The team has just called out Go for Launch, and the Electron rocket should blast off in about 10 minutes.
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Live Coverage of Today’s Launch Now Airing
Live coverage has begun for the first of two launches of NASA’s TROPICS mission. Rocket Lab is targeting 9 p.m. EDT (1 p.m. Monday, May 8, New Zealand Standard Time) for the launch of Rocket Like A Hurricane, the company’s Electron rocket that will send a pair of CubeSats to low Earth-Orbit.
Watch the broadcast here.
Welcome to Launch Day for NASA’s TROPICS
It’s launch day for NASA’s TROPICS (Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats) mission! A pair of small satellites wait atop a Rocket Lab Electron rocket for liftoff from Launch Complex 1 in Māhia, New Zealand. This launch, named Rocket Like A Hurricane, is the first of two planned launches, each sending a pair of shoebox-sized satellites, called CubeSats, to low-Earth orbit, where they will more frequently collect data to help increase understanding of these deadly storms and improve tropical cyclone forecasts complementing other NASA and partner satellites, including the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission and the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP).
A two-hour launch window opens at 9 p.m. EDT Sunday, May 7, (1 p.m. Monday, May 8, New Zealand Standard Time).
Together the two launches will attempt to place four CubeSats in two equally spaced orbital planes, so they are spread over the globe for optimal coverage. The CubeSats will study the formation and development of tropical cyclones, known as hurricanes in the Atlantic and typhoons in the West Pacific. The full TROPICS constellation will make observations more often than what is possible with current weather satellites. When they reach orbit, these TROPICS satellites will join the TROPICS Pathfinder satellite which is already in orbit.
All four TROPICS satellites need to be deployed into their operational orbit within a 60-day period. The TROPICS satellites will cover the part of the Earth where tropical cyclones form and will work in concert to improve observations of the powerful storms. The distribution of the satellites means that one should pass over any spot in an area stretching from the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States to the southern coast of Australia about once an hour. TROPICS will provide data on temperature, precipitation, water vapor, and clouds by measuring microwave frequencies, providing insight into storm formation and intensification. This new data, coupled with information collected from other weather satellites, will increase understanding of tropical cyclones, and should improve forecasting models.
Follow launch updates on this blog and stay connected with the mission on social media.
Twitter: @NASA_LSP, @NASAEarth, @NASAKennedy, @NASA, @RocketLab
Facebook: NASA, NASA LSP, RocketLabUSA
Instagram: @NASA, @NASAEarth, @RocketLabUSA
Team Continues to Troubleshoot Propulsion for NASA’s Lunar Flashlight
NASA’s Lunar Flashlight operations team continues to work on remedying the CubeSat’s underperforming propulsion system. They developed a method to get one of the CubeSat’s four thrusters to deliver more thrust; however, the small spacecraft will need additional, more consistent thrust in the next few days to reach its revised target orbit.
Devised by team members at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Georgia Tech, and the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, the new method involves trying to clear the thruster fuel lines of suspected obstructions by increasing fuel pump pressure far beyond the system’s operational limit while opening and closing the system’s valves. After some improvement with one spacecraft thruster, the team is now attempting this method on the other three thrusters. This has resulted in limited success, with the remaining thrusters inconsistently producing some increased levels of thrust.
The CubeSat is currently beyond the Moon’s orbit, more than half a million miles from Earth and looping back toward our planet. To carry out monthly flybys of the lunar South Pole to look for surface ice inside permanently shadowed craters, the team needs to nudge Lunar Flashlight into a trajectory that will allow it to arrive in the required Earth-Moon orbit. They need more reliable thrust for the next few days to achieve that goal.
The mission’s miniaturized propulsion system is a technology demonstration that has never been flown in space before. Technology demonstrations are high-risk, high-reward endeavors intended to push the frontiers of space technology. The lessons learned from these challenges will help to inform future missions that advance this technology.
The other systems aboard Lunar Flashlight continue to perform well.
Lunar Flashlight is funded by the Small Spacecraft Technology program based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley and within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
NASA Selects University Nanosatellite Program Summer Series Winners
NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) has partnered with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force to select eight schools for the University Nanosatellite Program (UNP) Mission Concepts-1: 2023 Summer Series. Running from May through August, the program provides students with systems engineering training, preparing them to work in the space industry while simultaneously enhancing small satellite expertise among faculty at U.S. universities.
A total of 21 universities applied for this year’s UNP Mission Concepts-1 Summer Series. Proposals were reviewed by a mix of NASA, Air Force, and contractor personnel who selected universities based on the educational impact, university program impact/development, minority outreach/support, and NASA/Department of Defense relevance. This year’s selections are:
- Florida Institute of Technology – Melbourne, Florida
- University of the Virgin Islands – U.S. Virgin Islands
- University of South Florida – Tampa, Florida
- University of New Mexico – Albuquerque, New Mexico
- Missouri University of Science and Technology – Rolla, Missouri
- New Mexico State University – Las Cruces, New Mexico
- Columbia University – New York City, New York
- Tarleton State University – Stephenville, Texas
Of this year’s awardees, one is a historically Black university, marking the first time a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) has won a UNP competition and the second time in 12 years a HBCU has won a CSLI competition. Two other awardees are Hispanic serving institutions. The teams will meet at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a two-day kickoff meeting in May, followed by a month-long stay at the Air Force’s UNP facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico in June, where four students will be hired as interns with the Space Dynamics Laboratory.
After spending one month in New Mexico, they will return to their university for the following month where throughout the summer they and other participating students will take part in educational workshops and exercises. The students will be seated near SmallSats experts for continuous feedback and guidance to help improve university proposals and increase those teams’ potential of being selected to fly to space as part of NASA’s CSLI and the U.S. Air Force UNP. Both CSLI and UNP will make their selections for future flights in 2024.
Final presentations will take place in Albuquerque and although not required, participants are encouraged to also attend the Small Satellite Conference in Logan, Utah. The program provides funding for all travel – including kickoff, final event, and in-person reviews – allowing faculty and students to formulate teams without straining university resources.
CSLI is one of many ways NASA is attracting and retaining students in STEM disciplines. This strengthens NASA’s and the nation’s future workforce. Further, the initiative promotes and develops innovative technology partnerships among NASA, U.S. industry, and other sectors for the benefit of agency programs and projects.
For more information about NASA’s CSLI, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/home/CubeSats_initiative
Team Troubleshoots Propulsion for NASA’s Lunar Flashlight
Teams are continuing work to place NASA’s Lunar Flashlight CubeSat in an orbit that would allow flights over the Moon’s South Pole. The opportunity to place Lunar Flashlight in such an orbit extends through the end of April.
Shortly after launch on Dec. 11, 2022, the operations team for NASA’s Lunar Flashlight determined that three of the four CubeSat’s thrusters were underperforming. This cast doubt on whether the mission could complete its stretch science goal of detecting surface ice at the Moon’s South Pole. After analyzing the situation, team members at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Georgia Tech arrived at a creative maneuvering technique that would use the one fully-functioning thruster to get into planned orbit. But when attempting the modified maneuvers in January, that thruster also experienced a rapid loss in performance and the team determined that Lunar Flashlight would likely be unable to reach its planned near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon.
After further troubleshooting, the operations team has been working on ways to restore partial operation of one or more thrusters to keep the spacecraft within the Earth-Moon system. They have had some success but continue to try new things to clear the suspected obstructions in the thruster fuel lines. They have until the end of April to generate the required thrust to preserve the opportunity to allow for monthly flybys of the lunar South Pole.
The other systems aboard Lunar Flashlight continue to perform well and the mission has successfully completed all of its technology objectives, paving the way for future low-cost planetary exploration.
The mission’s miniaturized propulsion system is a technology demonstration that has never been flown in space before. Technology demonstrations are high-risk, high-reward endeavors intended to push the frontiers of space technology. The lessons learned from these challenges will help to inform future missions that further advance this technology.
“Though we hoped the propulsion system would perform perfectly, encountering and responding to these issues is an expected part of a technology demonstration mission like this,” said Justin Treptow, deputy program executive for the Small Spacecraft Technology program in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. “Flight testing, evaluating, and troubleshooting this system all help fulfill the mission’s primary objective to explore the actual in-space performance of this novel propulsion system.”
Lunar Flashlight is funded by the Small Spacecraft Technology program based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley and within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
NASA Eyes New Lunar CubeSat Orbit, Propulsion Challenges Continue
NASA’s Lunar Flashlight CubeSat launched on Dec. 11, 2022, to demonstrate several new technologies with a stretch science goal of detecting surface ice at the Moon’s South Pole. Shortly into Lunar Flashlight’s journey, the mission operations team discovered three of its four thrusters were underperforming.
Among the steps taken to analyze the issue and find possible solutions, the mission performed tests to determine whether the one fully functional thruster could provide adequate thrust to guide the spacecraft into its planned orbit. To that end, team members at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and Georgia Tech devised a creative maneuvering technique using one thruster: The spacecraft was spun at a rate of 6 degrees per second, or one revolution per minute, around its directed axis. Then the thruster was fired while commanding the spacecraft to remain pointed in the right direction. There was potential after 20 days, these mini-trajectory correction maneuvers would guide Lunar Flashlight to its planned near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon.
The team successfully completed quite a few 10-minute sequences on the single thruster, but soon after, that thruster also experienced a rapid loss in performance, and it became clear that the thrust being delivered was not enough to make it to the planned orbit.
The NASA JPL and Georgia Tech team is developing a new plan to get to the Moon. Because achieving an optimal near-rectilinear halo orbit appears unlikely, the Lunar Flashlight team decided to attempt lunar flybys using any remaining thrust the propulsion system can deliver. This new attempt is designed to get the CubeSat into high Earth orbit, which includes periodic flybys of the lunar South Pole once a month to collect data. The team plans to begin maneuvers on Thursday, and, if successful, the expected first science pass will now be in June.
While Lunar Flashlight faces significant challenges in its goal of getting to the Moon, testing its new propulsion system in space fulfills one of the mission’s objectives and will support future technology development. The mission’s miniaturized propulsion system is a technology demonstration that has never been flown in space before. Technology demonstrations are high-risk, high-reward endeavors intended to push the frontiers of space technology. The lessons learned from these challenges will help to inform future missions that further advance this technology.
The rest of the CubeSat’s onboard systems are fully functional, and the mission recently successfully tested its four-laser reflectometer. This mini-instrument is the first of its kind and is designed and calibrated to seek out surface ice inside the permanently shadowed craters at the Moon’s South Pole.
Lunar Flashlight is funded by the Small Spacecraft Technology program in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
NASA Announces 13th Round of Candidates for CubeSat Space Missions
NASA has selected eight small research satellites from seven states to fly as either auxiliary payloads or deployments from the International Space Station (ISS). These missions are currently planned to launch in the 2023-2026 timeframe. The selected CubeSats were proposed by educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and NASA centers in response to NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) call for proposals issued on August 9, 2021.
The organizations and the CubeSats chosen during this selection round are:
- Arizona State University – Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS)
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – Virtual Super-Resolution Optics with Reconfigurable Swarms (VISORS)
- NASA Langley Research Center – ARCSTONE
- California Polytechnic State University – Additively Manufactured Deployable Radiator with Oscillating Heat Pipes (AMDROHPSat)
- Olin College – Space Weather Atmospheric Reconfigurable Multiscale Experiment (SWARM-EX)
- University of New Hampshire – 3U3-A
- Utah State University – Active Cooling for Multispectral Earth Sensors (ACMES)
- Arizona State University – Deployable Optical Receiver Aperture (DORA)
Click here to read the full feature.