The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) plans a pair of key satlet flight experiments in fiscal year 2017 for its Phoenix program, according to an agency official.
DARPA Tactical Technology Office Program Manager Jeremy Palmer said Thursday the first flight experiment is a low earth orbit (LEO) demonstration known as Experiment for Cellular Integration Technologies (EXCITE). Palmer said EXCITE is a 155 kg satellite composed of 14 satlets that is currently finishing environmental testing and will soon be put in storage.
EXCITE is to validate the concept of an aggregated satlet system cluster in low earth orbit (LEO), according to NovaWurks, whose Hyper-Integrated Satlet (HiSat) is scheduled to launch into space via the Phoenix program. Palmer said EXCITE was supposed to launch a couple of months ago on the Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) Falcon 9 that exploded one day before launch in September.
Palmer said the other demonstration is for PodSat-1, a simple payload intended to fly on an upcoming Space Systems/Loral (SSL) Payload Orbital Delivery (POD) system in second quarter of FY ’17. PodSat-1, he said, will consist of about four satlets and will provide DARPA with flight heritage for satlets in high radiation environments like geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). Palmer said PodSat-1 will weigh about 90 kg.
Satlets are smaller, modular satellites that can be bundled together. Palmer said he believes satlets lend themselves better to the coming economy of manufacturing and servicing spacecraft.