Astroscale passes key design milestone for UK military space-tracking cubesats
TAMPA, Fla. - Astroscale has completed the critical design review for two cubesats slated to launch next year to help the British military monitor space weather and track objects in low Earth orbit (LEO).
The U.K. subsidiary of the Japanese on-orbit servicing venture announced the milestone April 8 for the Orpheus mission, which was fully funded last year under a 5.15 million British pound ($7 million) contract from the U.K.'s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl).
The mission involves flying a pair of near-identical 12U spacecraft from British small satellite specialist Open Cosmos in close formation for a year in LEO, where onboard hyperspectral imaging sensors would detect and identify targets of interest.
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International partners, including the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and Defence Research and Development Canada, are also providing payloads enabling the satellites to study geophysical activity that can disrupt navigation systems and communications.
Astroscale would operate the spacecraft, drawing on rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) expertise demonstrated during a 2021 satellite capture test and a more recent mission that carried out a close inspection of space debris.
Andrew Robinson, Dstl space systems program manager, said Orpheus will deliver vital research for the agency while playing a "key role in advancing the U.K.'s ability to design, build and deliver space systems for the future."
Alex Godfrey, head of defense for Astroscale's British subsidiary, said the U.K. and its allies will be able to draw upon data collected by the Orpheus spacecraft to improve their space domain awareness (SDA) capabilities.
"This includes accurate characterization of the dynamic ionosphere, informing ionospheric models to improve our ability to specify the impact of space weather, in addition to spectral sensing for Earth observation and SDA applications," Godfrey said.
"To ensure that data is useful to international collaborators, a lot of effort is placed on working towards a joint space architecture, which aims to enable more collaborative mission planning, satellite tasking and data dissemination across international partners."
Astroscale said it expects Orpheus to reach its next milestone in the third quarter of 2026, marking where the build of both satellites are complete and the mission is ready to begin the testing phase, ahead of launch in the first half of 2027.
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