News

For decades Earth observation satellites have been monitoring the ever-changing home planet; the next step is to enable them to recognize what they see.

The latest public challenge for the machine learning community from ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team is to train satellite software to identify features within the images it acquires — with the winning team getting the unique opportunity to load their solution to ESA’s OPS-SAT nanosatellite and test it in orbit.

“A satellite that learns to interpret its data would be much more autonomous and efficient,” comments ACT scientific crowd-sourcing expert Marcus Märtens. “It will be able to make decisions without having to continuously rely on human oversight — knowing for instance that images of rivers or agricultural fields should be downlinked to the ground, but others can be safely dumped to conserve scarce onboard memory.”

Edge computing expert Gabriele Meoni of ESA’s Ф-lab at ESRIN, focused on Earth Observation, which has developed this challenge jointly with the ACT – explains, “ESA’s AI-equipped Ф-sat-1, aboard the Federated Satellite Systems (FSSCat) CubeSat, has already demonstrated the benefits of AI on-board – it is able to detect images filled with cloud cover and set these aside.

“With our new ‘OPS-SAT case’ competition, we seek to take this approach further. Participating teams receive 26 full-sized images acquired by the OPS-SAT CubeSat, which include small 200×200-pixel crops or ‘tiles’ identified with one of eight different classifications – Snow, Cloud, Natural, River, Mountain, Water, Agricultural, or Ice – with a total of ten examples of each type, representing a baseline for feature identification.”

Dario Izzo, heading the ACT, says, “This challenge is an example of AI ‘few-shot learning’. As humans we don’t have to see a lot of cats to learn what is or isn’t a cat, just a few glimpses will be enough. What is needed for future space missions is an AI system that can form a concept from only limited examples given. This is a very challenging and modern problem from the AI point of view, and there is no commonly recognized way of achieving this.”

Gabriele comments, “What the teams have to ed satellite-sized neural network to accurately identify a further set of image tiles we have prepared from the images. The challenge is to achieve this with the relatively sparse set of examples we give them. The preferred route in machine learning is to use copious amounts of data – meaning thousands or even millions of images in practice – to train neural networks.”

The challenge is based around ESA’s OPS-SAT mission, launched in 2019 as a flying software laboratory that is also a working Earth observation satellite. Despite being smaller than a shoebox, at just 30x10x10 cm in size, this CubeSat-class mission hosts an experimental computer that is 10 times more powerful than any of the ESA missions before it. The dataset the teams receive will be raw, unprocessed images from OPS-SAT’s imager, including the annotated tiles.

This is the latest in a series of public competitions aimed at the AI and machine learning community and hosted on the ACT’s Kelvins website.

Dario explains, “This is different from what has come before because it is a deliberately data-centric challenge. The teams do not have to develop a software model, because this comes already in the form of the neural network aboard the satellite. What they have to do is devise a way to train this neural network so it can learn to classify the image tiles in an effective manner. They have to ask themselves: how can we present the data so that the neural network will adapt in the best possible way?”

Marcus adds, “There are lots of constraints to the challenge, fitting with the idea of operating in space, and moving the decision-making process out to the edge, into orbit aboard the satellite, as much as possible. It’s a very experimental and risky challenge, with lots of room for interpretation, but we think it is possible and look forward to seeing what we get back.”

For more information on the challenge and how to take part, click here. The competition commences on Friday, July 1.

Open Cosmos has announced their latest contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) on the NanoMagSat mission concept.

The NanoMagSat mission concept consist of a smallsat constellation to monitor the Earth’s magnetic field and ionospheric environment with an innovative revisiting time strategy and combination of instruments (one self-calibrated absolute scalar/vector magnetometer combined with star trackers on an optical bench, one high frequency vector magnetometer, a multi-needle Langmuir probe and two, dual frequency, GNSS receivers for recovery of Total Electron Content and ionospheric radio-occultation data).

The mission concept is proposed by a consortium from European entities. Open Cosmos, is responsible for the satellite and mission concept aspects. The French technology research institute CEA-Leti is focused on overseeing the payload and developing the magnetometers; University of Oslo is providing the Langmuir probes; and Spanish engineering companies Comet Ingenieria and Prosix Engineering are providing the deployable boom and optical bench. The Université Paris Cité’s IPGP, is the scientific lead of the mission.

NanoMagSat was selected as an ESA Scout candidate for an initial feasibility consolidation phase in 2020. The aim of this new activity is to de-risk all critical technical elements with the aim to propose NanoMagSat as a mission candidate in potential future calls of SCOUTs. These critical elements include a deployable boom, electronic components of the magnetometers and Langmuir probes, as well as the development of a satellite with a low electromagnetic signature. All these are key to ensuring that the payload matches the requirements to detect the targeted signals and meet the mission’s goals.

The activity will develop new technologies for expanding the roles smallsats can play in such missions: For instance, the boom needs state-of-the-art mechanical engineering to provide long arm deployment, compact packing, and very specific materials to maximise magnetic cleanliness. Similarly, all elements of the small satellite platform also need to be optimised for this.

Once these elements are de-risked, this will help Open Cosmos and the consortium to propose a mission concept aiming to cost less than €30 million and to be developed within three years, a fraction of the cost that such important complementary scientific missions have been in the past.

The current ESA Swarm satellites have been monitoring Earth’s magnetic field and ionospheric environment since 2013. They have helped researchers make a large number of scientific discoveries in regards to the dynamics driving their evolution, solar storms, the way the magnetic field organises the magnetosphere and ionosphere, the geology of what’s beneath Antarctica’s ice sheets, and even the migratory patterns of animals.

The consortium proposes a novel approach using a new constellation concept and low-cost small satellites to increase the temporal resolution at which the various components of Earth’s magnetic field can be recovered, as well as using a well-chosen payload to initiate new ways of sounding the ionospheric environment.

The innovative orbital strategy of combining a satellite in polar orbit together with two orbits inclined at 60° would provide an improved temporal revisit (the time it takes to return to and acquire data from the same location at the same time) of a little more than one month for latitudes within 60°N/S. It is also designed to work in conjunction with Swarm, should Swarm still be in operation at the time of launch. The approach is fully scalable with additional satellites that could be added to further increase this performance.

The Earth’s magnetic field protects our planet from damaging incoming energetic charged particles such as those coming from the Sun. The Earth’s magnetic field also organizes the way the near outer space (the magnetosphere) and the ionized upper layers of the atmosphere (the ionosphere) respond to solar activity.

This response can produce strong magnetic signals that can affect ground technology such as power transmission networks or, potentially, internet networks. It can also create radiation hazards affecting satellites in near outer space, and multiple ionospheric perturbations that can severely perturb radio transmissions, radars and GNSS systems – a group of hazards collectively known as space weather hazards.

Monitoring Earth’s magnetic field and ionospheric environment is key for investigating these phenomena, understanding their evolution and unraveling the underlying mechanisms, so we can better prepare for them in the future. It is also essential to aid accurate navigation, reveal properties of the shallow and deep Earth, and provide key information for geophysical surveying of minerals.

Florian Deconinck, Vice President of Institutional Partnerships & Future Missions at Open Cosmos, said, “This contract is a landmark for Open Cosmos and for the NanoMagSat mission concept. It is a concrete step towards making this mission concept feasible which if implemented would complement and expand on the results from renown missions like Oersted, CHAMP or Swarm. More generally it illustrates how ESA, the industry and academia can work together to show the potential of future micro-satellite constellation missions to significantly contribute towards big scientific challenges.”

Gauthier Hulot, PI of the project, Deputy Director for Science and Space at IPGP, Université Paris Cité, said, “It is crucial that monitoring of Earth’s magnetic field and ionospheric environment currently achieved by the ESA Swarm mission is maintained and improved beyond this very successful mission. This contract is a major step towards ensuring NanoMagSat can be launched soon enough to achieve this and demonstrate the possibility of permanently maintaining such observations with the help of low-cost scalable small satellite constellations.”

Open Cosmos designs, manufactures and operates satellites to solve the world’s biggest challenges. Open Cosmos is the perfect partner for those who want to monitor changes on Earth at a global scale, those who want to provide telecommunications services based on satellite constellations and those who want to test innovative space technologies in orbit. For more information visit www.open-cosmos.com, our Twitter and LinkedIn.

General Dynamics Mission Systems (NYSE: GD), and Iridium Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: IRDM) have been awarded a contract by the Space Development Agency in the amount of $324,516,613, including a base amount of $162,954,122 and $161,562,491 in options, to establish the ground Operations and Integration (O&I) segment for Tranche 1 of the National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA).

Together, General Dynamics Mission Systems and Iridium will build ground entry points and operations centers for the NDSA as well as provide network operations and systems integration services for the SDA’s next tranche of proliferated LEO satellites.

The core operations and integration functions include enterprise management, network management, mission management, payload data management, and constellation monitoring that spans the ground, link, space, and user segments of the architecture. Working with partners at KSAT USA (KSAT Inc.), Raytheon and EMERGENT, the General Dynamics Mission Systems-Iridium team will develop, equip, staff, operate and maintain state-of-the-art, commercial-like operations centers, acquire and operate ground entry points, and lead ground-to-space integration efforts.

“We are incredibly proud to bring our long heritage of mission-critical space and ground communications and networking expertise to the Space Development Agency,” said Chris Brady, president, General Dynamics Mission Systems. “Together with our partners, we’re excited to build the foundation for the SDA’s initial warfighting capability and backbone of Joint All-Domain Command and Control.”

“Iridium, General Dynamics Mission Systems and the U.S. government have a long and successful history of working together and partnering on this project is a natural evolution of our relationship,” said Matt Desch, CEO, Iridium. “Iridium’s 25 years of experience operating in LEO makes us uniquely qualified for this opportunity, and we’re honored to take on this tremendous responsibility in support of this next generation network.”

Momentus Inc. has a status update regarding the company’s first demo mission. Momentus has established two-way contact with the Vigoride Orbital Transfer Vehicle and, as is often the case with a new spacecraft, there have been some initial anomalies.

The company is using an unplanned frequency as they work through this ‘challenge’ and are applying for a Special Temporary Authority (STA) with the FCC to address this situation to help command the vehicle back to nominal configuration. The Momentus engineering and operations team is diligently working to address the anomalies. Additional information will be provided when available.

Momentus Inc. (NASDAQ: MNTS) (“Momentus” or the “Company”) has launched their first demonstration flight of the Vigoride orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) to LEO aboard the SpaceX Transporter-5 mission. Momentus also announced that it has placed its first customer satellite in orbit and plans to conduct more deployments of customer payloads in the coming days.

The versatile Vigoride spacecraft, designed to support a range of transportation and in-space infrastructure services, is slated to perform a series of operations in space to test and demonstrate the performance of the vehicle and its subsystems. Under the company’s license from the Federal Communications Commission, the mission is scheduled to last up to 180 days. The mission will also feature the deployment of several customer satellites and the testing of hardware for another customer.

A key part of the Vigoride vehicle is the Microwave Electrothermal Thruster (MET) that uses water as a propellant. The MET produces thrust by expelling extremely hot gases through a rocket nozzle. However, unlike a conventional chemical rocket engine, which creates heat through a chemical reaction, the MET heats propellant using solar microwave energy. Using the MET offers cost-effective, efficient, safe, and environmentally friendly propulsion to meet the demands for in-space transportation and infrastructure services.

On this first flight, Momentus welcomes FOSSA Systems and Orbit NTNU among its customers. FOSSA is deploying multiple smallsats as part of a constellation to provide global and real-time Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity for industrial applications. Orbit NTNU will be using its payload, SelfieSat, to take a selfie from a satellite in space (the payload has an external screen, displaying pictures sent up by the public while a camera mounted on an arm photographs the screen with the Earth in the background.)

In addition to Vigoride, Momentus used a second port on the Falcon 9 to fly a third-party deployer from a trusted partner. Momentus used this deployer to place its first customer satellite from Bronco Space at the California State Polytechnic University at Pomona on-orbit. Four other satellite payloads that are customers of the deployer system partner were also placed into orbit.

“Today’s launch was the culmination of months of work to conduct an extensive ground test campaign, ready the spacecraft, and obtain the necessary government licenses and approvals for our first flight of the Vigoride vehicle,” said Momentus Chief Executive Officer, John Rood. “We’re excited to see our vision of providing transportation and space infrastructure services and being an early provider of these key services to the growing new space economy starting to be realized. MET technology has been researched in academia since the 1980s, but we’re pioneers in bringing it to market. Testing the MET on this first Vigoride flight is one of the important tasks that we plan to conduct as we continue to refine and improve its performance. Our journey to space was only made possible by our team’s dedication, focus, and considerable talent. I’m proud of how Momentus employees responded to the many challenges we faced. It would have been easy to believe that our initial challenges were insurmountable, but the fact that Momentus didn’t quit speaks to an emerging culture that will be the true foundation of our success over time.”

Momentus is a U.S. commercial space company that plans to offer in-space infrastructure services, including in-space transportation, hosted payloads and in-orbit services. Momentus believes it can make new ways of operating in space possible with its planned in-space transfer and service vehicles that will be powered by an innovative water plasma-based propulsion system that is under development.

Astrocast has signed an agreement to acquire Hiber, a Netherlands-based, IoT-as-a-Service provider.

Under the agreement, Astrocast agreed to acquire all of Hiber’s shares in exchange for the issuance of new Astrocast shares, representing 16.5% of Astrocast’s share capital, calculated prior to its previously announced public offering on Euronext Growth Paris. Hiber’s shareholders also agreed to invest €10.45 million in Astrocast’s public offering.

Hiber provides asset monitoring and tracking solutions to industrial customers, through satellite-connected devices that allow customers to monitor and track assets in remote locations. Its services include wellhead monitoring for major oil and gas companies and asset tracking for off-grid worksites in sectors such as agriculture, forestry, and mining. Its business model is based on multi-year subscriptions covering sensors, network hardware, satellite connectivity and a dashboard.

The acquisition of Hiber is expected to bring a number of key benefits for Astrocast:

• Expands Astrocast’s distribution strategy by establishing a direct-to-end user sales channel
• Accelerates Astrocast’s OEM strategy by increasing the development of additional satellite-enabled IoT devices
• Expands Astrocast’s portfolio of products and services by adding the HiberHilo remote oil well monitoring solution and Hiber Easypulse asset tracking solution
• Adds coverage of the Americas region, based on Hiber’s access to L-band spectrum, through its agreement with Inmarsat. Astrocast has no plans to replace Inmarsat completely and intends to leverage this relationship to complement its offering.
• Brings onboard 50+, highly skilled and experienced IoT specialists, who have unique technical capabilities and understanding of customer IoT needs across multiple verticals
• Expands Astrocast’s sales team by adding Hiber’s sales force and creating cross-sell opportunities
• As Hiber’s customers include ExxonMobil, Shell, Oil Search, NAM and ENI, the combined group will also have additional exposure to clients in the energy industry and the ability to support their transition to renewable energy production

In addition, Astrocast’s sales and go-to-market strategy will be expanded by adding a direct-to-market sales channel in select verticals. This will complement Astrocast’s existing partner sales strategy. Hiber’s expertise within oil & gas will enable Astrocast to further penetrate this market. By combining Astrocast and Hiber’s technical expertise, Astrocast will also be able to better leverage end-users and accelerate its OEM strategy.

Fabien Jordan, Astrocast’s CEO, said, “We’ve carefully monitored Hiber’s impressive shift in strategy over the past few years. Hiber is recognised as a powerful IoT scale-up within the market. Hiber’s focus on satellite-enabled IoT solutions, innovation and production aligns with Astrocast’s strategic go-to-market priorities for 2022 and beyond. We’re excited to welcome Hiber to the growing Astrocast team.”

Jordan added, “We’re excited about the positive implications of the transaction for our investors. With this acquisition, Astrocast will gain access to customer segments that we have historically had little traction with. These segments complement Astrocast’s current sales effort. In addition, this acquisition will strengthen financing opportunities for Astrocast, benefiting investors, and accelerating the total fundraising plan for Astrocast.”

Roel Jansen, CEO of Hiber, said, “Hiber brings IoT solutions to its customers located in the most remote locations on Earth; we are democratizing data for industries that previously did not have access to affordable and easy-to-use solutions via satellites. We are excited to join forces with Astrocast to continue developing and providing world-class IoT solutions that are unrivalled in service excellence and product innovation within the IoT space.”

Astrocast SA operates a leading, global smallsat IoT network, offering services in industries such as Agriculture & Livestock, Maritime, Environment & Utilities to name a few. The Astrocast network enables companies to monitor, track, and communicate with remote assets from anywhere in the world. It relies on superior L-band spectrum through a strategic alliance with Thuraya. In partnership with Airbus, CEA/LETI and ESA, Astrocast developed Astronode S, an ultra-low power and miniaturized module compatible with inexpensive L-band patch antennas. Founded in 2014 by a renowned team of experts, Astrocast develops and tests all its products in-house, from the satellites to the terminals. Astrocast is listed on the Euronext Growth Oslo.

Hiber offers end-to-end IoT solutions for remotely monitoring off-grid assets located anywhere in the world using reliable, affordable satellite connectivity to help customers to reduce costs, increase safety and operational efficiency. Its solutions include HiberHilo for oil and gas well monitoring, and HiberEasypulse for asset tracking and fleet monitoring in the transport, mining, construction, agriculture and forestry industries. Hiber was founded in 2016 and has its office in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. In 2021, Hiber secured €26 million in EU and private investment, and has been recognised by Wired and Amazon Web Services as a leading European startup. Learn more at hiber.global.

Momentus Inc. has a status update regarding the company’s first demo mission. Momentus has established two-way contact with the Vigoride Orbital Transfer Vehicle and, as is often the case with a new spacecraft, there have been some initial anomalies.

The company is using an unplanned frequency as they work through this ‘challenge’ and are applying for a Special Temporary Authority (STA) with the FCC to address this situation to help command the vehicle back to nominal configuration. The Momentus engineering and operations team is diligently working to address the anomalies. Additional information will be provided when available.

Momentus Inc. (NASDAQ: MNTS) (“Momentus” or the “Company”) has launched their first demonstration flight of the Vigoride orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) to LEO aboard the SpaceX Transporter-5 mission. Momentus also announced that it has placed its first customer satellite in orbit and plans to conduct more deployments of customer payloads in the coming days.

The versatile Vigoride spacecraft, designed to support a range of transportation and in-space infrastructure services, is slated to perform a series of operations in space to test and demonstrate the performance of the vehicle and its subsystems. Under the company’s license from the Federal Communications Commission, the mission is scheduled to last up to 180 days. The mission will also feature the deployment of several customer satellites and the testing of hardware for another customer.

A key part of the Vigoride vehicle is the Microwave Electrothermal Thruster (MET) that uses water as a propellant. The MET produces thrust by expelling extremely hot gases through a rocket nozzle. However, unlike a conventional chemical rocket engine, which creates heat through a chemical reaction, the MET heats propellant using solar microwave energy. Using the MET offers cost-effective, efficient, safe, and environmentally friendly propulsion to meet the demands for in-space transportation and infrastructure services.

On this first flight, Momentus welcomes FOSSA Systems and Orbit NTNU among its customers. FOSSA is deploying multiple smallsats as part of a constellation to provide global and real-time Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity for industrial applications. Orbit NTNU will be using its payload, SelfieSat, to take a selfie from a satellite in space (the payload has an external screen, displaying pictures sent up by the public while a camera mounted on an arm photographs the screen with the Earth in the background.)

In addition to Vigoride, Momentus used a second port on the Falcon 9 to fly a third-party deployer from a trusted partner. Momentus used this deployer to place its first customer satellite from Bronco Space at the California State Polytechnic University at Pomona on-orbit. Four other satellite payloads that are customers of the deployer system partner were also placed into orbit.

“Today’s launch was the culmination of months of work to conduct an extensive ground test campaign, ready the spacecraft, and obtain the necessary government licenses and approvals for our first flight of the Vigoride vehicle,” said Momentus Chief Executive Officer, John Rood. “We’re excited to see our vision of providing transportation and space infrastructure services and being an early provider of these key services to the growing new space economy starting to be realized. MET technology has been researched in academia since the 1980s, but we’re pioneers in bringing it to market. Testing the MET on this first Vigoride flight is one of the important tasks that we plan to conduct as we continue to refine and improve its performance. Our journey to space was only made possible by our team’s dedication, focus, and considerable talent. I’m proud of how Momentus employees responded to the many challenges we faced. It would have been easy to believe that our initial challenges were insurmountable, but the fact that Momentus didn’t quit speaks to an emerging culture that will be the true foundation of our success over time.”

Momentus is a U.S. commercial space company that plans to offer in-space infrastructure services, including in-space transportation, hosted payloads and in-orbit services. Momentus believes it can make new ways of operating in space possible with its planned in-space transfer and service vehicles that will be powered by an innovative water plasma-based propulsion system that is under development.

General Dynamics Mission Systems (NYSE: GD), and Iridium Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: IRDM) have been awarded a contract by the Space Development Agency in the amount of $324,516,613, including a base amount of $162,954,122 and $161,562,491 in options, to establish the ground Operations and Integration (O&I) segment for Tranche 1 of the National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA).

Together, General Dynamics Mission Systems and Iridium will build ground entry points and operations centers for the NDSA as well as provide network operations and systems integration services for the SDA’s next tranche of proliferated LEO satellites.

The core operations and integration functions include enterprise management, network management, mission management, payload data management, and constellation monitoring that spans the ground, link, space, and user segments of the architecture. Working with partners at KSAT USA (KSAT Inc.), Raytheon and EMERGENT, the General Dynamics Mission Systems-Iridium team will develop, equip, staff, operate and maintain state-of-the-art, commercial-like operations centers, acquire and operate ground entry points, and lead ground-to-space integration efforts.

“We are incredibly proud to bring our long heritage of mission-critical space and ground communications and networking expertise to the Space Development Agency,” said Chris Brady, president, General Dynamics Mission Systems. “Together with our partners, we’re excited to build the foundation for the SDA’s initial warfighting capability and backbone of Joint All-Domain Command and Control.”

“Iridium, General Dynamics Mission Systems and the U.S. government have a long and successful history of working together and partnering on this project is a natural evolution of our relationship,” said Matt Desch, CEO, Iridium. “Iridium’s 25 years of experience operating in LEO makes us uniquely qualified for this opportunity, and we’re honored to take on this tremendous responsibility in support of this next generation network.”

ICEYE has successfully launched five new SAR satellites — all spacecraft were launched on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 smallsat rideshare mission via EXOLAUNCH from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Communication has successfully been established with each spacecraft. ICEYE and ICEYE US have now deployed 21 satellites since 2018, including commercial and dedicated customer missions.

ICEYE’s satellite constellation is designed to provide customers with reliable and frequent imagery enabling the rapid detection and tracking of changes on the Earth’s surface, regardless of time of day or weather conditions. This capability is vital for government and commercial uses in various sectors, including insurance, natural catastrophe response and recovery, national security, defense, humanitarian relief and climate change monitoring.

The launch also included the second and third satellites built, licensed and operated by ICEYE US. ICEYE US, a subsidiary of ICEYE, established a satellite manufacturing facility early last year at its headquarters in Irvine, California. The newly launched ICEYE US satellites are licensed by NOAA and will be operated and controlled exclusively from the company’s 24/7 Mission Operations Center in Irvine.

Later this year, ICEYE plans on adding up to five additional satellites to its constellation including more satellites manufactured by ICEYE US.

Two of the satellites launched are provided directly to the Brazilian Air Force. The Air Force will operate the satellites in support of environmental and national security objectives. Due to Brazil’s cloudy weather, SAR satellites that can image the Earth during the night or through clouds have an important advantage in gathering actionable insights.

“The ICEYE team has launched 21 small radar imaging satellites in a few short years, which is a remarkable feat to accomplish,” said Rafal Modrzewski, CEO and Co-founder of ICEYE. “The world needs these sources of objective truth data now more than ever. With this launch, we’ll have increased performance and capacity to further support our customers and our growth across current and emerging vertical markets.”

“Expanding our fleet of US built satellites is a critical step that expands our capability to support our customers across the U.S. Government,” said Jerry Welsh, CEO of ICEYE US. “We are seeing a shift in the U.S. and international government sector that is now looking to fully leverage and integrate commercial remote sensing technologies into their collection architectures.”

On Wednesday, May 25th, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the Transporter-5 mission to LEO from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The 57 minute launch window opened at 2:35 p.m., ET, or 18:35 UTC. The Falcon 9 flew along Florida’s eastern coast over the ocean and may have been visible from the ground.

Falcon 9’s first stage booster previously launched Crew-1, Crew-2, SXM-8, CRS-23, IXPE, one Starlink mission, and the Transporter-4 mission. After stage separation, the Falcon 9’s 1st stage returned to Earth and landed squarely on Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Transporter-5 is SpaceX’s fifth dedicated, smallsat, rideshare mission. On this flight are 59 spacecraft, including cubesats, microsats, non-deploying hosted payloads, and orbital transfer vehicles (OTVs).

All imagery is courtesy of SpaceX.

INAF (ISTITUTO NAZIONALE DI ASTROFISICA), POLIMI (Politecnico Milano), SkyLabs d.o.o., TU Delft, University of Maribor, University of Trento, have joined in a consortium of research institutes, universities and industry, and have won the tender “Space Weather Monitor Nanosatellites” published by the European Space Agency (ESA) with a project proposal called CUBE (CME Catcher Carousel).

The consortium was formed from the key partners of the HERMES pathfinder project, extended to include experts of Space Weather. It brings together scientific and technological competence, which have been identified by ESA with breakthrough ideas that will form the scientific pathfinder in the field of space weather observation activities under the auspices of ESA.

The objective of the ESA competition is to study and develop possible solutions for effective space weather monitoring and its hazards by developing dedicated smallsats as a foundation of a future constellation of satellites.

The solar wind is the ultimate source of energy and is responsible for virtually all magnetospheric dynamics. Describing and quantifying the solar wind energy transfer to the Earth’s magnetosphere-ionosphere system is one of the fundamental questions in space physics.

The main objective of the proposed future CUBE constellation is to identify incoming Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) and solar energetic particle (SEP) events, measure them at different magnetospheric locations and altitude to quantitatively understand the energy transport toward the Earth. One of the objectives is also to study the SEP penetration in the magnetosphere, ionization of the ionosphere and oscillations of the magnetic field during SEP events.

According to baseline mission analysis, two 6U spacecraft on circular SSO, and six 12U spacecrafts on a highly energetic circular orbit — 60,000 km. radius around and phased 60 degrees away from one another — are planned for the first phase. All units will be equipped with magnetometers and particle monitors capable of measuring proton and electron spectra from a few tens keV to a few hundred MeV, and particle velocities. 

Mission study began in April of 2022 with an estimated duration of 10 months, which means completion by the beginning of February 2023. By collaborating with ESA, members of the consortium will combine knowledge, experience and solutions to lay the scientific pathfinder for the future activities in the field of space weather as well as for all other future ESA activities, which may become feasible in the following years.