SkyFire is one of thirteen CubeSats slated to launch on EM-1 as part of NASA’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) program. Dubbed SkyFire, it is a joint venture between the U.S. space agency and Lockheed Martin. The Lockheed Martin development team primarily consists of early-career engineers in partnership with the University of Colorado Boulder.
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The lunar flyby of SkyFire, a 6U CubeSat, will lead the way of a new infrared technology that will allow the scientists to fill in the strategic fissures in lunar data, which will impact the human space exploration efforts in future, according to Lockheed Martin’s SkyFire Project Manager, John Ringelberg. The primary mission, scheduled for September 2018, will be a test of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. To illuminate the unknown, Lockheed Martin has signed a contract with NASA to deploy SkyFire, a 6U CubESAt planned to launch to the moon in 2018 with Orion’s Exploration MISSion-1 (EM-1).
The adapter ring that connects Orion to the rocket will include 13 bays for CubeSats, shoe-box sized payloads that until now haven’t been delivered in significant numbers into deep space.
Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) division of the Human Exploration Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) detected “human health/performance in high-radiation environments, lunar resource potential, and human NEA mission target identification and interaction with NEA surface”, as the SKGs. Such technology, with lower-cost and lighter scientific instruments, might eventually be employed on future NASA missions sent much deeper into the solar system. “We’ll be able to see new things with sensors that are less costly to make and send to space”.
The focus on affordable mini-satellites is somewhat of a departure for Lockheed Martin, known as a mammoth military contractor behind such mega-projects as the $1.5 trillion F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter or the $362 million Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship.
SkyFire could potentially be used to analyze soil conditions, determine landing sites, and help identify a planet’s most habitable areas, according to the company.
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Even before it gets to space, SkyFire will have an unpleasant life, if NASA’s announcement about its just-completed Dellingr CubeSat is anything to go by.
