ORB-16

1. 1. You place a 2% deposit per satellite to secure yourself in the production queue and at the “early adopter rate”.
   2. You hire a flat-sat to design/program your payload for compatibility with the platform.
   3. Once ready, you pull the trigger for platform build.
   4. Once the platform is built (nominally 1 month later), you come on-site and integrate your payload with assistance from our engineers. This should not take more than a few days because of your upfront work on the flat-sat .
   5. Whilst you are on-site, we put the fully integrated satellite through fight-acceptance testing. This should not take more than few days after your payload has been integrated.
   6. After passing flight-acceptance testing and further health-checks, the satellite is securely stored on-site in an appropriate environment until the launch provider is ready to receive it.
   7. You organise shipment of the satellite from OrbAstro to your designated launch provider, we support with export paperwork.

£190,000 baseline

The price includes:

• • A fully assembled 16U satellite platform
  • Engineering support with payload integration, on-site with us
  • Full flight-acceptance testing and associated health-checks, on-site with us
  • Packaging for transportation
  • Storage of the satellite until the launch provider is ready to receive it

Nominal lead-time for production of satellite platforms is 1 month. Depending on optional extras and if there are chassis delta-designs, this can increase to 2-3 months.

Deposits are 2% of baseline price of satellite.

All subsystems have been subjected to extensive testing, are flight qualified, and have flight heritage. The same subsystems are used across the entire ORB-class satellite platform range.

• • The platform utilises an OrbAstro Telos-40 OBC.
  • The OBC is based on Xilinx Ultrascale+ MPSoCs with ARM cortex A53 and R5 64-bit processing cores, 2GB LPDDR4, 64GB eMMC, 250GFLOP double precision FPU, software and hardware based mitigation for SEU and SEL.
  • Additional customer-dedicated onboard computers can be provided for various applications.

• • The platform hosts an optical communications system for data relay through the Guardian Network satellites. Subscription packages vary, but 500MB/day uplink/downlink with up to 24 links per day is the baseline. Service available from mid-2024.
  • As a back-up, and until the Guardian Network satellites become operational, the platform contains an S-band transceiver and antenna with a 50Mb/s typical data rate at 1,000km for conventional ground link. All Guardian Network ground stations are capable of supporting S-band, X-band, and Ka-band links. Three associated ground stations will be operational over the course of 2022.
  • The S-band transceiver can be complimented with a Ka-band transmitter and antenna. The transmitter typically provides an additional 200Mb/s downlink at 1,000km range. All Guardian Network ground stations are capable of supporting S-band, X-band, and Ka-band. Three Guardian Network ground stations will available over the course of 2022.

• • The ADCS is based on an array of reaction wheels, magnetorquers, dual star-tracker cameras, Earth and Sun cameras, magnetometers, gyroscopes, and GPS unit, with a relatively comprehensive level of redundancy built in.
  • It provides highly accurate pointing control authority (<0.1deg/s) and pointing knowledge (<0.01deg/s) in both Solar and Eclipse phases.
  • High precision dual star-trackers heads for redundancy.
  • Dual redundant 3-axis magnetorquers.
  • It provides extremely high torque authority (40mNm) and momentum storage capacity (38mNms), typically an order of magnitude higher than what is conventionally available for 6U satellites. This ability for agile steering/pointing enables the customer to increase the amount of useful data collected by their payload (i.e. by jumping between points of interest through the orbit rather than say maintaining a fixed NADIR-pointing angle). The overhead for this type of target-tracking operation is much compressed when coupled to the Guardian Network autonomous mission operations service.

• • A quad electric propulsion system is contained within the “tuna cans” of the platform. It provides a maximum thrust of 464μN and a delta-V of 0.35km/s (baselining a 10kg spacecraft).
  • The unit enables accelerated deployment, accelerated RAAN drift, formation maintenance, station-keeping, collision avoidance, and active deorbit capabilities.
  • The design is highly robust and reliable with independent thruster heads, multiple neutralisers, redundancy built into the integrated electronics, no pressurised tanks, and no moving parts.

• • The platform will utilise a 72Wh variant of the OrbAstro EPS technology.
    Utilisation of conventional lithium-ion chemistries for batteries are one of the primary causes of early decommissioning of nanosatellites, due to cycle lifetime and vulnerability to the thermal environment.
  • OrbAstro uses an alternative cell chemistry far better suited to the LEO environment and satellite mission requirements.
  • The battery can operate at an 85% depth of discharge over a period of 30,000 cycles at 2C.
  • Maximum power consumption 400W.
  • The battery is extremely robust to the thermal environment, with an operating temperature range of -20⁰C to +60⁰C with minimal impact on capacity and lifetime.
  • An optional upgrade to increase power capacity of the battery to 144Wh, reducing payload volume available by 0.55U.

• • As a baseline, platform mounted solar panels are provided, generating 17W orbital average, of which 12.5Wh average is available for payload operations, depending on mission requirements.
  • Deployable solar panels can be provided to increase power available to the payload up to an orbital average of 97Wh. No payload volume is consumed with this addition.

OrbAstro has built every subsystem on this platform from scratch and in unison. This provides significant mass, volume, power, and assembly process optimisation advantages not possible otherwise. And it compresses the supply chain significantly (i.e. fewer margins-upon-margins). A lean batch-production philosophy has also been adopted. We do not provide customers with a custom-built turn-key solution that involves months of negotiations over requirements and shopping around with suppliers. What we offer is a single platform which as a baseline is massive overkill in most cases, from a performance requirements perspective. This allows us to addresses 95%+ of the nanosatellite market without significant modification.

Rather than procuring independently developed subsystems, and attempting to bolt them together, OrbAstro has built everything as an integrated system from the ground up, allowing for huge savings in volume consumed.

The company recently transitioned from R&D to commercialisation. All subsystems are flight-qualified and have flight heritage. The launch manifest for 2022 and 2023 for ORB-class platforms is very full, so significant heritage and flight data is being accumulated.

Vibration testing. Sequence: LLS HLS, LLS, RV, LLS. Functional/health checks are carried out at every step. TVAC, EMC, and Shock testing can be provided as required, but as a baseline, this is not typically required for nanosatellites.

If the failure is on the platform side, either the defunct subsystem or the entire platform will be swapped out for a back-up free of charge (along with payload integration, and another round of flight-acceptance testing). If the failure is on the payload side, you will either need to make a quick fix on-site or take your payload home and come back with a suitably modified system when ready. In either case you will be charged an additional £25,000 to repeat the satellite rebuild, payload integration and flight-acceptance activities.

Yes. If you do not, there is a high likelihood that there will be numerous bugs that will take weeks to resolve when it comes to payload integration to the actual satellite platform. It works out more cost-effective for both us and you, to do all of that on the flat-sat before you come on-site.

No. You will get those subsystems anyway. In exceptional circumstances, it will be possible to remove some components if it is critical for the operations of your payload (e.g. removal of solar cells for line-of-sight or deployable structures). This minimises non-recurring expenses for us associated with handling, assembly, testing, and paperwork. Also, most subsystems onboard are required for connectivity with the Guardian Network, which will be a mandatory part of the package when it comes online.

No. Only once the Guardian Network comes online in mid-2023. There will be a partially operational network available in 2022 that we will make available for beta-testing.

We have three Guardian Network ground stations coming online over the period of 2022. You will be able to access your satellite through these ground stations through either S-/X-/Ka-band, before the Guardian Network provides you with persistent access. We will assist with associated spectrum filings.