NASA Set to Launch Four CubeSats to Space Station

This photograph shows two women working on a small spacecraft.
NASA engineers Julie Cox and Kate Gasaway install a solar panel on the BurstCube spacecraft in this image. The work was conducted in the CubeSat Lab at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Photo credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts

NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative is sending a group of four small satellites, called CubeSats, to the International Space Station as ELaNa 51 (Educational Launch of Nanosatellites). These small payloads have been developed by NASA and universities and will be deployed from low Earth orbit. 

Once circling Earth, the satellites will help demonstrate and mature technologies meant to improve solar power generation, detect gamma ray bursts, determine crop water usage, and measure root-zone soil and snowpack moisture levels. 

The suite of satellites will hitch a ride aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft set to deliver additional science, crew supplies, and hardware for the company’s 30th commercial resupply services mission for NASA. Liftoff is targeted for 4:55 p.m. EDT Thursday, March 21, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. 

First Cornhusker State CubeSat 

The first CubeSat from Nebraska is the Big Red Sat-1, which aims to investigate and improve the power production ability of solar cells. It is built by a team of middle and high school students mentored by University of Nebraska-Lincoln undergraduate engineering students. 

The satellite measuring 1U, or one unit, (about four inches cubed), will test out Perovskite cells, a new type of solar cell designed to enhance power production with and without direct exposure to sunlight. The team will compare the power production to that of typical cells, called gallium arsenide solar cells, also flying on the CubeSat. 

Detecting Gamma Ray Bursts 

BurstCube is a NASA-developed 6U CubeSat designed to search the sky for brief flashes of high-energy light such as gamma-ray bursts, solar flares, and other hard X-ray transients. 

Long and short gamma ray bursts are stellar remnants that can be the result of some of the universe’s most powerful explosions like the collapse or collision of massive stars, or when a neutron star collides with a black hole. BurstCube will use a new kind of compact, low-power silicon photomultiplier array to detect the elusive bursts of light. 

With the ability to detect these brief flashes from space, BurstCube can help alert other observatories to witness changes in the universe as they happen. Astronomers can also benefit from the information because these bursts are important sources for gravitational wave discoveries. 

Rooting Out Earth Water Sources from Space 

The SigNals of Opportunity P-band Investigation, or SNoOPI, is a technology demonstration CubeSat designed to improve the detection of moisture levels on a global scale of underground root-zone and within snowpacks. 

Root zone soil moisture and snow water equivalent play critical roles in the hydrologic cycle, impacting agricultural food production, water management, and weather phenomena. When scientists understand the amount of water in the soil, crop growth can be accurately forecasted, and irrigation can become more efficient. 

The 6U CubeSat is collaboratively developed by NASA, Purdue University in Indiana, Mississippi State University, and the United States Department of Agriculture.  

The fourth in the suite of small satellites, the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s HyTI (Hyperspectral Thermal Imager) is also a 6U CubeSat designed to study water sources. 

Developed in partnership with NASA to map irrigated and rainfed cropland, HyTI is a pathfinder demonstration that packs the Hyperspectral Imager Instrument, temporal resolution thermal infrared imager focal plane technology, and high-performance onboard computing to help better understand crop water use and water productivity of major world crops. 

With these tools, HyTI can help develop a more detailed understanding of the movement, distribution, and availability of water and its variability over time and space, an important contribution to global food and water security issues.  

These payloads were selected through NASA’s CSLI, which provides U.S. educational institutions, nonprofits with an education/outreach component, informal educational institutions (museums and science centers), and NASA centers with access to space at a low cost. 

Once the CubeSat selections are made, NASA’s Launch Services Program works to pair them with a launch that is best suited to carry them as auxiliary payloads. 

For more information about NASA’s CSLI, visit: 

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/home/CubeSats_initiative 

NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission Advances with Solar Array Deployment

Three people in jumpsuits stand in front of a stretched out five-panel solar array inside of a building.
Technicians examine the first of two fully extended five-panel solar arrays built for NASA’s Europa Clipper suspended on a support system called a gravity offload fixture during inspection and cleaning as part of assembly, test, and launch operations inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, March 6, 2024. Photo credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky

Processing of the large solar arrays built for NASA’s Europa Clipper is now underway inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

Planned to arrive at Jupiter in April 2030, the spacecraft will study Jupiter’s moon Europa, which shows strong evidence beneath its icy crust of a global ocean over twice the volume of all Earth’s oceans. Europa is currently considered one of the most promising habitable environments in our solar system.

The first of two five-panel solar arrays built for NASA’s Europa Clipper stands inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for inspection and cleaning as part of assembly, test, and launch operations on Wednesday, March 6, 2024. Photo credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky

Once processing of the first five-panel solar array is complete, technicians will remove it from the gravity offload fixture, which helps support the weight of the array. The same steps will then be repeated with the second solar array. Built by Airbus in Leiden, Netherlands, the arrays arrived at Kennedy late last month by truck, after travelling to the U.S. by air. 

When both solar arrays are installed and deployed on Europa Clipper – the agency’s largest spacecraft ever developed for a planetary mission – the spacecraft will span a total length of more than 100 feet and weigh 7,145 pounds without the inclusion of propellants. The spacecraft needs the large solar arrays to collect enough light to power it as it operates in the Jupiter system, which is more than five times as far from the Sun as Earth. 

Europa Clipper is being assembled at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and is managed in partnership with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. The spacecraft will ship to Florida later this year for launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy’s Launch Complex 39A. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, is managing the launch service.  

Join the conversation and get Europa Clipper mission updates from these accounts: 

X: @EuropaClipper, @NASA, @NASAJPL, @NASA_LSP, @NASASolarSystem, @NASAKennedy 

Facebook: NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission, NASA, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA’s Launch Services Program, NASA Solar System Exploration, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center 

Instagram: @NASA, @NASAJPL, @NASASolarSystem, @NASAKennedy 

Dragon Endeavour Reaches Orbit, News Conference at 12:15 a.m. EST

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission launches from Kennedy Space Center at 10:53 p.m. EST on Sunday, March 3, 2024.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission launches from Kennedy Space Center at 10:53 p.m. EST on Sunday, March 3, 2024. Photo credit: NASA Television

The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, commander; Michael Barratt, pilot; and mission specialist Jeanette Epps along with Roscosmos cosmonaut mission specialist Alexander Grebenkin to the International Space Station has safely reached orbit, and the nosecone has opened.

A postlaunch news conference will be held at approximately 12:15 a.m. EST at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center with the following participants:

  • Steve Stich, manager, Commercial Crew Program, NASA Kennedy
  • Joel Montalbano, manager, International Space Station Program, NASA Johnson
  • Sarah Walker, director, Dragon Mission Management, SpaceX

NASA will air the postlaunch news conference on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

Follow along with mission activities and get more information on the International Space Station blog.

Learn more about commercial crew and space station activities by following @commercial_crew, @Space_Station, @ISS_Research on X, as well as the Commercial Crew Facebook, ISS Facebook, and ISS Instagram accounts.

Separation Confirmed! Dragon Now Flying Solo

The Dragon spacecraft has separated from the Falcon 9’s second stage and is flying on its own. The spacecraft is traveling at approximately 17,500 miles per hour (28,200 kilometers per hour). In less than a minute, the Dragon nosecone open sequence will begin.

Falcon 9 Second Stage Engine Shuts Down

After about nine minutes of flight, the Falcon 9’s second stage has shut down and the Dragon spacecraft now is in orbit, where it will soon separate from Falcon 9’s upper stage and continue its journey to the International Space Station. Momentarily, the rocket’s first stage will attempt to land at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Liftoff! NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 Begins Journey to International Space Station

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission launches from Kennedy Space Center at 10:53 p.m. EST on Sunday, March 3, 2024. Photo credit: NASA/Bill Stafford

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft, named Endeavour, lit up Florida’s night sky, as NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, commander; Michael Barratt, pilot; and mission specialist Jeanette Epps, as well as Roscosmos cosmonaut mission specialist Alexander Grebenkin, started their approximately 28-hour journey to the International Space Station on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission. Liftoff occurred at 10:53 p.m. EST.

At the time of launch, the space station is flying 260 statute miles over the southern Arabian Sea, southwest of India.

Up Next: NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 Liftoff

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company’s Dragon spacecraft on top is seen on the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company’s Dragon Endeavour spacecraft on top is seen on the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center ahead of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission launch on Sunday, March 3, 2024. Photo credit: NASA Television

Liftoff of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft, named Endeavour, with NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick; Michael Barratt; and Jeanette Epps, as well as Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin is now just five minutes away. Everything is proceeding according to schedule, and all is looking good for the launch of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission to the International Space Station.

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 Remains on Schedule, Launch Less Than10 Minutes Away

 

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company’s Dragon spacecraft on top is seen on the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company’s Dragon Endeavour spacecraft on top is seen on the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center ahead of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission launch on Sunday, March 3, 2024. Photo credit: NASA Television

Fuel loading is complete on the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage. Everything remains on target for the 10:53 p.m. EST scheduled launch of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.