ION Satellite Carrier (formerly ION CubeSat Carrier) is a satellite platform developed, manufactured, and operated by Italian 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 capable of hosting a combination of CubeSats 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 European Commission 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

circular economy A circular economy (also referred to as circularity and CE) is a model of production and consumption, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible. CE aims ...

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 Vega flight VV16 from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana on September 3, 2020. The vehicle, named ION SCV Lucas, carried 12 SuperDove satellites from

Planet_Labs Planet Labs PBC (formerly Planet Labs, Inc. and Cosmogia, Inc.) is an American public Earth imaging company based in San Francisco, California. Their goal is to image the entirety of the Earth daily to monitor changes and pinpoint trends. The co ...

. 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 Vega rocket and 10 as a payload of a Falcon 9 Block 5 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