An artist’s conception shows Xplore’s advanced solar sail for NASA’s Solar Gravity Lens Focus mission. (Visualization by Bryan Versteeg, SpaceHabs.com / via Xplore)
NASA has awarded a $2 million grant to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, The Aerospace Corp. — and Xplore, a Seattle-based space venture — to develop the design architecture for a far-out telescope array that would use the sun’s gravitational field as a lens to focus on alien planets.
The Phase III award from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, or NIAC, would cover two years of development work and could lead to the launch of a technology demonstration mission in the 2023-2024 time frame.
Xplore’s team will play a key role in designing the demonstration mission’s spacecraft, which would be launched as a rideshare payload and propelled by a deployable solar sail.
The Launch-U standard is designed to apply to satellites bigger than a CubeSat but smaller than an ESPA-class secondary payload. (Aerospace Corp. Photo)
LOGAN, Utah — Tiny satellites have their own 4-inch CubeSat standard size, and bigger satellites have a size standard as well. But there’s an awkward gap where no one can agree on exactly how big a satellite should be. Until now.
Today The Aerospace Corp. took the wraps off a proposed size and weight standard it calls the “Launch Unit.” According the standard, a Launch-U satellite and its separation system would fill a volume of 45 by 45 by 60 centimeters (1.5 by 1.5 by 2 feet), or about the size of an end table or two carry-on pieces of luggage strapped together. (Or, for that matter, a pirate chest.)
The mass could range from 60 to 80 kilograms (132 to 176 pounds), with a roughly balanced center of gravity, according to a technical paper issued to coincide with the SmallSat Conference here in Logan. For vibration purposes, the payload’s fundamental frequency would have to be above 50 Hz in any direction.
Launch-U builds on the 10-by-10-by-10-centimeter Cubesat standard, which can apply to 1-unit satellites (1U) or bigger satellites (for example, a 6U satellite, which would be roughly 10 by 20 by 30 centimeters). One Launch-U equals roughly 96 CubeSat units.
