ELaNA 20

ELaNa, or Educational Launch of Nanosatellites, is a NASA program to help students become and stay interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).

Despite being named ELaNa 20, it will be the 31st such mission to launch.

The payload for the flight includes 10 small satellites:

1. TechEdSat-7
2. CACTUS-1
3. CAPE-3
4. ExoCube-2
5. MiTEE
6. PIC-1
7. PIC-2
8. PolarCube
9. Q-PACE
10. RadFXSat-2

Only one of the satellites is not from a university. TechEdSat-7, from NASA, will test a new way to use drag to passively deorbit satellites from 500 km orbits in just 6 to 8 months instead of the several years it takes to naturally fall back to Earth from that orbit.

Some of the other satellites will study space weather (the constant stream of charged particles from the Sun that travel through the space between the planets), sea ice concentrations, how radiation affects microelectronics, and how planets form around new-born stars.

Others will test new technologies, including a new way to collect micro-debris from Earth orbit, internet commanding systems for satellites that could save money on future missions, new propulsion technologies, and in-space inspection and repair of one satellite by another.

The CAPE-3 satellite from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette will allow grade school students (Kindergarten - 5th grade in the U.S.) to use smartphones to run experiments on the satellite.

Image: Q-PACE smalle satellite. Credit: University of Central Florida

Virgin Orbits' LauncherOne rocket provides orbital launch services for small satellite customers, including national governments and commercial/private industries.

Technical Specification:

70 ft in length.

57,000 lbm is the typical takeoff weight of a LauncherOne rocket, including the satellites.

8,000 mph is the typical maximum speed of LauncherOne's first stage.

17,500 mph is the typical maximum speed of LauncherOne's second stage.

75% – the amount of atmosphere LauncherOne has cleared at the point of release.

5 sec time between the release of LauncherOne and ignition of NewtonThree.

Originally designed to be launched from underneath the WhiteKnightTwo spaceplane, the same plane that launches suborbital Virgin Galactic missions, LauncherOne was redesigned in 2017 to fly underneath a 747 aircraft.

LauncherOne is the first air-launched liquid-fueled rocket in history and has a restartable second-stage engine for precise payload delivery operations once in orbit.

The rocket is carried into the air by Cosmic Girl, a modified 747 aircraft, and then launched from underneath one of the plane's wings. Its engine is ignited five seconds after release.

The air launch design means LauncherOne can be launched from any location on Earth. Virgin Orbit plans to use a variety of runways in California, Florida, the U.K., and potentially Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam.

Photo: LauncherOne data courtesy of Virgin Orbit

This is Cosmic Girl, a modified Boeing 747 aircraft built in 2001 for Virgin Atlantic airways. Virgin Orbit bought the plane in 2015 and transformed it into an air launch platform for the orbital LauncherOne rocket.

Cosmic Girl’s job is to provide data connections to LauncherOne and ferry the fully-fueled rocket from a runway up to its release altitude and location out over the open ocean.

During launch, the plane will pitch up 25 degrees before releasing LauncherOne.

Cosmic Girl will then immediately perform an evasive maneuver to safely get out of the way of the rocket so that the crew onboard the plane will be safe in the event of a LauncherOne failure at engine start -- which happened on the first mission.

Cosmic Girl then returns to a runway to prepare for its next mission. The plane's base is the Mojave Air & Space Port in California.

Photo Credit: Virgin Orbit