NASA seeks launchers for smallest satellites

Students and scientists are packing increasingly innovative missions into tiny satellites known as CubeSats, but getting them to space isn't easy or cheap.

The satellites measuring as little as four inches on a side, often with multiples of those cubes stacked together, must hitch rides when available on big rockets launching much larger spacecraft, at prices starting around $100,000.

A NASA program based at Kennedy Space Center hopes to help usher in a new class of rockets designed specifically to launch very small satellites, or bunches of them.

"That way they can go wherever they want to go, whenever they want to go," said Amanda Mitskevich, manager of the Launch Services Program. "They don't have to be attached to the primary (mission)."

The program this year plans to partner with multiple companies to launch demonstration missions with new rockets by 2018.

The launches of satellites totaling just 132 pounds to an orbit 264 miles up aim to show what the rockets can do with low-risk payloads, giving NASA or companies confidence to fly more sophisticated satellites on them.

"We see this emerging launch capability as something the world is going to need," said Mark Wiese, flight projects branch chief in the Launch Services Program. "We want to help push this market forward."

NASA has launched more than 30 CubeSats over the last several years, and has a backlog of more than 50 awaiting rides over the next few years, said Garrett Skrobot, mission manager for NASA's Educational Launch of Nanosatellites program at KSC.

More frequent and affordable launches could prompt NASA's Science Mission Directorate to consider splitting up a future mission's instruments onto smaller spacecraft instead of combining them on a larger one.

"We're looking to be able to find more of a dedicated ride for some of these missions that are having more complex science," he said.

The so-called Venture Class Launch Services initiative builds upon a program that in 2013 awarded a contract worth up to $2.1 million to Atlanta-based Generation Orbit, which plans to launch small rockets from an aircraft taking off from Cecil Spaceport near Jacksonville.

That contract's planned 2016 launch of about 33 pounds of satellites was scrapped in favor of the new program and its increased payload weight, which NASA said better fit market trends.

At least two other small rocket developers, Rocket Lab and Firefly Systems, are considering launching from Cape Canaveral and could be among a half-dozen to a dozen candidates submitting diverse proposals to NASA.

"We see options that are out there that are vertical launch," said Wiese. "There's options out there that are air launch. There's options out there that launch off of a rail."

NASA has not disclosed the project's funding while awaiting competitive bids.

CubeSats emerged in the late 90s as an inexpensive, university-led initiative, and have grown in popularity.

The 91 CubeSats launched in 2013 was more than in the previous eight years combined, according to last year's "State of the Satellite Industry Report" by The Tauri Group, a consulting firm based in Alexandria, Virginia.

Merritt Island High students are working to design and launch a CubeSat nicknamed StangSat.

The miniaturization of electronics over time has increased the power of small spacecraft, spurring commercial innovation and investment. San Francisco-based Planet Labs, for example, has deployed "flocks" of its Dove imaging satellites from the International Space Station.

NASA recently announced its first interplanetary CubeSat, which will help track the agency's InSight lander during its descent through the Martian atmosphere. The mission is scheduled to launch next year.

"This is a fun thing for us, to try to help see a new capability come to market," said Wiese.