eXCITe (PTB 1)

Launch data: Designation  43819 / 18099BP Launch date  03 Dec 2018 Launch site  Va, SLC-4E Launch vehicle  Falcon-9 v1.2 Mission  Technology Earth orbit: Perigee / Apogee  569 x 588 km Eccentricity   Inclination  97.77° Period   min

eXCITe, with SeeMe on top. Credit: DARPA

Spacecraft data:

Description:

• Satlets:
  • A new low-cost, modular satellite architecture that can scale almost infinitely.
  • Satlets are small modules that incorporate multiple essential satellite functions and share data, power and thermal management capabilities.
  • Satlets physically aggregate in different combinations that would provide capabilities to accomplish diverse missions
• The first DARPA Phoenix spacecraft won′t be an orbiting satellite factory. Instead it will be an already completed spacecraft, called eXCITe, built from smaller parts. Constructed by NovaWurks, based in Los Alamitos, Calif., the spacecraft will be made out of a set of identical “satlets,” which the company dubs HiSats, for Hyper-Integrated Satlets. Each measures about 20 by 20 by 10 centimeters.
• Objectives:
  • Demonstrate aggregation ability to withstand launch environment, perform and maintain thermal control, communicate with the ground, reconstitute traditional spacecraft bus capability.
  • Demonstrate aggregation ability to support a simple and a complex payload.
• An additional payload, eXCITe carries the QIKcom-2 amateur communications payload for the US Naval Academy Satellite Lab, containing an APRS packet radio communications transponders for relaying remote telemetry, sensor and user data from remote users and amateur radio environmental experiments or other data sources back to Amateur Radio experimenters via a global network of internet linked volunteer ground stations.
• eXCITe will also carry the SeeMe satellite to be deployed some time after launch.

External links:

• DARPA: Satellite Information
• Satellite tracking (n2ya.com): Real time satellite tracking