ACME’s Pocket-sized satellites taking images from space for popular ‘MyRadar’ weather app

Alba Orbital launches pocket-sized spacecraft for creators of popular weather app on board Rocket Lab’s ‘There and Back Again’ mission. Those tiny spacecraft have now returned images from orbit…

On May 2nd 2022, Alba Orbital successfully completed its third orbital mission on board Rocket Lab’s historic ‘There and Back Again’ flight - just 110 days after Alba’s record breaking launch of 13 PocketQubes onboard SpaceX’s ‘Transporter-3’ mission in January this year. 

The pico-satellite launch cluster dubbed ‘Alba Cluster X’ saw Alba Orbital deploy four pocket-sized satellites known as ‘PocketQubes’ on board the 26th flight of Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle. This brings a total of 23 satellites delivered to space by the Alba Orbital rideshare program to date.

On board ‘Alba Cluster X’ were three tiny satellites deployed on behalf of Alba’s long-term rideshare customer, ACME AtronOmatic. Less than a month after the launch, the team behind the popular weather app (MyRadar), announced successful downlink of imagery from orbit. This marks the very first time this feat has been achieved on a satellite as small as a 5x5x5cm rubik’s cube. 

PocketQube Case Study

Myradar-1, TRSI-2 and TRSI-3 are three ‘1p PocketQube’ satellites launched by Alba Orbital on behalf of rideshare client, the Florida-based ACME AtronOmatic. These pico-satellites are as small as a Rubik’s Cube and due to their significantly reduced mass of 250g, they can be launched for as little as 25,000 Euro - a fraction of the cost of a traditional satellite launch. 

ACME’s first batch of PocketQube prototypes were deployed in a Low Earth Sun-Synchronous Orbit on board the Alba Cluster X mission. These pico-satellites served an excellent in-orbit technology demonstration, testing and validating hardware for ACME’s upcoming constellation of up to 250 satellites, expected to launch later this year. 

ACME plans to incorporate the lessons learned from this technology demonstration mission into the development of their future satellites launching as part of the Hyperspectral Orbital Remote Imaging Spectrometer (HORIS) constellation. Once deployed, the environmental data captured by HORIS will be paired with artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide data fusion products for ACME’s government, federal and commercial customers. The video below gives an gives an overview of MyRadar’s plans for the HORIS constellation:

Some use cases of the data gathered by the HORIS constellation include monitoring extreme weather, illegal fishing, wildfires and national security according to the company’s FCC license application. On 1st June 2022, the MyRadar team took to social media to share the first images captured by the ACME / MyRadar satellites from orbit:

As demonstrated by PocketQubes, technology miniaturization is not only democratizing access to space for education, but they also open the doors for smaller disruptive players to enable new space based applications to improve life on earth:

“Hyperspectral remote sensing data from a cost-effective small satellite constellation will provide rich and timely information about rapidly evolving properties of land surfaces, sea surfaces, and storm systems, which is increasingly needed in a rapidly changing global environment,” said Sarvesh Garimella, Chief Scientist at ACME.

On the success of the Alba Cluster X mission, Andy Green, Founder & CEO of ACME AtronOmatic said: “I couldn’t be more proud of the entire team for working so hard towards making this milestone a reality! This is just the start of some pretty cool work between ACME and Alba Orbital.”

Alba Orbital has now launched 23 satellites to orbit with a range of missions hosted on behalf of academic, commercial and government clients alike. After raising a $3.4m seed round with the prestigious Y combinator program last year, Alba Orbital have scaled their launch and manufacturing capabilities, with strong targets set to launch every quarter and to deliver near real time satellite imagery of the Earth.

If you’re thinking of launching your own spacecraft for as low as 25K Euro or are interested in night-time satellite imagery, get in touch with the Alba Orbital team at contact@albaorbital.com 🚀

ABOUT ALBA ORBITAL 

Alba Orbital (UK, USA, Germany) is the world’s leading PocketQube satellite manufacturer and launch broker. Alba is a vertically integrated NewSpace company ‘democratising access to space’, providing turnkey solutions from advanced pico-satellite platforms, low-cost launch opportunities, and ground station services. Alba has worked with over 30 customers across three continents, including prestigious clients such as Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University and TU Delft.

For more information visit www.albaorbital.com or get in touch at contact@albaorbital.com.

ABOUT MYRADAR

MyRadar is a free weather and environmental information app for iOS, Android, Windows and Xbox. First launched on the app store in 2008, the app has been downloaded over 50 million times, and has over 13 million monthly active users. MyRadar has been keeping the world informed of severe weather, tropical storms, earthquakes, wildfires and more for over 13 years. ACME AtronOmatic, LLC, the makers of MyRadar, has development offices in Portland, Oregon, Boulder, Colorado, and in Orlando, Florida. The app is available on the iOS App Store, Google Play, and the Windows Store. MyRadar is available online at youtube.com/myradar, twitter.com/myradarwx, facebook.com/myradar, and instagram.com/myradar