Earlier today, we announced details surrounding our upcoming SXRS-5 mission (denoting our 5th SpaceX rideshare launch), scheduled to launch no earlier than June 2021. On this mission, we will debut TWO different orbital transfer vehicles for the first time, including the industry’s first-ever electric propulsion vehicle, Sherpa-LTE. (More about the Sherpa product line here.)

We’re secured 3 ports on the mission to support 36 spacecraft — comprised of 6 microsatellites, 29 cubesats and one hosted payload — from 14 organizations across 7 countries. To say handling the launch services and mission management is complex for a mission this size is an understatement, but it’s truly what we love to do.

So, who’s onboard SXRS-5? Over the next several months we’ll be taking even a deeper dive into many of these ground-breaking organizations and their missions, but here’s a quick look:

Aerospacelab’s Arthur: Aerospacelab’s Risk Reduction Flight mission objective is to put into service a high resolution optical payload, gain flight heritage for the in-house developed equipment, and verify the capability to maneuver the spacecraft thanks to the Micro Propulsion System from ExoTrail.

Astrocast’s IoT Nanosatellites: Astrocast will be launching an additional 5 IoT Nanosatellites to its constellation. The Astrocast SatIoT Service enables companies to track IoT Assets in some of the world’s most remote regions.

HawkEye 360’s Cluster 3: The Cluster 3 launch further expands HawkEye 360’s next-generation satellite constellation, which detects and geolocates radio frequency signals. The Cluster 3 satellites are able to collect a greater quantity of data across a wider portion of the RF spectrum, creating valuable, actionable insights for maritime domain awareness, national security, environmental protection and more.

In-Space Missions Limited’s Faraday Phoenix: In-Space Missions are world-class experts who design, build and operate bespoke physical and digital customer missions from their UK offices.

Kleos Space’s Polar Vigilance Mission cluster of four satellites: The four satellite Polar Vigilance Mission from Kleos will deliver radio frequency Earth Observation data.

Loft Orbital’s YAM-2: Loft Orbital’s satellite is flying several missions for commercial and government customers.

Lynk Global Inc.’s Shannon: Lynk’s mission is to provide global ubiquitous connectivity to unmodified mobile phones and cellular devices. (No image available)

NearSpace Launch Inc.’s TagSat-2: TagSat-2 mission is built by NearSpace Launch to provided 24/7 telemetry while hosting payloads for experimental testing.

OQ Technology’s TIGER-2 5G IoT: The TIGER-2 mission is OQ Technology’s second mission that aims to start commercial service by providing global 5G IoT connectivity to customers using a 6U high power satellite and to secure strategic frequencies. The mission carries two telecom payloads: The primary payload will provide satellite-based IoT and M2M services using low frequencies, and the secondary payload will demonstrate the feasibility of using high frequencies for 5G radio links.  

Orbit Fab’s Tanker-001 Tenzing: Orbit Fab’s first operational fuel depot will provide propellant for the fast growing in-orbit servicing industry.

Orbital Sidekick Inc.’s Aurora: The Aurora mission begins scalable delivery of commercial solutions using space-based hyperspectral imaging. Astro Digital built and is operating the satellite for Orbital Sidekick.

Spire Global Inc.’s LEMUR-2: The LEMUR–2 satellites collect Earth data to provide some of the most advanced maritime, aviation, and weather tracking in the world. The LEMUR–2 also supports hosted software and payloads through Spire Space Services.

Swarm Technologies’ SpaceBEES: Swarm’s 1/4U satellites are the smallest 2-way commercial communications satellites in the world, and are used to provide low-cost, global connectivity to remote IoT devices.

So much innovation and hard work by all the teams involved! It’s our honor to help all these organizations get to space to fulfill their missions.