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LuxSpace plans to fly hosted payloads on Triton-X Genesis

LuxSpace which is an OHB subsidiary plans to fly DcubeD actuators and other hosted payloads on its upcoming Triton-X Genesis mission.

Both, DcubeD and LuxSpace share the same goal of enabling missions to take their capabilities to the next level and look forward to demonstrating their new technologies with their upcoming mission.

LuxSpace intends to validate key components of its Triton-X small satellite platform through Triton-X Genesis, slated to travel to low-Earth orbit later this year on a Momentus Vigoride orbital transfer vehicle.

Triton-X is LuxSpace’s ultimate platform for micro to mini-LEO smallsat systems. Designed as “multi-purpose” cost-effective products, the scalable and powerful Triton-X platforms are easily adaptable to various typologies of LEO missions and payloads, also in small and/or hybrid constellations.

Launching hosted payloads on Triton-X Genesis “is actually a model that would be interesting to repeat because the economics are good,” LuxSpace CEO Edgar Milic told SpaceNews.

Triton-X, a multi-mission satellite with extensive onboard processing, is designed to accommodate payloads of 50 to 250 kilograms. The European Space Agency provided funding for Triton-X through the Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems program.

In late 2022, the University of the German Armed Forces in Munich announced plans to buy a LuxSpace Triton-X Heavy satellite for Seranis, a small satellite mission with 15 experiments. Seranis, which stands for Seamless Radio Access Network for Internet of Space, includes technology demonstrations related to 6G mobile communications, laser communication, and the Internet of Things.

DcubeD, based in Bavaria, Germany, provides release actuators and deployables for small satellite applications. 

LuxSpace (CEO Edgar Milic) was established in Luxembourg in 2004 as a subsidiary of OHB SE and is an integrated provider of small satellites and space-based applications and services. The company can look back on seven successfully launched space systems, including the Triton-2/ESAIL satellite launched, and has over 16 years of experience in data applications with a particular focus on the maritime sector and Earth observation.

Space Force to proceed with smaller spacecraft in the future

The Space Force is expected to shift investments from large satellites like the Space Based Infrared System, which the Air Force acquired around 20 years ago to smaller spacecraft.

According to the the head of military space acquisitions, the era of massive satellites needs to be a thing of the past for the Department of Defense and he told the government and industry executives about this a week ago.

Frank Calvelli, assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, since taking office has been insistent that reforms are needed in satellite procurements, including the transition to smaller satellites that can be built and launched within a three-year period, compared to a decade or longer for traditional large satellites. 

Calvelli spoke at the National Security Space Association’s defense and intelligence conference in a fireside chat with former DoD official Doug Loverro.

Echoing points he made in previous public appearances, Calvelli called for DoD to break from the past and embrace more agile ways to buy satellites in order to make United States of America systems more resilient to threats. Most space-based systems the U.S. military needs — for communications, space domain awareness, missile detection and tracking, navigation, weather and other applications — can be accomplished using small satellites, Calvelli said. 

“We are transforming from what’s been called ‘big juicy targets’ of the past to a more proliferated and more resilient architecture that can be counted on during times of crisis and conflict,” he said. 

Using commercially available satellite buses and components, DoD can build smaller spacecraft for operations in low, medium or geostationary Earth orbits, Calvelli said. “I see us building small satellites everywhere, regardless of whether it’s LEO MEO or GEO.”

Calvelli made the case that the traditional “big structures with lots of payloads on them” can be broken down into smaller satellites which would be harder for an enemy to target. That concept, also known as “disaggregation,” was advocated by some Air Force officials a decade ago but was largely rejected in favor of big satellites that, although expensive, can operate in orbit for decades. 

In light of recent advances in anti-satellite weapons developed by China and Russia, the Pentagon has to pivot to more resilient systems, Calvelli stressed. “I do believe that we can break apart the big behemoths in GEO and break them into smaller bite-sized chunks which is going to diversify the architecture and protect us more.”

‘Do not design new buses’

Since taking office seven months ago, Calvelli has noticed that Space Force program offices tend to design bespoke satellite buses, another practice that he wants to end. 

“If you need some new tech, that’s okay. But keep that development focused on the payload. Do not create new buses,” he said. 

There are plenty of commercially available buses to choose from, he said. “We love building new buses. We love building new bus components. We love doing new things that are already out there,” he said. “If you need to do some tech development, keep it minimal.”

Lockheed Martin buys 10 satellite buses for military constellation

Lockheed Martin is set to buy buses from Terran Orbital for the Space Development Agency’s Transport Layer.

An announcement coming from Terran Orbital, is that it has completed delivery of 10 satellite buses ordered by Lockheed Martin for the Space Development Agency’s mesh network in low Earth orbit.

The first satellite bus was delivered in May. 

Lockheed Martin won a $187.5 million contract from the Space Development Agency (SDA) in August 2020, to produce 10 communications satellites for the Transport Layer Tranche 0. 

The Tranche 0 constellation will provide secure high-bandwidth, low-latency data links for military users.

Terran Orbital, based in Boca Raton, Florida, in October announced Lockheed Martin made a $100 million investment in the company that will be used to expand Terran Orbital’s satellite manufacturing facilities in Irvine, California.

Lockheed Martin also selected Terran Orbital as its satellite bus supplier for the Transport Layer Tranche 1, a much larger constellation of satellites made by Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and York Space.

Lockheed Martin’s Tranche 0 satellites are projected to launch in June.

The expansion of manufacturing capacity in Irvine is intended to help meet a 2024 deadline to deliver 42 buses for SDA’s Tranche 1 under a $700 million contract. 

Terran Orbital CEO Marc Bell said the delivery of Tranche 0 satellites coincides with the company’s “shift from lower quantity, mission-unique satellites to robust production.”

This fall Terran Orbital announced it would abandon plans to build a constellation of 96 synthetic aperture radar satellites, called PredaSAR, in order to focus on the production of satellites for U.S. defense and national security customers. The company also formed a new business unit that will produce electro-optical imaging satellites.

Lightning observation from a CubeSat constellation perspective

There has been proposed constellation of six CubeSats to map lightning.

Cubespark CubeSats, equipped with high-resolution optical imagers and VHF sensors, would “map not only the flash locations, but map the full structure of it deep within convective clouds,” Jackson Remington of the Universities Space Research Association said Jan. 9 at the American Meteorological Society conference here.

Cubespark is designed to measure the global distribution of lightning, help explain the relationship between lightning and severe weather, and monitor lightning-produced nitrogen oxides, which have an impact on air quality.

The data currently comes from a variety of sources including terrestrial sensors and the Geostationary Lightning Mappers on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R series. In low Earth orbit, a Lightning Image Sensor (LIS) designed by scientists at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and manufactured at NASA Marshall has been making observations since it was installed on the International Space Station in 2017.

“It’s important to point out that low-Earth orbit observations are at risk,” Remington said.

LIS is scheduled to stop gathering data from the space station later this year “and there’s no planned successor of a day-night lightning imager” in low-Earth orbit, Remington said. “So, we really need to get these up there,” he added.

In simulations, the Cubespark constellation was able to pinpoint the location of lightning to within one to two kilometers over a 300- to 600-kilometer swath from the tropics to high latitudes, Remington said.

NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office is supporting the Cubespark concept through its Instrument Incubator Program.

The space station offers an excellent vantage point to scientists studying TLEs. At about 250 miles up, it is much closer to these phenomena than a geosynchronous satellite. Further, the stations’ orbit allows for coverage of storms worldwide.

All this allows LIS and ASIM to produce a unique space-based dataset of thunderstorms and their effects, which in turn helps support other observational instruments. LIS for example has been used to calibrate instruments and verify data for the Geostationary Lightning Mapper on NASA and NOAA’s GOES satellites, and will also support the lightning imager on the European satellite, Meteosat Third Generation. This support helps make the data produced by these sensors the highest quality for serving the public.

From the space station, LIS can provide lightning data in near-realtime for the benefit of those on Earth. It can report lightning nearing dry areas of forests prone to wildfires. It’s integrated into the NOAA Aviation Weather Center’s operations, which provides weather forecasts and warnings to the US and international aviation and maritime communities. And, over time, it can map data points to help scientists observe changes to our climate over broad tracts of land and sea.

In short, studying lightning and its effects both below and above the clouds can have a big impact on how we view our planet.

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