The goal of the program is to construct and demonstrate the potential scientific applications of two high resolution (~120m) ocean color instruments to be carried by two 3U (10cm x 10cm x 30cm) CubeSat Platforms:
ACC Clyde (Scotland) provides the CubeSat bus named SeaHawk
Cloudland Instruments (California) provides the Hawkeye Sensor
The Program was funded in 2014 by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
The program is administered by Dr. John Morrison – UNCW
NASA provided “advice and review” during the development phase and with formal NASA/HQ Space Act Agreement (2017), will provide services for the collection, processing, calibration, validation, archive and distribution of the data.
A second Moore Foundation grant was awarded in 2017 to provide the funds for another commercial launch for the second CubeSAT and operations of both spacecraft and instruments for a duration of 2 years each.
Key Mission Parameters
Launched December 3rd 2018
Nominal orbital height = 575 km
Sun-synchronous around 10:30am
9-day repeat orbit (one satellite)
Baseline orbital lifetime of 1 year (18-24 month)
Baseline of 15 scenes per day (200 x 600km of approximately 120 meter resolution - 100MB/scene)
X-band downlink (Wallops & Alaska) data rate of 6 --> 100mbps
Weight of instrument less than 1 kilogram
Total weight of spacecraft plus instrument less than 5 kilograms
