A mission to better understand the impact of space weather on key communication and navigation systems has been awarded a £5.15m satellite contract by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl).
Space weather is generated by solar winds and other background radiation that have impacts upon the Earth’s magnetosphere, ionosphere, thermosphere and exosphere. It can cause significant problems with key satellite-based communication and positioning systems.
To improve our understanding, Dstl and partners in the US and Canada are launching the Orpheus mission, which will see a set of CubeSats being sent into orbit, where they can collect detailed data about rapid changes occurring outside our atmosphere.
Astroscale UK has been granted the initial £5.15m contract to design and build two near-identical CubeSats that will fly in formation in low Earth and Sun-synchronous orbit to observe and collect critical data using in situ and remote sensing techniques. The plan is to launch in 2027...