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Small Satellite Missions

    Takeoff! ELaNa 20 Mission on Its Way to Space

    Ahead of the company’s Launch Demo 2 mission, Virgin Orbit’s carrier aircraft Cosmic Girl is staged on a taxiway with LauncherOne underwing at Mojave Air and Spaceport in California. November 10, 2020.

    Marking the first payload carried by the LauncherOne rocket, Virgin Orbit’s 747-00 carrier, Cosmic Girl, took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California at 1:38 p.m. ET today. The LauncherOne rocket, attached to the underside of Cosmic Girl’s left wing, is the carrying CubeSats for the encapsulated Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) …

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    Launch Window Opens for ELaNa 20 Mission

    Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne system undergoes final preparations on a taxiway at Mojave Air and Space Port ahead of the company’s Launch Demo 2 mission. Taken in late December 2020. Photo: Virgin Orbit/Greg Robinson.

    Virgin Orbit’s Cosmic Girl aircraft and LauncherOne rocket are positioned for takeoff from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, in preparation to launch 10 small NASA-sponsored research satellites, or CubeSats, as part of the agency’s 20th Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) mission. Cosmic Girl carries the LauncherOne rocket on the underside of the …

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    CubeSats Deployed From Space Station

    In this photo taken by NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson from inside the International Space Station cupola, the NanoRacks deployer (foreground) is clearly visible as the CXBN-2 and IceCube CubeSats deploy. CSUNSat-1 deployed on time two days later. The three CubeSat payloads make up NASA’s ELaNa 17 mission which launched in April aboard the Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft on a commercial resupply flight to the station.

    The CubeSats that make up NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative ELaNa 17 mission have begun their research in earnest. All three have been dispatched in orbit from the NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer on the International Space Station. Orbiting on their own on separate paths, the individual spacecraft will relay data to researchers on Earth as they conduct …

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    CubeSats Touching New Heights in Space Research

    By Steven Siceloff, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida Part of the scientific cargo packed inside an Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft recently launched to the International Space Station is a trio of tiny spacecraft that soon will fly on their own in orbit to look at different aspects of space-based science. With one examining Earth’s cloud layer, …

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    Event Oct. 14 to Introduce CubeSat Launch Providers

    NASA will host a news conference at 1 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, Oct. 14, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to announce the outcome of the Venture Class Launch Service competition. The news conference will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website. The participants are: Garrett Skrobot, Educational Launch of Nanosatellites …

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