Ongoing Nanosat Launch Vehicle Development for Providing Regular and Predictable Access to Space for Small Spacecraft

Ongoing Nanosat Launch Vehicle Development for Providing Regular and Predictable Access to Space for Small Spacecraft

One candidate approach for providing regular access to space for very small satellites is through the use of a Nanosat Launch Vehicle (NLV) that is designed and dedicated specifically to this purpose. Accordingly, a joint academic-industry team, working together through the California Launch Vehicle Education Initiative, has defined such an NLV that is scaled to deliver up to 10 kg of payload to a reference 250 km circular polar orbit. During the past year this team has achieved several milestones towards implementing such an NLV. Most significant has been the start of flight testing with full-scale, low-fidelity NLV prototypes. These tests are helping to drive the NLV design process while also pathfinding associated field site operations. At the same time, the experiences from manifesting multiple academic payloads are providing insights on what will be required to optimize NLV payload accommodations. Furthermore, while not baselined for the operational system, successful vehicle recoveries have expedited project turn-around times between flights and enabled significant cost savings. Future testing will focus on improving the performance and fidelity of these development vehicles. To conduct high altitude suborbital development flights, such activities will eventually have to re-locate to a new launch range that is free of the altitude ceiling constraints that characterize the present site in the Mojave desert.