SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 - Spaceflight SSO-A - Launching December 3, 2018
Screenshot of Spaceflight SSO-A with Everyday Astronaut Tim Dodd as host
Mission Rundown: SpaceX - Spaceflight SSO-A
Written: January 10, 2021
How hard is it just to leave a list?
SpaceX will for the first time launch a Falcon 9 booster on its third flight on Monday, as part of a mission to deliver a cluster of small satellites to low Earth orbit. Liftoff is scheduled for a twenty-eight minute launch window that opens at 10:31 Pacific Time (18:31 UTC). T-0 occurred at 34 minutes past the hour.
Designated SSO-A or the SmallSat Express, the cargo for this launch consisted not of a single primary payload but of a collection of smaller satellites from companies and organizations around the world that are sharing their journey into space. The rideshare mission has been co-ordinated by Seattle-based Spaceflight Industries and consists of 64 satellites for 34 customers from 17 different countries and the European Space Agency.
The booster B1046-3 previously supported the Merah Putih (Telkom-4) in August 2018 (from SLC-40) and the very first Block 5 launch of Bangabandhu-1 in May 2018 (from LC-39A) in Florida, so it's been on a long journey to get to the 4 East launchpad placed on Vandenberg Air Force Base (SLC 4E). This is three launches from all major launch pads in America, which is also the first “Hattrick” for SpaceX.
Screenshot of Spaceflight SSO-A mission view by Geoff Barrett
Everyday Astronaut Tim Dodd’s links got lost in the server move. SpaceX booster B1046-3 conducted its third mission seen here. These links are to my reconstructed pages.
This is the first time SpaceX will have flown a booster three times. Only 17 boosters before this mission have flown twice.
The Payload - 15 MicroSats + 49 CubeSats
The first launch of SHERPA was on 3 December 2018 on a rideshare mission called SSO-A: SmallSat Express. The two SHERPA dispensers were originally planned to deploy more than 70 small satellites from 18 countries, which included 15 microsatellites and 56 CubeSats carried on two separate SHERPA dispensers.
However, later changes reduced the number of satellites to 64. Both dispensers separated from the Falcon 9 rocket once it entered a polar Sun-synchronous orbit around 575 kilometers above Earth. Both dispensers in this mission lacked propulsion, but unfurled dragsails to lower their altitude as needed for sequential payload release. The total payload mass riding on this Falcon 9 rocket was approximately 4 metric tons (4 000 kg).
The Upper Free Flier being deployed: Artist impression courtesy of Spaceflight
The Upper Free Flier is deployed first, it will be guided from ground stations and deploy its own set of Microsatellites and Cubesats. Then 4 larger Microsatellites will deploy one by one, before the Lower Free Flier departs to deploy its own set of Microsatellites and small Cubesats also guided from ground stations.
The second stage is now free to deorbit in the southern Pacific ocean. There will only be listed 6 deployment times.
It’s proven impossible to identify the launch time of the individual Microsatellites and Cubesats, especially those 4 Microsatellites launched between two Free Flyers, but SpaceX states that deployment will happen between T+13 and T+43. With 6 minutes between deployments, you have a logical deployment sekvence.
By analyzing the weight of the Microsatellites, I have concluded, that the 250 kg heavy Eu:CROPIS, the 181 kg FalconSat-6, the 155 kg eXCITE and with the choice of five others in the 100 kg class occupied the four spots on the Multi Payload Carrier.
This list of Payloads is in alphabetical order and not deployment order.
• AISTechSat-2, a 6U CubeSat for Earth observation of AISTech (Access to Intelligent Space Technologies), Barcelona, Spain.
• Al Farabi-2, a 3U CubeSat technology demonstration mission of the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Kazakhstan.
• Astrocast-0.1, a 3U CubeSat technology demonstration mission of Astrocast, Switzerland, dedicated to the Internet of Things (IoT)
• Audacy-0, a 3U CubeSat technology demonstration mission of Audacy, Mountain View, CA, built by the Scottish company Clyde Space.
• BlackHawk, a 6U CubeSat for US operator Blue Canyon Technologies.
• BlackSky-2, a microsatellite (55 kg) of BlackSky Global (Seattle, WA) which will provide 1 m resolution imagery with improved geolocation accuracy.
• BRIO, a 3U CubeSat of SpaceQuest Ltd. of Fairfax, VA to test a novel communications protocol that uses SDR (Software Defined Radio).
• Capella-1, a microsatellite (37 kg) of Capella Space, San Francisco, CA featuring an X-band SAR (Synthetic Aperture) payload.
• Centauri-1(2), a 3U CubeSat of Fleet Space Technologies, Adelaide, South Australia. It’s either the first or second demonstration of IoT technologies. Internet of Things.
• CSIM-FD (Compact Spectral Irradiance Monitor-Flight Demonstration), a 6U CubeSat of LASP (Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics) at the University of Boulder, CO, USA. The goal is to measure solar spectral irradiance to understand how solar variability impacts the Earth's climate and to validate climate model sensitivity to spectrally varying solar forcing.
• Eaglet-1, the first 3U CubeSat (5 kg) of OHB Italia SpA, carries a 30-cm - 11.8-inch telescope for Earth imaging as well as an AIS receiver.
• Elysium Star-2, a 1U CubeSat of Elysium Space providing space burial services.
• Enoch, 3U CubeSat consists of a canopic jar featuring the bust of Robert Henry Lawrence Jr, the first African-American to be selected as an astronaut. Lawrence, who was selected for the US Air Force’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) programme, never got to fly in space as he was killed in a plane crash in 1967. The canopic jar, which is made of 24-karat gold, is attached to a sled built to deliver the three-unit CubeSat form factor and is funded by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
• ESEO (European Student Earth Orbiter) sponsored by ESA, a microsatellite of ~40 kg with 6 instruments aboard. Built by Italy’s ALMASpace incorporating systems and experiments developed by students from participating universities across Europe. ESEO carries a three-axis dosimeter and a Langmuir probe to study radiation in the space environment, and a camera to return images from space. The satellite is also equipped with technology demonstration experiments and an amateur radio transponder, FUNcube-4, provided by AMSAT UK.
• Eu:CROPIS (Euglena and Combined Regenerative Organic-Food Production in Space), a minisatellite (230 kg) of DLR, Germany. The objective is to study food production in space in support of future long-duration manned space missions (life sciences). The main payloads are two greenhouses, each maintained as a pressurized closed loop system, simulating the environmental and gravitational conditions on the Moon or on Mars.
• eXCITe (eXperiment for Cellular Integration Technology), a DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) mission to demonstrate the 'satlets' technology. Satlets are a new low-cost, modular satellite architecture that can scale almost infinitely. Satlets are small modules that incorporate multiple essential satellite functions and share data, power and thermal management capabilities. Satlets physically aggregate in different combinations that would provide capabilities to accomplish diverse missions.Built by NovaWurks, eXCITE has a mass of 155 kg. eXCITE also carries the See Me (Space Enabled Effects for Military Engagements), a prototype microsatellite (~22 kg) built by Raytheon for DARPA to obtain on-demand satellite imagery in a timely and persistent manner for pre-mission planning.
• ExseedSat-1, a 1U CubeSat mission by the Indian company Exseed Space. They provide a multifunction UHF/VHF NBFM (Narrow Band Frequency Modulation) amateur communication satellite.
• FalconSat-6, a minisatellite (181 kg) of the USAFA (U.S. Air Force Academy) and sponsored by AFRL. FalconSat-6 hosts a suite of five payloads to address key AFSPC (Air Force Space Command) needs: SSA (Space Situational Awareness) and the need to mature pervasive technologies such as Hall Effect propulsion, solar arrays, and low power communications.
• Flock-3a, 3b & 3c, three 3U CubeSats (5 kg each) of Planet Labs to provide Earth observation.
• Fox-1C, a radio amateur and technology research 1U CubeSat developed by AMSAT and hosting several university developed payloads.
• Global 2, a demonstration mission for BlackSky Global, an American company aiming to deploy a constellation of sixty imaging satellites into low Earth orbit. This is BlackSky’s second launch of the week, following the deployment of their Global 1 satellite by India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) on Thursday. Global 2’s imaging system, SpaceView-24, was developed by Exelis and incorporates a 24-centimeter (9.4-inch) diameter telescope that will be used to produce images of the Earth’s surface at resolutions of up to 90 centimeters (35 inches). The Global satellites are constructed by Spaceflight Services using its SCOUT bus and have masses of 56 kilograms (123 lb) with a design life of at least three years.
• Hamilton 1 Cubesat carries technology demonstration payloads for Kubos Corporation of the US.
• HawkEye A, B & C, a formation-flying cluster of three microsatellites (13.4 kg each) of HawkEye 360, Herndon, VA, USA. They will be operated by US firm HawkEye 360 and are also prototypes for a planned larger constellation. These satellites will monitor radio signals from aircraft, ships and land-based transportation, allowing governments and commercial operators to see the status of their transportation networks and allowing emergency signals to be detected and relayed to rescue services. The goal is to demonstrate high-precision RFI (Radio Frequency Interference) geolocation technology monitoring.
• Hiber-1 and Hiber-2, these are 6U CubeSats, a pathfinder mission of Hiber Global, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, for Hiber Global's planned (IoT) communications CubeSat constellation.
• ICE-Cap (Integrated Communications Extension Capability), a 3U CubeSat of the US Navy. The objectives are to demonstrate a cross-link from LEO (Low Earth Orbit) to MUOS (Mobile User Objective System) WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) in GEO (Geosynchronous Orbit). The objective is to send to users on secure networks.
• ICEYE-X2, an X-band SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) microsatellite (~ 80 kg) of Iceye Ltd, a commercial satellite startup company of Espoo, Finland.
• Irvine 02, a 1U CubeSat educational mission by the Irvine Public School Foundation, Irvine, CA. The Irvine CubeSat STEM Program (ICSP) is a multi-year endeavor that directly impacts over a hundred students from six high schools and two school districts.
• ITASAT-1 (Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica Satellite), a Brazilian 6U Cubesat (~8kg) built by the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA). A former rescoped microsatellite mission.
• JY1-Sat, a 1U CubeSat for the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan developed by students of various Jordanian universities. The satellite will carry a UHF/VHF amateur radio payload furnished by the Royal Jordanian Amateur Radio Society, as well as an imaging system.
• K2SAT, a South Korean University imaging and voice relay experiment.
• KazSTSAT (Kazakh Science and Technology Satellite), a microsatellite (105 kg) of Ghalam LLP, Astana, Kazakhstan. Developed by SSTL on a SSTL-50 platform including an SSTL EarthMapper payload designed for global commercial wide-area imaging with a resolution of 17.5 m on a swath of 250 km.
• KNACKSAT (KMUTNB Academic Challenge of Knowledge SATellite) of Thailand, a 1U technology demonstration CubeSat, the first entirely Thai-built satellite, developed by students of King Mongkut's University of Technology North Bangkok (KMUTNB). Use of an amateur radio for communication.
• Landmapper-BC (Corvus BC 4), a 6U CubeSat (11 kg) of Astro Digital (formerly Aquila Space), Santa Clara, CA, USA. The satellite features a broad coverage multispectral (Red, Green, NIR) imaging system with a resolution of 22 m.
• MinXSS-2 (Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer-2), a 3U CubeSat(4 kg) of LASP (Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics) at the University of Colorado at Boulder,CO, USA. The objective is to study the energy distribution of solar flare SXR (Soft X-ray) emissions and its impact on the Earth's ITM (Ionosphere, Thermosphere, and Mesosphere) layers.MinXSS-2 is a copy of the MinXSS-1 but with some improvements. — MinXSS-1 was launched on 06 December 2015 onboard Cygnus CRS-4 to the ISS, where it was deployed into orbit on 16 May 2016. It re-entered Earth's atmosphere on 6 May 2017.
• Move-2 from Germany. Details unknown.
• NEXTSat-1, a multi-purpose microsatellite ~100 kg of Korea, designed and developed at SaTReC (Satellite Technology Research Center) of KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology). The goal is to conduct scientific missions such as star formation and space storm measurements and also technology demonstration in space. Instruments: ISSS (Instrument for the Study of Space Storms) developed at KAIST to detect plasma densities and particle fluxes of 10 MeV energy range near the Earth. NISS (NIR Imaging Spectrometer for Star formation history), developed at KASI (Korean Astronomy and Space Science Institute).
• Orbital Reflector, a 3U CubeSat project (4 kg) of the Nevada Museum of Art and artist Trevor Paylon. The Orbital Reflector is a 30 m sculpture constructed of a lightweight material similar to Mylar. On deployment, the sculpture self-inflates like a balloon. Sunlight reflects onto the sculpture making it visible from Earth with the naked eye — like a slowly moving artificial star as bright as a star in the Big Dipper.
• ORS-7A and ORS-7B (Operationally Responsive Space 7), two 6U CubeSats (-7A and -7B) of the USCG (US Coast Guard) in cooperation with DHS (Department of Homeland Security), the ORS (Operationally Responsive Space Office) of DoD, and NOAA. The Polar Scout objective is to detect transmissions from EPIRBs (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons), which are carried on board vessels to broadcast their position if in distress.
• PW-Sat 2 (Politechnika Warszawska Satellite 2), a 2U CubeSat of the Institute of Radioelectronics at the Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland. The objective is to demonstrate a deorbiting system - a drag parachute opened behind the satellite - which allows faster removal of satellites from their orbit after it completes its mission.
• RAAF-M1 (Royal Australian Air Force-M1), an Australian 3U CubeSat (~4 kg) designed and built by UNSW (University of New South Wales) for the Australian Defence Force Academy, Royal Australian Air Force. RAAF-M1 is a technology demonstration featuring an AIS receiver, and ADS-B receiver, an SDR (Software Defined Radio).
• RANGE-A and RANGE-B (Ranging And Nanosatellite Guidance Experiment), two 1.5 CubeSats of Georgia Tech (Georgia Institute of Technology), Atlanta, GA, USA, flying in a leader-follower formation with the goal of improving the relative and absolute positioning capabilities of nanosatellites.
• ROSE-1, a 6U CubeSat of Phase Four Inc., El Segundo, CA, USA. ROSE-1 is an experimental spacecraft designed to provide an orbital test-bed for the Phase Four RFT (Radio Frequency Thruster), the first plasma propulsion system to fly on a nanosatellite.
• SeaHawk-1, a 3U CubeSats of UNCW (University of North Carolina, Wilmington), NC. The goal is to measure the ocean color in project SOCON (Sustained Ocean Observation from Nanosatellites). SeaHawk is considered a prototype for a larger constellation. The SOCON project is a collaboration between Clyde Space Ltd (spacecraft bus), the University of North Carolina Wilmington, Cloudland Instruments, and NASA/GSFC (Goddard Space Flight Center).
• See Me (Space Enabled Effects for Military Engagements), a prototype microsatellite (~22 kg) built by Raytheon for DARPA to obtain on-demand satellite imagery in a timely and persistent manner for pre-mission planning.
• Sirion Pathfinder 2, a 3U CubeSat technology demonstration mission for US operator Sirion Global, also dedicated to the Internet of Things (IoT)
• SkySat-14 and SkySat-15. Planet Labs of San Francisco has 13 SkySats in orbit. The commercial EO satellites were built by Terra Bella of Mountain View, CA, which Planet Labs acquired from Google last year. At the time of the purchase, there were 7 SkySats in orbit. On 31 October 2017, Planet launched an additional six on a Minotaur-C rocket. The 100 kg SkySats are capable of sub-meter resolution – making them the most powerful in the constellation. Customers can request to have these high-resolution satellites target their locations of interest.
• SNUGLITE, a 2U CubeSat designed by the SNU (Seoul National University) for technology demonstrations and amateur radio communication.
• SNUSAT-2, a South Korean disaster management satellite.
• SpaceBEE, 4 picosatellites of Swarm Technologies (a US start-up), built to the 0.25U form factor to make up a 1U CubeSat. There might be three of those SpaceBEE’s with 12 Picosatellites.
• Suomi-100 from Finland. Details unknown.
• STPSat-5 is a science technology minisatellite of the US DoD STP (Space Test Program), managed by the SMC of the USAF. STPSat-5 will carry a total of five technological or scientific payloads to LEO (Low Earth Orbit) in order to further the DoD's understanding of the space environment. The satellite was built by SNC (Sierra Nevada Corporation) on the modular SN-50 bus with a payload capacity of 50-100 kg and compatible with ESPA-class secondary launch adaptors.
• THEA, a 3U CubeSat built by SpaceQuest, Ltd. of Fairfax, VA to demonstrate a spectrum survey payload developed by Aurora Insight, Washington DC. The objective is to qualify Aurora's payload, consisting of a proprietary spectrometer and components, and demonstrate the generation of relevant measurements of the spectral environment (UHF, VHF, S-band). The results of the experiment will inform future development of advanced instrumentation by Aurora and component development by SpaceQuest.
• VESTA is a 3U CubeSat developed at SSTL in Guildford, UK. VESTA is a technology demonstration mission that will test a two-way VHF Data Exchange System (VDES) payload for the exactEarth advanced maritime satellite constellation. Honeywell Aerospace is providing the payload. VESTA is a flagship project of the National Space Technology Program, funded by the UK Space Agency and managed by the Center for EO Instrumentation and Space Technology (CEOI-ST).
• VisionCube-1, a 2U CubeSat designed by the Korea Aerospace University (KAU) to perform research on Transient Luminous Events in the upper atmosphere. The image processing payload consists of a multi-anode photon multiplier tube(MaPMT), a camera, and a real-time image processing engine built by using SoC (System-on-Chip) FPGA technologies.
• WeissSat is a student-built satellite which is being flown for Florida’s Weiss School, and will test a chip-based laboratory concept in space as well as performing bioscience research.
As per usual I have combined 2 Payload lists to reach this result. Some details are lacking and other details are... shall We say confusing. Sorry. Nerd level 9.
A list where each satellite and CubeSat are attached would be nice to have, but alas no direct address list on individual payloads or when they were released from that place.
SSO-A deployment sequence from Falcon-9 Payload Adaptor Fitting (image credit: Spaceflight)
The upper Free Flier deploys first. The four Minisatellites deploy in an unknown order. Then the lower Free Flier deploys last. Here in visual form of deployment. Next nerd level is the NORAD satellite tracking list that shows individual orbits. Or this paper on the subject.
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