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WASHINGTON – Astra won a contract from NASA to launch a small constellation of science cubesats from Earth, while General Atomics selected Rocket Lab to launch a small satellite with a payload hosted by NOAA.
NASA announced on February 26 that it had awarded Astra a $ 7.95 million contract for three launches of the company’s Rocket 3 vehicle, which will be used to deploy the time-resolved observations of the precipitation structure. and storm intensity with a SmallSats constellation (TROPICS) mission.
The three launches will take place over a 120-day period between January 8 and July 31, 2022, from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. These would be the first orbital ground launches from Kwajalein since the last launch of the Falcon 1, from Omelek Island there, in 2009. Kwajalein has hosted several flights of the air-launched Pegasus rocket, the most recently in 2012.
TROPICS is a constellation of six 3U cubesats in three orbital planes at an inclination of 30 degrees and an altitude of 600 kilometers. Each identical satellite will carry a radiometer to collect temperature and water vapor profiles as they pass over tropical weather systems. Scientists will use TROPICS to obtain information on the structure of tropical storms, with the constellation allowing frequent visits to study how these storms evolve.
The TROPICS contract is the second NASA award that Astra has received. In December, the company was one of three small launch vehicle developers to win Venture-class launch service contracts for the launch of cubesats. Astra’s price, valued at $ 3.9 million, is for the dedicated launch of 30 kilograms of cubesats into a 500-kilometer mid-tilt orbit, no later than June 2022.
General Atomics announced on February 24 that it had chosen Rocket Lab to launch an Orbital Test Bed satellite it developed and carrying the payload hosted by Argos-4 Advanced Data Collection System (A-DCS). NOAA hosted the payload launch through the Hosted Payload Solutions contracted vehicle operated by the Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center. The launch, on an Electron rocket, is scheduled for late 2021 or early 2022.
The A-DCS payload is part of the Argos data collection system which includes NOAA, the French space agency CNES, Eumetsat and the Indian space agency ISRO. The payload receives data from sensors, ranging from those mounted on ocean buoys to wildlife trackers, and transmits this data to ground stations.
This contract is the second in as many weeks awarded by General Atomics for the launch of an Orbital Test Bed satellite. The company selected Firefly Aerospace on February 18 to launch a satellite carrying the payload hosted by the Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols, an earth science instrument from NASA. This satellite will launch into polar orbit on an Alpha rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in 2022.
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