{"id":5092,"date":"2025-06-30T17:46:43","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T09:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/blue-canyon-technologies-launches-cubesat-for-nasas-arcstone-mission\/"},"modified":"2025-06-30T17:46:43","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T09:46:43","slug":"blue-canyon-technologies-launches-cubesat-for-nasas-arcstone-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/blue-canyon-technologies-launches-cubesat-for-nasas-arcstone-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Canyon Technologies Launches CubeSat for NASA\u2019s Arcstone Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Blue<\/p>\n

Blue Canyon Technologies, RTX\u2019s small satellite manufacturer and mission services provider, announced the successful launch of a CubeSat in support of Arcstone, a NASA mission to measure lunar spectral reflectance, or the way sunlight is reflected from the Moon\u2019s surface at different wavelengths of light. The Arcstone mission will use the data it collects to help calibrate space-based imagers for Earth observation.<\/p>\n

Sunlight, reflected from Earth, carries a vast amount of information into space about the planet\u2019s surface, atmosphere, and composition. Arcstone will use a spectrometer a scientific instrument that measures and analyzes light by separating it into spectra \u2013 to measure reflected sunlight from the entire lunar disk precisely. This cannot be done as effectively from Earth\u2019s surface due to interference from the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the most challenging tasks in remote sensing from space is achieving required instrument calibration accuracy on-orbit,\u201d said Dr. Constantine Lukashin, physical research scientist at <\/strong><\/em>NASA<\/em>\u2019s <\/em>Langley Research Center <\/em><\/strong>and principal investigator for the Arcstone mission<\/strong>. \u201cThe Moon is an excellent and available source for calibration with the potential for high accuracy. Arcstone will enable multiple spaceborne assets to improve quality of measurements and data products for generations to come.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Also Read: What is a CubeSat?<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cBlue Canyon\u2019s advanced spacecraft technology will support Arcstone in its efforts to enable a high-accuracy lunar calibration standard for past, present, and future sensors in low-Earth and geostationary orbits,\u201d said <\/em>Chris Winslett, general manager of Blue Canyon Technologies.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In addition to building the spacecraft, <\/span>Blue Canyon Technologies<\/span> will also provide mission operations support, making approximately three contacts with the satellite per day.<\/p>\n

The ARCSTONE spacecraft is Blue Canyon\u2019s 66th CubeSat to launch into orbit, bringing the company\u2019s total number of CubeSats and microsatellite spacecraft launched to 84 units. The satellite was designed using the company\u2019s guidance, navigation, and control systems to enable high pointing accuracy and agility for targeting. Pointing accuracy describes the process of orienting a spacecraft, which is especially important in data collection missions. The spacecraft was assembled at Blue Origin\u2019s CubeSat factory in Boulder, Colo., and mission operations will be conducted from the company\u2019s Mission Operations Center in Lafayette. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blue Canyon Technologies, RTX\u2019s small satellite manufacturer and mission services provider, announced the successful launch of a CubeSat in support of Arcstone, a NASA mission to measure lunar spectral reflectance, or the way sunlight is reflected from the Moon\u2019s surface at different wavelengths of light. The Arcstone mission will use the data it collects to […]<\/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":[25,20,24],"class_list":["post-5092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-launch","tag-satellite","tag-satellite-bus-platforms"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5092"}],"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=5092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5092\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}