Mission

Dashing Through The Stars

Mission Name

Dashing Through The Stars

Carrier Name

ION SCV004 Elysian Eleonora

Launch Date

January 2022

Launch Site

Cape Canaveral

Launcher

SpaceX

Rocket

Falcon 9

Mission Status

Ongoing

Satellites Onboard

Hosted Payloads

Dashing Through the Stars Mission Booklet

Mission Updates

9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.

UPDATE 9

February 15th, 2022

Dodona deployed, end of deployment phase

ION Elysian Eleonora successfully deployed Dodona, a 3U CubeSat developed by the University of Southern California (USC) in collaboration with Lockheed Martin, into orbit. The satellite will help space qualify a number of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies.

With the deployment of Dodona, the first phase of ION Satellite Carrier's DASHING THROUGH THE STARS mission is officially over, as our satellite platform has delivered all the spacecraft into their operational orbital slots. ION will soon enter the in-orbit validation phase of the mission, during which the company will conduct in-orbit testing of the technology of the third-party payloads and run a second iteration of its own cloud platform.

UPDATE 8

February 4th, 2022

SW1FT deployed

ION Elysian Eleonora correctly deployed SW1FT into orbit.

SW1FT, the last of the four SatRevolution’s satellites hosted on ION, is a 3U satellite capable of capturing RGB and NIR images, and carries an on-board computer for an onboard image processing experiment.

SatRevolution confirmed the acquisition of the signal.

UPDATE 7

February 3rd, 2022

STORK-2 deployed

ION Elysian Eleonora successfully released STORK-2 into its operational orbital slot. The satellite joined STORK-1 in building SatRevolution’s constellation for earth observation and technology testing.

The acquisition of the signal was confirmed by the client.

UPDATE 6

JANUARY 31st, 2022

STORK-1 deployed

ION Elysian Eleonora successfully released STORK-1 into orbit.STORK-1, the first of two satellites built and operated by SatRevolution, will be used for collecting multispectral medium-resolution imagery and data.

The acquisition of the signal was confirmed by the client.

UPDATE 5

JANUARY 28th, 2022

LabSat deployed

ION Elysian Eleonora correctly delivered the 3U CubeSat LabSat of SatRevolution into its operational orbital slot. LabSat is the result of a project focusing on miniaturized laboratory tools and technologies for testing in microgravity conditions.

The acquisition of the signal was confirmed by the client.

UPDATE 4

JANUARY 26th, 2022

VZLUSAT-2 deployed

ION Elysian Eleonora successfully deployed VZLUSAT-2, a 3U CubeSat mission of the Czech Aerospace Research Centre (VZLU) Research Centre in cooperation with Spacemanic, into its operational orbit. Satellite communication with telemetry and telecommand will be performed by UHF band in the amateur frequency band. Mission operations are provided by a team from the University of West Bohemia, Pilsen.

UPDATE 3

JANUARY 21st, 2022

LEOP completed ahead of time

The ‘Phase 1 - Launch and Early Orbit Phase’ of ION’s Dashing Through the Stars mission has been successfully completed ahead of schedule. The operations team has neutralized the rotation imparted by the launch vehicle during separation, corrected the attitude, and tested the satellite’s subsystems. We are now about to start the Commercial Phase, Orbital Transportation with the release of the satellites of our customers.

UPDATE 2

JANUARY 14th, 2022

Beginning of LEOP and commissioning phase

After acquiring the signal from our ION SCV Elysian Eleonora a few hours after launch, our operations team has started all actions and procedures required by the Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) and Commissioning phase.

UPDATE 1

JANUARY 13th, 2022

Launch

On January 13th, 2022, at 15.25 pm UTC, ION Satellite Carrier was launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS), Florida. On the same day, 1h24m30s after liftoff, the vehicle was successfully deployed into a 500 km Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO).

This mission’s manifest includes Lockheed Martin, with a satellite developed in collaboration with the University of Southern California Space Engineering Research Center for the testing of complex vision processing algorithms, SatRevolution, with a group of satellites for Earth Observation and scientific purposes, and the Czech Aerospace Research Centre (VZLU) in cooperation with Spacemanic, with a satellite testing technologies for future missions of the Czech satellite constellation.

Roadmap

PHASE 1 - COMMISSIONING

As soon as ION SCV004 Elysian Eleonora reaches orbit, our spacecraft operations engineers establish a bidirectional communication channel. We then start the launch and early orbit phase (LEOP), neutralizing the rotation imparted by the launch vehicle during separation, correcting the attitude, testing the satellite’s subsystems, and preparing for the next phases.

PHASE 2 - COMMERCIAL PHASE, ORBITAL TRANSPORTATION

Once concluded the commissioning phase, ION SCV004 Elysian Eleonora starts the commercial phase of the mission with the deployment of the hosted satellites into a 500km sun-synchronous orbit. This mission’s manifest again includes clients from around the world, like Lockheed Martin, with a satellite developed in collaboration with the University of Southern California Space Engineering Research Center for the testing of complex vision processing algorithms, SatRevolution, with a group of satellites for Earth Observation and scientific purposes, and the Czech Aerospace Research Centre (VZLU) in cooperation with Spacemanic, with a satellite testing technologies for future missions of the Czech satellite constellation.

PHASE 3 - HOSTED PAYLOADS PHASE

After the conclusion of the deployment phase, DASHING THROUGH THE STARS will proceed with the in-orbit demonstration of ARCA by CYSEC SA, a hardened operating system with a built-in cryptographic service and key management system to provide end-to-end cyber security protection for satellite communications.

PHASE 4 - ADVANCED SERVICES TESTS

This phase of the mission will be focused on D-Orbit’s cloud platform designed to provide distributed high-performance data analytics computing and storage capabilities in space. For this mission, D-Orbit is working in collaboration with Unibap and the European Space Agency (ESA) who are supporting the in-orbit test of a hyperspectral electro-optical instrument developed by research institution VTT. This platform allows third parties to upload and execute cloud applications and AI workloads to process images as soon as they are created, allowing results to be sent to users in record time.

PHASE 5 - DECOMMISSIONING

At the end of the mission, the spacecraft is decommissioned in compliance with the Space Debris Mitigation guidelines. The pressure vessels are depleted from leftover fuel and oxidizer, the battery charging system is deactivated, and the batteries are completely discharged. The spacecraft, now inert, enters a decommissioning trajectory that will bring it to burn up upon atmospheric re-entry within a few years.