ION Satellite Carrier (formerly ION CubeSat Carrier) is a satellite platform developed, manufactured, and operated by

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company

D-Orbit D-Orbit is a private aerospace company headquartered in Italy with subsidiaries in Portugal, the UK and the US. D-orbit is mainly active in the Space tug also known as orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) market. While this concept has existed for se ...

. The platform features a customizable 64U

satellite dispenser A satellite dispenser is a space tug usually released from the upper stage (sometimes called kick stage) of a rocket and designed to fly small secondary payloads to their desired location before deploying them. Project West Ford launched 480,000,0 ...

capable of hosting a combination of

CubeSat A CubeSat is a class of miniaturized satellite based around a form factor consisting of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for their electronics and structure. CubeSats ...

s that fits the volume. Throughout a mission, ION Satellite Carrier can release the hosted satellites individually, changing orbital parameter between one deployment and the next. Each of the miniature CubeSats weighs a few kilograms. The organization also developed a D3 (D-Orbit Decommissioning Device) system, which has obtained funding from the

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and the

European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (1205 ...

, to safely dispose of satellites at the end of their lives and avoid adding to the problems created by the approximately 130 million pieces of space debris. According to D-Orbit, a space

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is feasible, and space recycling will soon be a new sector. This will involve using local resources such as dead satellites to create spaceships in space. The inaugural mission, named Origin, was launched on

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from the

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French Guiana French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic ...

on September 3, 2020. The vehicle, named ION SCV Lucas, carried 12 SuperDove satellites from

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. On September 25th, ION SCV Lucas released successfully the first SuperDove satellite of the batch; the last satellite was deployed on October 28th. As of November 2022, ION SCV has successfully completed 11 missions, 1 as a payload of a

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rocket and 10 as a payload of a

Falcon 9 Block 5 Falcon 9 Block 5 is a Reusable launch system#Partial reusable launch systems, partially reusable two-stage-to-orbit medium-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured in the United States by SpaceX. It is the fifth version of Falcon 9 Full Thr ...

rocket. D-Orbit is a successful alumnus of the European Space Agency's incubator, ESA BIC Portugal, and the two firms collaborated on Project Sunrise, an active debris removal project, in 2019.

Mission overview

The carrier deployed CubeSats one by one using a spring release mechanism once positioned in a sun-synchronous orbit at 500 km. The 60 cm cubic dispenser allows for several combinations of 1U, 2U, 3U, 3U+, 6U, 6U+, 12U and 12U+ Cubesats along the vertical axis. After completion of the up to one month long deployment phase, ION CubeSat Carrier will initiate a validation phase of its payloads directly integrated on the platform.

Missions

Past missions

Planned missions

References

External links