Rocket Lab Photon

Photon is a satellite bus based on Rocket Lab's kick stage.[1]

Photon
ManufacturerRocket Lab
Country of originUnited States
ApplicationsLaunch service provider
Specifications
Payload capacity170 kg (370 lb)
EquipmentS band payloads

It was designed to be highly customizable to serve a variety of missions from LEO payload hosting[2] to a Lunar flyby[3].

Photon uses Chemical propulsion to change its orbit. It can use a variety of engines, including engines made by Rocket Lab itself or other third party engines.[4]

Photon first launched in August 2020 where it served as a pathfinding mission for upcoming missions. And has flown 3 more times since then.

In an upcoming mission, the Photon satellite bus will be used to observe the Martian magnetosphere.[5]

Development

In April 2019, Rocket Lab announced plans to create a new satellite bus, named Photon, to launch small payloads into Earth orbit. Its goal was to reduce the complexity and development time for customers, enabling technology demonstrations without the complexity of developing a full spacecraft. At the same time the company was aiming to broaden its portfolio and diversify its revenue streams.[6][7] In October 2019, it announced that it aimed to launch its first mission as soon as the fourth quarter of 2020. The company also announced it was targeting lunar orbit as part of its services offered with Photon, enabled by a new bi-propellant propulsion system.[8][9] The development of Photon included working with a number of potential customers, with significant interest from government agencies.[6] The first few Photon satellites would be technology demonstrators before transitioning to operational launches for customers, which started with NASA's CAPSTONE cubesat in June 2022.[6]

Rocket Lab is planning to launch Photon to Venus in 2025, delivering a laser-tunable mass spectrometer into the Venusian atmosphere.[10][11]

Design

Photon is manufactured at Rocket Lab's factory in Huntington Beach, California. It can utilize a variety of engines, including those developed by Rocket Lab itself, such as the Curie and HyperCurie engines, as well as engines from third-party sources, such as the one powering the EscaPADE mission[4]. Photon communicates on S-band. Depending on the orbital inclination (37° to Sun-synchronous orbit), it is expected to have a maximum payload capacity of 170 kg (370 lb).[12] The low Earth orbit version of Photon can take 130 kg (290 lb) to Sun-synchronous orbit.

A modified version of Photon has bigger propellant tanks and the HyperCurie engine for interplanetary missions.[13][14] The interplanetary version has a 40 kg (88 lb) payload capacity.[14] HyperCurie is an evolution of the Curie engine, which comes in a monopropellent version and a bipropellant version, while the HyperCurie is a hypergolic version. HyperCurie is electrically pumped.[15]

Initial launches

The inaugural Photon satellite was the Photon Pathfinder/First Light satellite (COSPAR ID 2020-060A) described by Rocket Lab as its "first in-house designed and built Photon demonstration satellite". It was launched aboard Electron rocket on 31 August 2020 on the 14th Electron mission "I Can't Believe It's Not Optical". First Light had a dual role in the mission: first as the final rocket stage delivering the customer satellite (Capella 2) and then as a standalone satellite undertaking its own orbital mission. The purpose of First Light standalone mission is to demonstrate the new (as compared to "plain" kick stage) systems for operating in orbit as a long-duration standalone satellite. To demonstrate Photon bus' payload hosting, the First Light had a low-resolution video camera.[16]

The second formal test, Photon Pathstone, was launched on 22 March 2021 on the 19th Electron mission "They Go Up So Fast".[17] Like First Light, Pathstone will first deliver customer satellites to orbit for transitioning into its own satellite operations.[11] Pathstone operations are aimed at building flight heritage and focused on testing systems in preparation for launching NASA's CAPSTONE smallsat mission, later in 2021.[17][11] These tests will include power and thermal management, attitude control via reaction wheels and communications systems.[11]

The first operational launch for Photon was NASA's CAPSTONE smallsat mission.[18] Qualification of the Photon kick stage for this mission was underway by December 2020.[18] Photon delivered CAPSTONE on a trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn on 6th day from liftoff after performing 6 apogee raising burns at perigee within every 24 hours from liftoff, leading to TLI and a near-rectilinear halo orbit. After this the CAPSTONE was deployed in its journey to the Moon.

After completing all the mission requirements for NASA, Rocket Lab will utilise its Photon spacecraft for a low-altitude lunar flyby.[11]

Mission history
Date/time

(UTC)

 Destination Photon customer Launch vehicle Photon engine Mission outcome
31 August 2020

03:05:4[19]

 LEO Rocket Lab Electron[20] Curie Success
Inaugural launch of the Photon satellite bus. After Photon deployed a 100 kg satellite[21] for Capella Space, Photon served as a Pathfinding mission.
22 March 2021

22:30[22]

 LEO Rocket Lab Electron[22] Curie[22] Success
The second launch of the Photon satellite bus. "Pathstone" served as a risk reduction demonstration for the CAPSTONE mission which would send a satellite to the moon.[22] It also deployed 7 satellites for BlackSky, Fleet Space, Myriota, Care Weather Technologies, The University of New South Wales’s Canberra Space and U.S. Army’s SMDC.
28 June 2022

09:55

 TLI NASA Electron[23] HyperCurie[24] Success
Lunar Photon brought the CAPSTONE CubeSat to TLI, CAPSTONE then separated from lunar Photon to get into NRHO around the Moon. The mission served as a pathfinding mission for Nasa's upcoming Gateway.[25]
12 June 2023

20:30[26]

 LEO Varda Space Industries Falcon 9[27] Curie  In progress
First launch of four. Varda will be operating the vehicle in orbit for about 3 mounths, where it will grow crystals of the drug called ritonavir.[28] After which, Photon will come back to Earth where the drugs will be retrieved. Currently Varda is waiting for FAA approval to re-enter the probe. [29]

Upcoming missions

Confirmed upcoming missions for Photon and Photon variants.

Date/ time

(UTC)

Planned destination Customer Launch vehicle Photon Engine
NET 2023[30] LEO Varda Space Industries Curie
Second of four[31] Photons for Varda Space Industries
NET 2024[30] LEO Varda Space Industries Curie
Third of four[31] Photons for Varda Space Industries
NET 2024[30] LEO Varda Space Industries Curie
fourth of four[31] Photons for Varda Space Industries
NET 2024[32] Mars NASA New Glenn[33] Bipropellant system from Arianespace[34]
Rocket Lab received a subcontract from the University of California Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory (UCBSSL) to design two Photon spacecraft for the EscaPADE mission, set to orbit Mars and study its magnetosphere. The mission, part of NASA's SIMPLEx program, will explore Mars' unique magnetosphere and its relationship with the solar wind, shedding light on the planet's historical climate changes.[32]
NET 2025 [35] Venus Rocket Lab Electron[36] HyperCurie[37]
First privately funded mission to venus.[36] Photon will examine the Venus cloud layer in search for organic compounds.

The goal is to send a probe to around 48 km altitude where Venus' atmospheric conditions are closer to those found on Earth.[36]

See also

References
  1. Foust, Jeff (8 April 2019). "Rocket Lab unveils Photon smallsat bus". SpaceNews. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
  2. "Varda Space Industries". Rocket Lab. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
  3. "Photon". Rocket Lab. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
  4. 73 International Astronautical Congress (IAC) (18 September 20022), ESCAPADE: A Low-Cost Formation at Mars, Retreived 21 October 2023
  5. "Misson To Mars - Escapade". Rocket Lab. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
  6. "Rocket Lab launches first Photon satellite". SpaceNews. 4 September 2020. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
  7. "Rocket Lab unveils Photon smallsat bus". SpaceNews. 8 April 2019. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
  8. "Rocket Lab to offer lunar missions, ground station services". SpaceNews. 23 October 2019. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
  9. Berger, Eric (21 October 2019). "Rocket Lab—yep, Rocket Lab—has a plan to deliver satellites to the Moon". Ars Technica. Retrieved 30 October 2019.
  10. "Rocket Lab Probe". Venus Cloud Life. MIT. 7 March 2023. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  11. Burghardt, Thomas (22 March 2021). "Rocket Lab launches Photon pathfinder on They Go Up So Fast". NASASpaceFlight.com. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
  12. "Photon". Rocket Lab. Archived from the original on 4 June 2019. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
  13. Grush, Loren (17 June 2020). "How small launcher Rocket Lab plans to pull off its first mission to the Moon next year". The Verge. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  14. "Satellite Solutions". Rocket Lab. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  15. Peter, Beck. Rocket Lab SmallSat Update and Q&A. youtube.com. 38 minutes in. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  16. "First Light". Gunter's Space Page.
  17. "Rocket Lab launches smallsat rideshare mission". SpaceNews. 23 March 2021. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
  18. Corbett, Tobias; Gebhardt, Chris (15 December 2020). "The Owl's Night Begins: Japan's StriX-α satellite launches with Rocket Lab". NASASpaceFlight.com. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
  19. "Live coverage: Rocket Lab launches Capella's first commercial radar satellite – Spaceflight Now". Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  20. "I Can't Believe It's Not Optical". Rocket Lab. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  21. "Rocket Lab Launches First In-house Designed & Built Photon Satellite". Rocket Lab. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  22. "They Go Up So Fast". Rocket Lab. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  23. "Completed Missions". Rocket Lab. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  24. Etherington, Darrell (13 May 2020). "Rocket Lab tests new hyperCurie engine that will power its deep space delivery vehicle". TechCrunch. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  25. "CAPSTONE Moon Mission". Rocket Lab. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  26. Cohen, Jackie Wattles, Moss (12 June 2023). "Forget space tourism. This company wants to make drug manufacturing the next big extraterrestrial business | CNN Business". CNN. Retrieved 8 September 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  27. Foust, Jeff (11 October 2021). "Varda Space selects SpaceX for launch of first space manufacturing satellite". SpaceNews. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  28. Clark, Stephen (8 July 2023). "In-space manufacturing startup aces pharma experiment in orbit". Ars Technica. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  29. Alamalhodaei, Aria (15 September 2023). "Varda Space puts off orbital factory reentry pending Air Force and FAA green light". TechCrunch. Retrieved 25 October 2023.
  30. "Varda Space Industries". Rocket Lab. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  31. "Varda Space Industries Orders Fourth Photon Spacecraft from Rocket Lab to Enable In-Space Manufacturing". Rocket Lab. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  32. "Misson To Mars - Escapade". Rocket Lab. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  33. Foust, Jeff (13 April 2023). "ESCAPADE confident in planned 2024 New Glenn launch". SpaceNews. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  34. 73 International Astronautical Congress (IAC) (18 September 20022), ESCAPADE: A Low-Cost Formation at Mars, Retreived 21 October 2023
  35. Robert Lea (6 June 2023). "1st-ever private Venus mission delayed until at least 2025". Space.com. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  36. "First Private Mission to Venus". Rocket Lab. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  37. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5032&context=smallsat
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