{"id":25107,"date":"2021-01-17T23:23:13","date_gmt":"2021-01-17T15:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/launcherone-reaches-orbit-on-second-attempt-with-nasa-cubesats\/"},"modified":"2021-01-17T23:23:13","modified_gmt":"2021-01-17T15:23:13","slug":"launcherone-reaches-orbit-on-second-attempt-with-nasa-cubesats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/launcherone-reaches-orbit-on-second-attempt-with-nasa-cubesats\/","title":{"rendered":"LauncherOne reaches orbit on second attempt with NASA CubeSats"},"content":{"rendered":"

After an eight month stand down to resolve issues revealed during the first mission of Virgin Orbit\u2019s LauncherOne rocket, the company made their second orbital launch attempt on Sunday, January 17. The air-launched rocket successfully carried ten CubeSats to their target orbit for NASA\u2019s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) program.<\/p>\n

The cosmic girl aircraft took off at 10:38 PST (18:38 UTC). Launch occurred at 11:39 PST (19:39 UTC), a little under halfway into the four hour launch window that opened at 10:00 PST (18:00 UTC). Backup launch dates were available later in January.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The mission began at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, where the Cosmic Girl Boeing 747-400 carrier aircraft departed for the drop zone over the Pacific Ocean. This is the same location that hosted the first LauncherOne mission in May 2020, which failed shortly into first stage flight.<\/p>\n

Virgin Orbit\u2019s investigation into the first flight of LauncherOne revealed a component failure leading to the breach of a high-pressure liquid oxygen line in the first stage. This caused the RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen fueled NewtonThree engine to shut down just a few seconds into flight.<\/p>\n

Despite the failure and Virgin Orbit\u2019s original plan to fly a second test flight without customer payloads on board, NASA decided to fly the ELaNa 20 mission on Launch Demo 2. NASA procured the launch under the Venture Class Launch Services program.<\/p>\n

The ten spacecraft on board will conduct nine missions as part of NASA\u2019s CubeSat Launch Initiative program.<\/p>\n

The CubeSats<\/p>\n

Space tourism guides<\/path>SpaceX launch tickets<\/path>Spaceflight news subscription<\/path>\n

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CACTUS-1 is a 3U CubeSat from Capitol Technology University, carrying two payloads. One will trap micrometeorites and microdebris in aerogel to characterize the debris environment of low Earth orbit for future cleanup missions. The other will communicate with personnel on the ground using the Iridium satellite internet constellation.<\/p>\n

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The CACTUS-1 satellite prior to payload integration \u2013 via Virgin Orbit<\/p>\n

The Cajun Advanced Picosatellite Experiment (CAPE-3) is a 1U CubeSat from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Students will be able to set up a ground station and then interact with the satellite using a smartphone app.<\/p>\n

EXOCUBE-2 from California Polytechnic University is a re-flight of the original EXOCUBE mission launched on a Delta II in 2015. The 3U CubeSat\u2019s space weather mission will measure the concentration of hydrogen, oxygen, helium, and nitrogen in Earth\u2019s exosphere. The data will help form a better picture of Earth\u2019s climate and refine climatological models.<\/p>\n

See Also<\/h4>\n