Cygnus OA-8 (CRS-8 ) - Antares-230 - MARS LP-0A - 12.11.1017 12:19 UTC

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Отделение КА
 

Увод 2-й ст РН от КА
 

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Chris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight 1 ч. назад

S/C Sep! OA-8 Cygnus on her way to the ISS following successful Antares launch! ARTICLE: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/11/antares-cygnus-crs-8-iss/ ... - by William Graham. COVERAGE: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42553.0 ...

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Antares launches with OA-8 Cygnus en route to the ISS

November 12, 2017 by William Graham

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NASA‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA 10 мин. назад

LIVE NOW: Coverage resumes on the journey of @OrbitalATK's #Cygnus cargo craft to the @Space_Station. Watch: http://www.nasa.gov/live 

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А сместили время пуска на окончание окна:

Chris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight 2 ч. назад

Get these boats out of the bloody range, by any means, I say.

NOTMARs тоже не для некоторых  :evil:

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Launch of Antares Rocket with Cygnus OA-8 from Wallops

Space Videos

Опубликовано: 12 нояб. 2017 г.

In growingly rarer occurrence, An Orbital ATK Antares rocket lifted off from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia today at UTC, November 12th 2017. The rocket launching for it's 7th time, the last was in October 2016, carried the unmanned Cygnus OA-8 cargo craft into orbit with over 3,338 kilograms (7,359 lb) of cargo.

(10:45)

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OA-8 S.S. Gene Cernan Cygnus launched by Antares 230

SciNews

Опубликовано: 12 нояб. 2017 г.

An Orbital ATK Antares 230 launch vehicle launched OA-8 S.S. Gene Cernan Cygnus from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Virginia, on 12 November 2017, at UTC ( EST). The OA-8 Cygnus Cargo Delivery Spacecraft was named after former astronaut Eugene "Gene" Cernan - the last human to step foot on the Moon. To deliver cargo to the International Space Station for the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) OA-8 mission, Orbital ATK is using the Enhanced Cygnus Pressurized Cargo Module (PCM). The cargo capability of the Enhanced Cygnus, developed by Thales Alenia Space, is more than 3500 kg.

(4:56)

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Launch Replays of Antares Rocket with Cygnus OA-8 from Wallops

Space Videos

Опубликовано: 12 нояб. 2017 г.

Launch replays from cameras around the Wallops Flight Facility.

(4:52)

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CanadArm2 в готовности к прибытию Лебедя OA-8E
 
 

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11/12/2017 17:01

The first commands have been sent from Orbital ATK's control center in Dulles, Virginia, to begin firing bolts to release the UltraFlex solar arrays for deployment.

11/12/2017 17:13

Orbital ATK confirms the first of the two UltraFlex solar arrays has unfurled.

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NWS Columbia‏Подлинная учетная запись @NWSColumbia 6 мин. назад

#GOES-16 prelim, non-op data. #OrbitalAtk's Antares rocket smoke plume visible after launch from @NASA_Wallops. Super cool! #caewx #scwx #gawx #vawx

Добавка.
Здесь крупнее

NWS Tucson‏Подлинная учетная запись @NWSTucson 14 мин. назад

How cool is this?! The #Antares rocket was successfully launched from @NASA_Wallops earlier this morning. The smoke plume from the rocket can be seen on GOES-16's prelim, non-op satellite imagery! #azwx #vawx

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11/12/2017 17:15

Both of Cygnus' solar arrays have deployed.

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Orbital ATK‏Подлинная учетная запись @OrbitalATK 1 мин. назад

Solar arrays are fully deployed on the S.S. Gene Cernan #Cygnus. Next stop: @Space_Station!

NASA Wallops‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_Wallops 10 мин. назад

Both solar arrays aboard @OrbitalATK's Cygnus spacecraft have been deployed, as of 9:15 a.m. EST.

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ARCHIVE: Launch of Antares Rocket with Cygnus OA-8 Cargo Craft

Space Videos

Трансляция началась 4 часа назад

Orbital ATK are scheduled to launch their Antares rocket fr om Wallops Flight Facility at UTC, November 12th 2017. The rocket will carry the unmanned Cygnus OA-8 cargo craft into orbit wh ere it will berth with the International Space Station.

(3:37:39)

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Изменено время послепусковой пресс-конференции

Orbital ATK Cygnus/CRS-8 Post-Launch News Conference (time subject to change)

10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

Начало в 18:30 ДМВ

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https://www.orbitalatk.com/news-room/feature-stories/OA8-Mission-Page/default.aspx

Mission Update

Orbital ATK successfully launched its OA-8 mission aboard the company's Antares rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on November 12, 2017 at 7:19 a.m. EST. Cygnus rendesvous is scheduled for early morning Tuesday, November 14. The spacecraft will deliver vital supplies and scientific equipment to the station as part of Orbital ATK's Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA.


Photo credit: Orbtial ATK/Thom Baur

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http://spaceflight101.com/cygnus-oa8/antares-launches-cygnus-oa8-cargo-spacecraft/

Cygnus "S.S. Gene Cernan" En-Route to Space Station after Sunday Morning Commute to Orbit
November 12, 2017


Photo: NASA

An Antares rocket thundered off fr om Virginia's Eastern Shore Sunday morning after a year-long break, carrying into orbit the eighth operational Cygnus cargo spacecraft headed to the International Space Station with over three metric tons of science gear, maintenance hardware and crew supplies. Antares lifted off from the Wallops Flight Facility at 12:19 UTC and operated as advertised to lift the 6,200-Kilogram cargo spacecraft into Low Earth Orbit for arrival at its high-altitude destination on Tuesday.

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The Cygnus OA-8 spacecraft, christened the S.S. Gene Cernan after the late Gemini and Apollo Astronaut and the last human to set foot on the Moon, is loaded with 3,338 Kilograms of cargo for the International Space Station. It is the fifth U.S. resupply mission flying to ISS in 2017, coming after three successful Dragon missions and the Cygnus OA-7 flight that used an Atlas V rocket.

Sunday's launch was only the second flight of the upgraded Antares rocket that had debuted successfully over a year ago in October 2016 after a two-year stand-down following the dramatic 2014 launch failure of the original Antares rocket.


Photo: NASA

While Antares was sent back to the drawing board to be fitted with new engines, two Cygnus missions flew on Atlas V rockets to keep up Orbital ATK's obligations to NASA under their Commercial Resupply Services contract – also making up for lost cargo upmass on the Orb-3 mission as Atlas V allowed both Cygnus vehicles to be packed to capacity.

The decision to shift the OA-7 mission earlier this year to Atlas V was made by Orbital ATK and NASA to take advantage of the vehicle's schedule certainty and to maximize cargo upmass before the U.S. Segment aboard ISS stepped up to four crew members as a result of Russia cutting its ISS crew to two.

It also took some pressure off Orbital ATK's Antares team that had worked long hours on the Return To Flight effort of the re-engined Antares, now featuring a pair of RD-181 engines instead of the AJ26 engines that represented converted Soviet engines built in the 1970s and proved troublesome in the Orb-3 failure and multiple testing incidents.


Photo: NASA

Orbital ATK informed NASA in early 2017 that the company would be able to support the OA-8 mission in the summer, potentially as early as July. OA-8 received an initial launch date in mid-September, but NASA requested the launch to be pushed two months for additional cargo to be readied. After three science-laden Dragon missions earlier this year, the Cygnus OA-8 mission is more on the supplies side and less focused on science with a total of 3,229 Kilograms of cargo packed into the pressurized section of the spacecraft.

Cargo aboard the S.S. Gene Cernan is comprised of 1,240 Kilograms of crew supplies including food and clothing, 851 Kilograms of vehicle hardware to keep ISS operating at full capacity, 740kg of science gear including several new experiments and materials for ongoing studies, and 166kg of spacewalk equipment and computer resources. 109kg of cargo are mounted externally as Cygnus OA-8 carries a full complement of 14 CubeSats in its own NanoRacks CubeSat Deployers for release into an orbit 100 Kilometers above ISS after Cygnus departs ISS.

>> Cygnus OA-8 Cargo Overview


Cygnus Late Cargo Loading – Photo: Orbital ATK

The OA-8 mission is flying with two powered Polar freezers containing cold-stowage samples for various experiments and the Space Tango TangoLab module, containing several CubeSat-sized experiments for education and research, will be used to demonstrate that Cygnus could be used as an extension of the ISS laboratory modules by hosting experiments like the modular TangoLab. The spacecraft is booked for a three-week stay at ISS to be fully unloaded and depart the complex before the next Dragon spacecraft arrives, currently working toward launch on December 4.

After flying on three United Launch Alliance Atlas V rockets, Orbital ATK expects to fly out its remaining manifest of four CRS-1 missions on Antares, including the OA-8 mission. The CRS-1 contracts have been extended by NASA, giving Orbital ATK and SpaceX additional missions through 2019 to bridge a gap until the second round of CRS contracts can go into effect with three cargo vehicle operators.


Photo: NASA

The upgraded Antares 200-series, in addition to a higher reliability expectation, also offers greater performance than its 100-series predecessors, enabled by the more powerful RD-181 engines manufactured by NPO Energomash in Russia as a single-chamber version of the two-chamber RD-180 used on Atlas V and the four-chamber RD-171 on the Zenit rocket. During the first Antares 230 mission in 2016, Orbital ATK flew the vehicle with very conservative margins – shutting the first stage down when reaching a target velocity from which the Castor 30XL second stage could boost the vehicle into orbit.

However, post-flight analysis showed that the first stage had considerable propellant leftovers when hitting its target speed, boding well for further pushing Antares' performance by burning the first stage longer. Even with the conservative first stage shutdown, Antares achieved a slight overperformance on the OA-5 mission, translating to an apogee altitude around 50 Kilometers above the expected high point of the injection orbit.


Photo: Orbital ATK

Antares was programmed to fire its first stage for an additional five seconds on Sunday, allowing an additional cargo upmass of 150 Kilograms. Further performance refinement and some minor upgrades will add another 150-200 Kilograms which would allow Cygnus to be loaded to its maximum capacity of 3,500 Kilograms on future missions.

Standing 42.5 meters tall and measuring 3.9 meters in diameter, Antares has a launch mass of 298 metric tons and represents a combination of components build in the Ukraine, Russia and U.S. – combining the expertise of Orbital ATK in the field of solid rockets for the second stage, Russia's high-performing oxygen-rich engine technology, and tankage from the Zenit rocket developed and built in the Ukraine.

>> Antares 230 Launch Vehicle Overview

Sunday's launch came after a one-day launch delay as teams had to abort the countdown at the last minute on Saturday when a small aircraft entered the restricted airspace around Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. Countdown operations were re-started just after midnight local time with a Call to Stations and setups for the start of the Launch Checklist at 5:59 UTC, containing some 420 steps to ready Antares for liftoff.


Photo: NASA

Temperatures were slightly warmer than for Saturday's attempt but again reached sub-zero Celsius temperatures over night, requiring Antares to be kept warm with heated purge flow under the fairing, into the avionics bay and to the engine section. All power-up steps in the early countdown portion went well and the Red Team departed the pad at around L-4 hours to permit Flight Termination System safe/arm tests and the setup for propellant loading.

With a clean vehicle and 90% odds of favorable weather, teams were able to press into propellant loading at T-1 hour and 35 minutes to fill the rocket's first stage with 65 metric tons of Rocket Propellant 1 and around 177 tons of Liquid Oxygen oxidizer. While tanking was underway, the launch team configured the rocket's navigation system, went through a second round of communication/FTS checks and transitioned Cygnus to its launch configuration.

The Launch Team was forced to move the launch to the end of the day's five-minute window as the Coast Guard had to chase a pair of boats out of the Launch Hazard Area.

A poll at T-10 minutes cleared Antares for liftoff and the Launch Team completed the last manual steps to transition Antares to internal power and arm all ordnances on the vehicle and the ground. Computers assumed control of the count at T-3 minutes to transition the guidance system to flight mode and pressurize the first stage followed by a last gimbal check on the engines in the last 30 seconds to liftoff.

>> Launch Profile


Photo: NASA

Antares fired up its two RD-181 engines at the moment clocks hit zero at 12:19:51 UTC, soaring to a combined launch thrust of 392 metric ton-force with blastoff occurring 3.6 seconds after the ignition command was issued when both engines were verified to be operational. Rising from its pad half an hour after sunrise, Antares swiveled its engines to move the tail away from the Transporter-Erector Launcher and continuing an initial vertical climb of around 15 seconds.

Antares then entered its pitch and roll maneuver to align itself with a trajectory to the south east to intercept the orbital plane of the Space Station. Burning 1,200 Kilograms of propellant per second, Antares went through the sound barrier one minute into the flight and throttled back to 65% on its engines during the area of Maximum Dynamic Pressure, going through 8 Kilometers in altitude.


Photo: NASA

Performance by the first stage was rock solid and the two RD-181 engines shut down at T+3 minutes and 34 seconds after accelerating Antares to a speed of 3.8 Kilometers per second and taking it to an altitude of over 100 Kilometers. Separation of the spent core stage occurred six seconds after shutdown and the Castor 30XL stage immediately activated its cold-gas reaction control system to maintain a stable orientation for a passive coast phase of 43 seconds after staging to gain altitude.

Four minutes and 11 seconds into the mission, the ten-meter long fairing halves split open and separated as the stack passed 155 Kilometers in altitude wh ere aerodynamic forces were no-longer a concern. The second stage dropped its interstage cover to shed more unneeded weight and fired up the Castor 30XL solid rocket motor at T+4 minutes and 23 seconds to boost Cygnus into Low Earth Orbit.


Photo: NASA

Six meters in length and 2.34 meters in diameter, the Castor 30XL burned 24 metric tons of propellant over the course of a two-minute and 40-second firing. Castor 30XL delivered an average thrust of over 30 metric-ton force, peaking at 40,400kgf in the early portion of its burn before entering an extended tail-off designed to keep G-loads within limits toward the end of the burn when the vehicle is the lightest.

Telemetry displays showed Antares reaching an orbit of 200 by 328 Kilometers, 51.63° at the point of Castor 30XL burnout seven minutes and six seconds into the flight, marking an on-target & slightly-better-than-planned insertion of the vehicle. After burnout, the stage went into a two-minute coast to allow residual thrust to fully tail-off before sending the spacecraft on its way.


Image: NASA TV

Springs pushed the Cygnus away from the second stage nine minutes after liftoff with the spacecraft's first tasks being the acquisition of stable three-axis control and the initiation of communications through the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System to provide health telemetry to Orbital's Mission Control Center in Dulles, Virginia. Deployment of the two power-generating solar arrays is expected 90 minutes after launch and will take approximately 20 minutes to complete and confirm Cygnus is power-positive and ready for its commute to ISS.

Heading off on a two-day rendezvous, Cygnus will conduct its initial orbit raising maneuvers later on Sunday with more fine-tuning maneuvers on Monday to set up for rendezvous on Tuesday. Approaching from behind and below, Cygnus will enter a climb straight up to ISS to arrive at the capture position within reach of the Station's robotic arm that will be controlled by ESA Astronaut Paolo Nespoli for a planned capture at 9:50 UTC on Tuesday.

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https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/11/12/space-station-cargo-shipment-blasts-off-aboard-antares-rocket/

Space station cargo shipment blasts off aboard Antares rocket
November 12, 2017 Stephen Clark

An Orbital ATK Cygnus supply ship packed with 3.7 tons of cargo, supplies and experiments rode an Antares rocket into orbit fr om Virginia's Eastern Shore on Sunday, setting course on a two-day pursuit of the International Space Station.

Running a day late after an airplane strayed into restricted airspace, scrubbing a launch attempt Saturday, the 139-foot-tall (42.5-meter) Antares rocket lifted off at 7:19:51 a.m. EST (1219:51 GMT) Sunday fr om Wallops Island, Virginia.

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Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Arcing toward the southeast from its oceanside launch pad, the Antares rocket climbed through broken clouds, putting on a thunderous early morning sky show for spectators gathered near NASA's Wallops Flight Facility.

Two Russian-built RD-181 main engines gave the Antares rocket an initial boost with around 864,000 pounds of thrust, then a solid-fueled Castor 30XL second stage, made by Orbital ATK, motor ignited to finish the task of placing the Cygnus cargo craft into orbit.

A commentator from Orbital ATK's launch team called out flight events during the seven-minute ascent into orbit, noting normal performance from the Antares rocket throughout the flight.

The Cygnus supply ship deployed from the Antares second stage around nine minutes into the mission as it flew in range of a tracking station in Bermuda. Telemetry from the rocket indicated it placed the Cygnus spacecraft in an orbit between 124 miles (200 kilometers) and approximately 205 miles (330 kilometers) in altitude, slightly higher than predicted.

The Cygnus spacecraft unfurled two fan-like "UltraFlex" solar arrays around an hour-and-a-half after launch, and the cargo craft is set to fine-tune its approach to the space station with a series of thruster firings over the next two days.

Orbital ATK christened the Cygnus cargo carrier the S.S. Gene Cernan, after the late moonwalker who died in January. The resupply run is named OA-8, the eighth operational cargo launch made by Orbital ATK since January 2014 under a multibillion-dollar contract with NASA.


Artist's illustration of a Cygnus spacecraft approaching the International Space Station. Credit: Orbital ATK

The automated spaceship will guide itself to a point around 30 feet (10 meters) beneath the space station, close enough for astronaut Paolo Nespoli to capture it with the lab's Canadian-built robotic arm around 4:50 a.m. EST (0950 GMT) Tuesday.

The robotic arm will place the Cygnus spacecraft on a berthing location on the Earth-facing side of the station's Unity module for a nearly three-week stay.

Members of the station's six-person crew will unload 7,118 pounds (3,229 kilograms) of cargo from the Cygnus spacecraft's pressurized module beginning Wednesday. The supply shipment includes:

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• 2,734 pounds (1,240 kilograms) of crew supplies
• 1,631 pounds (740 kilograms) of science investigations
• 291 pounds (132 kilograms) of spacewalk equipment
• 1,875 pounds (851 kilograms) of vehicle hardware
• 75 pounds (34 kilograms)
  

Fresh fruit and vegetables are among the goodies riding inside a refrigerator on Cygnus spacecraft.

"The crew is going to get some treats when they open up the hatch," said Dan Hartman, NASA's deputy space station program manager.

The station's four crew members living and working in the U.S. segment of the outpost will get to work on a multitude of experiments carried in the Cygnus. They will also relocate some research hardware already on the station into a rack inside the Cygnus cargo module, using the facility as a temporary research base.

Among the scientific supplies set for delivery to the station Tuesday are gas bottles to support an advanced combustion microgravity experiment, a habitat for research rodents launching on a future mission, and items for a 3D printer aboard the orbiting laboratory, according to Camille Alleyne, associate space station program scientist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Two CubeSats will be transferred inside the space station to join three others for release into orbit through the Japanese lab module's airlock.

One of the CubeSats is named the E. Coli Antimicrobial Satellite, or EcAMSat, is about the size of a small briefcase. Developed by engineers at NASA's Ames Research Center and scientists at Stanford University, EcAMSat will study the antibiotic resistance in space of E. coli, a bacterial pathogen responsible for urinary tract infection in humans and animals.


The EcAMSat spacecraft undergoes thermal vacuum testing. Credit: NASA

EcAMSat's mission is expected to last more than a year, and two types of E. coli cells — a wild and a mutant strain — contained in 48 microfluidic wells inside the CubeSat's miniature laboratory will be activated, grown and tested once the 23-pound (10-kilogram) satellite is ejected from the station's Japanese robotic arm, according to Stevan Spremo, EcAMSat's project manager.

"With this, we believe that we'll learn more about antibiotic resistance in the microgravity environment, wh ere E. coli are known to grow more virulently in space," Spremo said.

The results could help protect astronauts on future space missions and develop countermeasures that may be useful for humans on Earth, he said.

The other small spacecraft carried on the OA-8 mission and destined for deployment through the Kibo airlock is TechEdSat 6, another experimental CubeSat from the Ames Research Center in partnership with San Jose State University and the University of Idaho.

TechEdSat 6 is the latest in a series of CubeSats testing an "exo-brake" de-orbit system, a drag device uses aerodynamic forces — and not propulsion — to re-enter the atmosphere. The technology could eventually allow some space station research samples to return to Earth faster, and at less expense.

Station astronauts will repack the Cygnus spacecraft's Italian-built logistics module with trash before closing hatches and detaching the supply ship from the Unity module with the robotic arm Dec. 3.

Mission control will maneuver the Cygnus a few feet from another berthing port on the station's Harmony module, wh ere crew capsules from Boeing and SpaceX are expected to dock once they are ready to begin flying astronauts into orbit.

Engineers will use the Cygnus spacecraft to simulate the presence of a commercial crew craft at Harmony's space-facing port and check to ensure it does not block GPS navigation signals from reaching the space station.

Once those tests are finished, the robotic arm will release Cygnus on Dec. 4, and Orbital ATK's ground team will send commands to raise the ship's orbit to an altitude of around 300 miles (500 kilometers).

In that orbit, Cygnus will deploy 14 more CubeSats — ranging in size from a Rubik's Cube to a loaf of bread — from an external device provided by NanoRacks, a Houston-based company that offers small satellite deployments on space station cargo flights.

"OA-8 is yet another unique mission for NanoRacks," said Henry Martin, NanoRacks' senior mission manager. "We're thrilled to have a full external Cygnus deployer, displaying its maximum capability. This mission also brings new customers from outside the industry into space while continuing partnerships with existing customers like Spire for their ongoing satellite constellation. Notably, this mission will also deploy our first-ever propulsive satellite from the Cygnus spacecraft."

Eight of the CubeSats will join Spire Global's commercial weather satellite network, which derives humidity and temperature profiles by measuring GPS navigation signals passing through Earth's atmosphere.

Two AeroCube satellites assembled by the Aerospace Corp. for NASA's Optical Communications and Sensor Demonstration mission will test high-speed laser communications and an innovative water-based propulsion system to maneuver in close proximity to one another.

"Our primary mission for OCSD is to demonstrate laser communications by using a laser on the spacecraft to downlink data to our optical ground station on Mt. Wilson in California," said Richard Welle, Aerospace senior scientist and one of the principal investigators for OCSD. "This is the first CubeSat laser communications system that will demonstrate an optical downlink. This compact laser package with its potential for much higher rates proves a promising future for CubeSat-scale laser communications."

The ISARA CubeSat developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will study the performance of an integrated solar array and radio antenna and a compact suite of three visible and infrared cameras that could be employed on future weather satellites.

The Naval Postgraduate School's PropCube 2 CubeSat is also slated for deployment from Cygnus in December to measure disturbances in the ionosphere, an upper layer of Earth's atmosphere.

The Cost-effective High E-Frequency Satellite, or CHEFSat, from the Naval Research Laboratory will help engineers gauge the performance of a consumer-grade radio frequency device in space.

The first satellite for Asgardia, an organization that aims to become the first nation state in space, was also launched Sunday. The group was created by Igor Ashurbeyli, a Russian scientist, and the Asgardia 1 satellite hosts a 500-gigabyte solid state drive containing files and data uploaded by the organization's supporters, or citizens.

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