NanoRacks CubeSats deployed from the International Space Station in February 2014, during Expedition 38. Credit: NASA
Astronauts fired up the International Space Station’s Yard-a-Pult (actually, we mean the Japanese Kibo arm’s satellite launcher)
this week to send out a flock of Doves or tiny satellites that take
pictures of the Earth below. An incredible 28 satellites from Planet
Labs of San Francisco are expected to swarm into orbit — the largest
fleet yet, NASA says — but there have been delays in launching some of
them.
The aim? To provide Earth observation information for
any purpose that is needed, whether it’s disaster relief or looking to
learn more about the Earth’s environment. Planet Labs and NASA say that
commercial applications could include real estate, mapping, construction
and oil and gas monitoring.
Deployments of two satellites each began on Tuesday and Wednesday, but NASA noted there are “glitches”
(which the agency didn’t specify) that are holding up the launch of
other ones. There’s no estimated date yet for sending out the rest of
the satellites.
“We believe that the democratization of information about a changing
planet is the mission that we are focused on, and that, in and of
itself, is going to be quite valuable for the planet,” stated Robbie
Schingler, co-founder of Planet Labs.
The
Japanese Kibo robotic arm on the International Space Station deploys
CubeSats during February 2014. The arm was holding a Small Satellite
Orbital Deployer to send out the small satellites during Expedition 38.
Credit: NASA
Flock 1 is a customer of the NanoRacks CubeSats program. CubeSats are small satellites that heavily rely on computer miniaturization to
do the job of Earth observation and telecommunication that previously
was the province of much larger and more expensive satellites. NanoRacks
provides space both inside and outside the station for research experiments.
Expedition 38′s Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata both commented on
the unusual launches. “Two small satellites are deployed from our
launcher here on the space station. Each a little bigger than loaf of
bread,” Mastracchio tweeted, while Wakata wrote, “Congratulations on the successful deploy of the satellites by the NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer and Kibo robotics!”
For more information on Flock 1, check out the Planet Labs website.
You can also check out an animation of how NanoRacks CubeSats deploy in
the animation below (which includes a clip from the song “We Are Young”
by Fun.)
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