The satellite rideshare and mission management provider, Spaceflight Industries, received a NASA multi-year contract covering launch services in 2018, 2019 and 2020 for a maximum of 72 cubesat units – which generally equate to a 1U-cubesat, weighing about 1.33 kg – the contract specifies up to 24 cubesat units of capacity per year. What form this capacity will take is still unknown and could be any of a variety of cubesat forms, the most popular of which are: 1U, 2U, 3U and 6U cubesats. The potential total contract value is more than $5 million.
Spaceflight’s SHERPA delivery tug. Courtesy: Spaceflight
Spaceflight will provide launch options using Falcon 9 (with its SHERPA tug delivery system), PSLV, Dnepr, Antares, Cygnus, Electron, Soyuz and others.
POST SCRIPT: Spaceflight has the primary structure of its SSO-A Integrated Payload Stack ready for its Vandenberg-launched Falcon 9 rideshare mission to a near polar Sun-synchronous low Earth orbit dubbed SSO-A. The mission will fly multiple cubesats for various organisations..
Matthew Wilson contributed to this story.
