WASHINGTON — SpaceX Falcon 9 launched a trio of small NASA astrophysics satellites on Jan. 11 along with dozens of commercial spacecraft on a rideshare mission.
The Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 8:44 a.m. Eastern on a mission SpaceX dubbed “Twilight.” Deploying the 40 spacecraft began 61 minutes after liftoff, with deployment ending more than 90 minutes later.
Twilight is part of SpaceX’s broader rideshare program, but outside its two main mission lines: the transporter launches into sun-synchronous orbit and the bandwagon flies into mid-inclination orbits. On this mission, payloads were deployed into sun-synchronous orbits in the evening and early morning.
The mission carried primarily commercial satellites, including 10 optical data relay network satellites for Kepler Communications and nine Lemur satellites for Spire. Other companies with payloads on launch included Internet of Things company Plan-S, radio frequency intelligence company HawkEye 360, and radar imaging companies Capella Space, IceEye, and Umbra.
Apart from this, three NASA astrophysics missions were also aboard, including two CubeSats. One, the Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS), is a 6U CubeSat built by the University of Arizona to study 20 K- and M-class stars at ultraviolet wavelengths, measuring stellar brightness and other activity that may affect the habitability of orbiting planets.
The other CubeSat, the Black Hole Coded Aperture Telescope, or BlackCAT, is a 6U spacecraft developed at Penn State University. It will also observe X-ray flares as well as gamma-ray bursts from supermassive black holes at the centers of active galaxies. Both SPARCS and BlackCAT were funded through NASA Astrophysics Research and Analysis programs.
The third NASA mission, Pandora, is part of the agency’s Astrophysics Pioneers program for small satellite and balloon-based missions, which has a cost cap of $20 million. The 325-kilogram Pandora spacecraft carries a 45-centimeter telescope to study exoplanet atmospheres by observing planetary transits when exoplanets pass in front of their host stars.
Pandora is the second mission to launch from the Pioneers program, led by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The first, Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations, or PUEO, is a balloon mission launched over Antarctica in December to study high-energy particles as they interact with or reflect off Antarctic ice.
Pandora and PUEO are two of four mission concepts that NASA has selected as the first Astrophysics Pioneers missions in 2021. The other two are Aspera, a spacecraft to study galaxy evolution that is planned to launch on Rocket Lab Electron later this year, and Starburst, a small satellite mission to observe the early stages of gamma-ray bursts, projected to launch in 2027.
NASA has since selected additional Astrophysics Pioneers missions, including the Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder for the International Space Station (TigerISS), an instrument to be mounted on the ISS, and Landolt, an “artificial star” small satellite designed to help calibrate stellar brightness measurements made by other telescopes.
At a NASA Town Hall during the 247th meeting of the American Astronomical Society on Jan. 5, Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of NASA’s Astrophysics Division, said the agency is working to select additional Pioneer missions this year.
“We are able to support two Pioneers missions,” he said. He did not give a timeline for the selection but said NASA was moving “as fast as we can.”
He said the agency may delay the next call for proposals under the Pioneers program. “What we’re thinking of doing is pushing the call back a little bit so that teams can respond to what we’re potentially going to choose,” he said, allowing proponents to put forward different mission concepts.
