NASA selects SpaceX to start Astrophysics Smallsat Mission

On By Littum

Washington – NASA has chosen SpaceX to launch a small exoplanet science mission like a riding hare -new load as soon as September.

NASA announced on February 10 that it assigned a task order to SpaceX for the launch of the Pandora rum vessel. Through the review order, the assignment order is the acquisition of dedicated and riding hare (Vadr) launch service contract, intended for small missions with higher acceptance of risk.

Pandora is a Smallsat mission that is part of the Astrophysics Pioneer’s program for low cost. The spacecraft has a 45-centimeter telescope equipped with optical and infrared detectors that will observe 20 stars known to have exoplanets over a year’s mission.

“Pandora’s primary goal is to examine the atmospheres of exoplanets using transmission spectroscopy,” said Elisa Quintana, main study researcher for Pandora, during an 11th January presentation on the mission at a meeting of the Exoplanet Exploration Program Analysis Group (Exopag).

Pandora is designed to help researchers determine whether spectral signatures seen in certain exoplanets are caused by the presence of hydrogen or water in the planets’ atmospheres or are instead linked to variability in the star itself. “Stars are not uniform,” she said. “Pandora is essentially a calibration instrument to help solve this problem.”

NASA announced on January 16 that the spacecraft bus until the mission was now completed, which kept the mission on track for a launch in the fall. The NASA message on the launch contract did not mention a launch date, but Quintana said at the Exopag meeting that they planned to launch as soon as September as a riding shark.

Pandora is an ESPA Grande-Class spacecraft, a category that includes spacecrafts that weigh up to 320 kg, and is designed to operate in a sun-synchronous course. It suggests that Pandora could launch on SpaceX’s transport series of dedicated riding hare missions that send payloads to such circuits, but neither NASA nor SpaceX revealed details.

The NASA message also did not reveal the value of the Task Order to SpaceX. The Agency has regularly refused to release the cost of Vadr task orders and claim that such information is proprietary, even if the agency releases the value of more traditional launch contracts.