Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems was an American company designing and building satellites. It started as a designer, builder and provider of

nanosatellite A small satellite, miniaturized satellite, or smallsat is a satellite of low mass and size, usually under . While all such satellites can be referred to as "small", different classifications are used to categorize them based on mass. Satellites ca ...

and

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 ...

space vehicle products and services for government and commercial customers. Tyvak was based in

Irvine, California Irvine () is a Planned community, master-planned city in South Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the 1960s and the city was formally incorporated on ...

. It was a subsidiary of Terran Orbital Corporation. In 2022, it was announced that Tyvak would transition into larger satellites from nanosats and cubesats and the name Tyvak would be phased out in favor of the name of the parent company Terran Orbital. In 2011,

Jordi Puig-Suari Jordi Puig-Suari is a professor and aerospace technology developer. He is the co-inventor of the CubeSat standard together with Bob Twiggs, and the co-founder of Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems. Early life and education Puig-Suari was born in the C ...

, co-inventor of the CubeSat design, and Scott MacGillivray, former manager of nanosatellite programs for

Boeing Phantom Works Boeing Phantom Works is the advanced prototyping arm of the defense and security side of Boeing. Its primary focus is developing advanced military products and technologies, many of them highly classified. Founded by McDonnell Douglas, the re ...

, established Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems in

San Luis Obispo, California San Luis Obispo (; Spanish for " St. Louis the Bishop", ; Chumash: ''tiłhini'') is a city and county seat of San Luis Obispo County, in the U.S. state of California. Located on the Central Coast of California, San Luis Obispo is roughly halfwa ...

, to sell miniature

avionics Avionics (a blend word, blend of ''aviation'' and ''electronics'') are the Electronics, electronic systems used on aircraft. Avionic systems include communications, Air navigation, navigation, the display and management of multiple systems, ...

packages for small satellites, with the goal to increase the volume available for payloads. On 18 November 2019, Tyvak was one of five companies selected to be eligible to bid for the NASA

Commercial Lunar Payload Services Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) is a NASA program to contract transportation services able to send small robotic landers and rovers to the Moon's south polar region mostly with the goals of scouting for lunar resources, testing in sit ...

(CLPS). In 2022, Terran Orbital company, the company that owns Tyvak, entered public stock market through a SPAC merger. At the time it was announced that the name Tyvak would be phased out and the focus of the whole company (that is, both Tyvak and Terran Orbital) would be transitioned into larger satellites from nanosats and cubesats.

Satellites

Tyvak-0172 was launched as a rideshare on the

Falcon 9 Falcon 9 is a partially reusable medium lift launch vehicle that can carry cargo and crew into Earth orbit, produced by American aerospace company SpaceX. The rocket has two stages. The first (booster) stage carries the second stage and payl ...

SAOCOM 1B SAOCOM (Satélite Argentino de Observación COn Microondas, Spanish for Argentine Microwaves Observation Satellite) is an Earth observation satellite constellation of Argentina's space agency CONAE. Two satellites are already orbiting the Ear ...

launch 30 August 2020. Tyvak-0171 was launched as a rideshare on the 16th launch of the Vega rocket on 3 September 2020. OSM-1 Cicero, a 6U remote sensing CubeSat built by Tyvak for Orbital Solutions was also a payload. Tyvak-0130 was launched as a rideshare on Starlink V1.0 L26 on 15 May 2021.

LunIR LunIR is a nanosatellite spacecraft launched to the Moon collecting surface spectroscopy and thermography. It was launched as a secondary payload on the Artemis 1 mission on 16 November 2022. Mission LunIR is a technology demonstration missi ...

launched on

Artemis 1 Artemis 1, officially Artemis I and formerly Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), was an uncrewed Moon-orbiting mission. As the first major spaceflight of NASA's Artemis program, Artemis 1 marked the return of the agency to lunar exploration original ...

as a secondary payload. It studies the Moon using an infrared sensor and cryocooler. It was built by Lockheed Martin and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems.

References

External links

Tyvak Official Website
Private spaceflight companies Aerospace companies of the United States Manufacturing companies based in Greater Los Angeles Technology companies based in Greater Los Angeles Companies based in Boca Raton, Florida {{Space-stub