orbit by the T+plus 43-minute point in the mission, but Spaceflight\u2019s deployment module\u2019s themselves will continue on, using on-board batteries to power avionics and issue commands to release the separate the 60 spacecraft.<\/p>\n<p>The exact sequence of the satellite separation maneuvers is considered proprietary by Spaceflight, but mission managers said each deployment is timed approximately every six minutes, with the final payload set for separation around 4 hours, 45 minutes, after liftoff \u2014 approximately 3:16 p.m. PST (6:16 p.m. EST; 2316 GMT), assuming an on-time launch.<\/p>\n<p>It will then take another hour or so for Spaceflight to confirm all the satellites have separated, once the free flyers pass over a ground station to enable communications. There are no on-board cameras on either free flyer, according to Spaceflight, but SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket is expected to provide live video as the Sherpa modules separate from the rocket, and show release of the four microsatellites directly attached to the second stage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve developed a deployment sequence that\u2019s based off a high-fidelity analysis that we did specifically to make sure our customers don\u2019t collide into each other upon deployment, so we\u2019re taking our time,\u201d said Jeff Roberts, Spaceflight\u2019s SSO-A mission manager, said in an interview with Spaceflight Now. \u201cWe make sure that we phase that to maximize the distance in separation between all of our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That should help the U.S. military, which tracks objects in orbit, more quickly identify the satellites released on the SSO-A mission, an issue that has caused headaches in the past.<\/p>\n<p>The free flyers will operate as independent spacecraft themselves, with their own computers, electronics and batteries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe refer to them as free flyers because that\u2019s exactly what they are. There is no propulsion system on-board. They just simply hold all the avionics and the dispensers to command deployment,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n<p>The upper free flyer is based on a commonly-used secondary payload adapter \u2014 known as an ESPA ring \u2014 built by Moog. The lower free flyer is Spaceflight\u2019s own design, according to Roberts.<\/p>\n<p>The free flyer modules will unfurl drag sails after the satellite deployments to help bring the dispensers back into Earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>Spaceflight has not publicly released an accounting of all 64 payloads aboard the SSO-A rideshare mission, citing non-disclosure agreements signed with the company\u2019s customers. But Roberts said the company provided a list to the Federal Communications Commission to obtain launch licenses for the mission, and Spaceflight submitted the separation sequence, information on spacecraft sizes, and points-of-contact for each payload to the U.S. military\u2019s Combined Space Operations Center, which is charged with cataloguing, tracking and identifying all objects launched into orbit.<\/p>\n<p>Roberts said some concerns about the mission are unfounded, such as worries about the difficulty of tracking the smallsats launched on the SSO-A mission to ensure they don\u2019t create a space debris hazard. \u201cOur engineering team has put a ton of effort into every aspect of this mission,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Some customers have disclosed their payloads are on the SSO-A launch.<\/p>\n<p>Planet is one of major commercial customers on the mission. Two of its SkySat microsatellites and three Dove CubeSats \u2014 debuting new camera and telescope designs \u2014 set to join its large fleet of more than 100 Earth-imaging craft in orbit. Planet is also sponsoring the launch of two CubeSats from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Colorado in Boulder\u2019s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.<\/p>\n<p>Three missions funded by the U.S. military are among the largest spacecraft slated to fly on the SSO-A mission. They are STPSat 5, a microsatellite from the Air Force\u2019s Space Test Program which hosts five experiments, the eXCITe spacecraft funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency \u2014 DARPA \u2014 and the FalconSat 6 satellite built by students at the Air Force Academy.<\/p>\n<p>There is also a microsatellite from DLR, the German Aerospace Center, named Eu:CROPIS, which carries tomato seeds to monitor how they germinate and grow in reduced gravity. The spacecraft will slowly spin during its mission, simulating gravity conditions on the moon and Mars.<\/p>\n<p>One of the CubeSats on the Falcon 9 launch \u2014 Elysium Star 2 \u2014 carries cremated human remains, and another was conceived as an art project and sponsored by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to honor Robert Lawrence, an African American astronaut was selected for the U.S. Air Force\u2019s Manned Orbiting Laboratory program. A bust of Lawrence, who died in 1967 before he flew in space, is on the Enoch CubeSat.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo honor the astronaut\u2019s legacy, (Tavares) Strachan created a 24-karat gold canopic jar with a bust of&nbsp;Lawrence,\u201d the Los Angeles County Museum of Art wrote on a page deviated to the mission. \u201cThe canopic jar nods to a practice employed by the ancient Egyptians to protect&nbsp;and preserve organs of the deceased for use in the afterlife. The canopic jar was blessed at&nbsp;a Shinto shrine in Fukuoka, Japan, and was recognized as a container for Lawrence\u2019s soul.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Spaceflight considers future rideshare plans after SSO-A\u2019s \u2018complex undertaking\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Blake told Spaceflight Now the SSO-A mission turned out to be a complex undertaking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo fill, or to make profitable buying a rocket the size of Falcon 9, you have to aggregate a lot of small spacecraft,\u201d he said. \u201cJust understanding what kind of timescale that\u2019s going to take and how many satellites you\u2019re going to have to aggregate to hit that one point in time \u2014 that\u2019s one lesson \u2014 just understanding where that is, and how difficult it is.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe second one is during the timeframe as you\u2019re getting ready, different customers have different potential issues,\u201d he added. \u201cSome float through as easy as can be. Others may have difficulties along the way. We\u2019ve had to move different customers around on the stack. That means that you really need to have an ability to configure and reconfigure the stack, (and) the electronics that go into the deployments.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Seven CubeSats dropped off the SSO-A mission since August because they were not ready for launch, or had difficulty obtaining regulatory approval.<\/p>\n<p>The record number of satellites launched on a single rocket is 104, set by an Indian PSLV mission last year. Some of those payloads were customers of Spaceflight, but not all. The SSO-A mission will set a record for the most satellites aboard a U.S. launcher.<\/p>\n<p>Blake said Spaceflight has no immediate plans to buy another dedicated Falcon 9 launch. The economical and logistical sweet spot for rideshares may be using a smaller rocket, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re making sure to see how this one goes, and getting all the lessons learned out of it, before turning our attention to doing another one this large,\u201d Blake said. \u201cHaving said that, we\u2019re actively looking at different ones on medium-sized launch vehicles.<\/p>\n<p>The company has agreements for future smallsat rideshare launches on Arianespace\u2019s Vega rocket, Rocket Lab\u2019s Electron, and Virgin Orbit\u2019s air-dropped LauncherOne vehicle \u2014 all significantly smaller, and less expensive, than a Falcon 9, which currently sells for around $50 million to $60 million per flight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know about aggregating a number of payloads onto small launch vehicles,\u201d Blake said. \u201cYou can think of those as dedicated missions as well, where we\u2019ve got five or 10 different spacecraft on a smaller launch vehicle, 30 or 40 on a medium-sized launch vehicle. The thing we\u2019ll take time to sort out is how it goes on a large launch vehicle like this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a list of most of the payloads on the SSO-A mission, based on the best public information available.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Audacy Zero \u2013&nbsp;Audacy \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>BlackHawk \u2013 ViaSat \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>BRIO \u2013&nbsp;SpaceQuest- USA<\/li>\n<li>THEA \u2013 SpaceQuest \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>Capella 1 \u2013 Capella Space \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>Landmapper BC-4 \u2013 Astro Digital \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>CSIM-FD \u2013&nbsp;LASP\/University of Colorado \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>Flock 3s Doves (3 spacecraft) \u2013 Planet \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>SkySat 14, 15 (2 spacecraft) \u2013 Planet \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>Elysium Star 2 \u2013 Elysium Space \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>Enoch \u2013 Los Angeles County Museum of Art \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>eXCITe\/SeeMe \u2013 Novawurks &amp; DARPA \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>FalconSat 6 \u2013&nbsp;U.S. Air Force Academy \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>Fox 1C \u2013&nbsp;AMSAT \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>BlackSky Global 2 \u2013&nbsp;BlackSky Global \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>Hawk A, B, C (3 spacecraft) \u2013&nbsp;HawkEye 360 \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>ICE-Cap \u2013&nbsp;U.S. Navy \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>IRVINE02 \u2013&nbsp;Irvine CubeSat STEM Program \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>MinXSS 2 \u2013&nbsp;LASP\/University of Colorado \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>ORS 7A, 7B Polar Scouts \u2013&nbsp;Operationally Responsive Space, Dept. of Defense, Dept. of Homeland Security \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>Orbital Reflector \u2013 OR Productions &amp; Nevada Museum of Art \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>RANGE A, B (2 spacecraft) \u2013 Georgia Tech \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>SeaHawk 1 \u2013&nbsp;University of North Carolina at Wilmington \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>SpaceBEE 5, 6, 7 (3 spacecraft) \u2013 Swarm Technologies \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>STPSat 5 \u2013&nbsp;U.S. Air Force Space Test Program \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>WeissSat 1 \u2013 Weiss School \u2013 USA<\/li>\n<li>Centauri II \u2013 Fleet Space Technologies \u2013 Australia<\/li>\n<li>RAAF M1 \u2013&nbsp;University of New South Wales \u2013 Australia<\/li>\n<li>SIRION Pathfinder 2 \u2013&nbsp;Sirion Global \u2013 Australia<\/li>\n<li>ITASAT \u2013&nbsp;Instituto Tecnol\u00f3gico de Aeron\u00e1utica \u2013 Brazil<\/li>\n<li>ICEYE X2 \u2013 ICEYE \u2013 Finland<\/li>\n<li>Suomi 100 \u2013&nbsp;Aalto University Science and Technology \u2013 Finland<\/li>\n<li>Eu:CROPIS \u2013 DLR, German Aerospace Center \u2013 Germany<\/li>\n<li>MOVE-II \u2013&nbsp;Technische Universit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen \u2013 Germany<\/li>\n<li>ExseedSat-1 \u2013 Exseed Space \u2013 India<\/li>\n<li>Eaglet-1 \u2013 OHB Italia S.p.A.\/Italian Ministry of Defense \u2013 Italy<\/li>\n<li>ESEO \u2013 ESA &amp; SITAEL \u2013 Italy<\/li>\n<li>JY1-Sat \u2013 Crown Prince Foundation \u2013 Jordan<\/li>\n<li>KazSciSat-1 \u2013 Ghalam LLP \u2013 Kazakhstan<\/li>\n<li>KazSTSAT \u2013 Ghalam LLP \u2013 Kazakhstan<\/li>\n<li>Hiber 2 \u2013 Hiber\/Innovative Solutions in Space \u2013 Netherlands<\/li>\n<li>PW-Sat 2 \u2013 Warsaw University of Technology \u2013 Poland<\/li>\n<li>K2SAT \u2013 Korean Air Force Academy \u2013 South Korea<\/li>\n<li>NEXTSat-1 \u2013 Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology \u2013 South Korea<\/li>\n<li>SNUGLITE \u2013 Seoul National University \u2013 South Korea<\/li>\n<li>SNUSAT-2 \u2013 Seoul National University \u2013 South Korea<\/li>\n<li>VisionCube \u2013 Korea Aerospace University \u2013 South Korea<\/li>\n<li>AISTECHSAT 2 \u2013 Aistech \u2013 Spain<\/li>\n<li>Astrocast 0.1 \u2013 Astrocast \u2013 Switzerland<\/li>\n<li>KNACKSAT \u2013 King Mongkut\u2019s University of Technology North Bangkok \u2013 Thailand<\/li>\n<li>VESTA \u2013 Honeywell Aerospace\/SSTL\/exactEarth Ltd. \u2013 UK\/Canada<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b><i>Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EDITOR\u2019S NOTE: The&nbsp;Falcon 9 rocket launched on the SSO-A mission at 10:34:05 a.m. PST (1:34:05 p.m. EST; 1834:05 GMT) Monday, Dec. 3. Story&nbsp;updated at 4 p.m. EST (2100 GMT) to remove ROSE 1 from the payload list. Video credit: Spaceflight Industries When SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket takes off with 64 small satellites \u2014 a payload [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2812,291,479,1428,25,311,1208,1574],"class_list":["post-13470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-b1046","tag-commercial-space","tag-falcon-9","tag-falcon-9-block-5","tag-launch","tag-reusability","tag-rideshare","tag-space-launch-complex-4-east"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13470"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}