A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 421 launch vehicle successfully put a suspected pair of NOSS ocean electronic intelligence (ELINT) satellites into orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) mission NRO L-55. In addition, on the flight from Space Launch Complex-3 in Vandenberg, California which launched at 1249 GMT on 8 October 2015, there were 13 CubeSats being flown as part of the US Government Rideshare Advanced Concepts Experiment (GRACE) programme. The nine NRO-sponsored CubeSats and four NASA-sponsored CubeSats were mounted to the Aft-Bulkhead Carrier located on the back end of the Atlas V’s Centaur upper stage.
The CubeSats carried included: ARC-1 – the Alaska Research Cubesat with technology demo applications for the University of Alaska; Aerocube 5c – a communications and tracking technology demonstration satellite and OCSD-A – a laser communications test satellite for the Aerospace Corporation; Bisonsat – a technology demonstration satellite for the Salish Kootenai College, Pablo, Montana; Fox 1 – an amateur communications and technology demonstration satellite for AMSAT-NA, LMRSTSAT – the Low Mass Radio Science Transponder technology demonstration for NASA JPL, two Propcube satellites as an ionosphere measurement technology demonstration for the US Navy; two Sinod communications test satellites for SRI International; and finally three SNAP-3 experimental communcations satellites for the US Army Space and Missile Defence Command.
