Increasingly powerful electronics mean that CubeSats – which can be built economically by students, scientists and small companies around standard-sized 10cm by 10cm frames – are becoming powerful tools for researching in-orbit capabilities, and even direct imaging of the Earth or space environments. The tiny, box-shaped spacecraft have emerged in the last 16 years as a quick, viable way to test components and techniques that, if proven, can be applied to much larger missions where the stakes are far greater than a simple, 4-inch cube. The agency said the price of each flight, which can orbit 15 to 30 CubeSats, “is one-tenth the cost of the least-expensive traditional launcher”.
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The contract Firefly won is called a Venture Class Launch Services contract, and demonstration CubeSat launches could occur as soon as 2017.
Virgin Galactic expects a first test flight of its air-launched system – which runs off of the same carrier aircraft that will fly its passenger-carrying SpaceShipTwo suborbital rocketplane – before mid-2017. The total value of the three contracts is $17.15 million, with $6.95 million awarded to Rocket Lab, $5.5 million to Firefly Space Systems and $4.7 million to Virgin Galactic.
That’s where Firefly and its family of launch vehicles comes in.
“It’s a huge step for the commercialization of space”, Mark Wiese, chief of the Flight Projects Office for NASA’s Launch Services Program, which is based at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, said during a news conference today (Oct. 14).
The three companies that got VCLS contracts have not yet flown commercial missions with their launch vehicles, but all three are making progress toward that goal.
All three rockets are still in development and have not yet launched.
Director of NASA’s earth science division, Dr Michael Freilich, said that increasingly capable CubeSats and other very small platforms “could revolutionise out science-based spaceborne Earth-observing systems”.
The Earth Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington has partnered with LSP to fund the VCLS contracts. The VCLS contracts will demonstrate a dedicated launch capability for smaller payloads that NASA anticipates it will require on a recurring basis for future science SmallSat and CubeSat missions.
“CubeSats will now be the primary payload for these vehicles”, Skrobot said. They have also been sprung into the orbital void from canisters aboard the global Space Station to conduct research missions.
At present, launch opportunities for small satellites and science missions mostly are limited to rideshare-type arrangements, flying only when space is available on NASA and other launches.
“This is no longer the case”, said Garrett Skrobot of the Launch Services Program.
VCLS constitutes NASA’s smallest class of launch services.
Rocket Lab’s Electron small launch vehicle.
Thomas Markusic, Firefly’s CEO, said Wednesday the company developed Firefly Alpha over the last 18 months.
Risks & Regulation In Small Sat Launches – What are the dynamics? He added that Rocket Lab’s manifest is fully booked out to mid-2018. The Electron is powered by Rocket Lab’s Rutherford engine, a 3D printed engine that uses batteries to drive its pumps. Arianespace Soyuz rockets will orbit the bulk of the OneWeb constellation.
“Rocket Lab US is looking forward to working to fulfill NASA’s Venture Class mission objectives through increased launch opportunities from small, dedicated and affordable launch vehicles”, said Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s chief executive officer.
Virgin Galactic did not give an estimated date for its Venture Class mission, but in a statement the company said that it would take place “just before the start of our routine commercial operations” of its LauncherOne system.
“In the private sector, we are now seeing that this is not just the playground of people who are interested in the technology, but this is real business”, said Steve Isakowitz, president of Virgin Galactic.
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Both Firefly Space Systems and Virgin Galactic are offering NASA a discount over their list prices because the agency is an early customer.
