September 2016
Small launcher market survey
...times and global coverage. Therefore, with the growth of the number of smallsat spacecraft follows an increased requirement to place these large constellations of small spacecraft in a wide set of locations. Out of the woodwork As the smallsat market...
March 2015
Chasing comets together: the Vega project in the USSR and beyond
...possible thanks to former ISE employee A.A. Sukhanov, who currently works at INPE. ISE suggested discussing the possibility of a small spacecraft joint project. The goal of the project is to fly to the Trojan asteroids for exploration. Our Mars rover...
July 2014
Beware the situation: how JSpOC tracks space debris
... challenges, JSpOC has identified several ‘responsible practices’ to facilitate better small spacecraft deployment and operations. These include asking spacecraft owner/operators to: • provide their requirements, orbital regimes, and deployment...
January 2017
New oceans beckon for solar sail technology
..., the NanoSail-D, a 10 square metre sail that deployed from a 3U CubeSat in low Earth orbit. [A CubeSat is a small spacecraft built from modular 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm cubes, each cube being 1U. A 3U CubeSat is built from three 1U modules.] NanoSail...
April 2018
Future Cubesat swarms pose significant communications challenges
... Layer to Network Layer View; IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 2442-2473, Fourth quarter 2016. 3 Small Spacecraft Technology State of Art, Mission Design Division Staff, NASA Ames Research Center, NASA/TP–2014–216648/REV1...
July 2021
Nitrous oxide – a green propellant for commercial space exploration
..., the plans regarding their applications became more ambitious to the extent that a propulsion system on-board small spacecraft would significantly expand the number of applications. Commercialisation demands a change in the paradigm of the specific...
