On the 6th of November at 04:20 a.m. (Luxembourg time), Spacety’s 20th satellite, BEIHANGKONGSHI-1, carrying the world’s first iodine electric propulsion system on board, was successfully launched into space on a CZ-6 Long March 6 rocket from Taiyuan, in China.
Photo: The BEIHANGKONGSHI-1 satellite was successfully launched into space on a CZ-6 Long March 6 rocket from Taiyuan in China on the 6th of November at 04:20 a.m. / Credits © ThrustMe / Spacety
BEIHANGKPNGSHI-1 is the first of the 12U satellite type developed and launched by Spacety. This advanced satellite platform has strong capabilities to support a number of different payloads of high-power consumption and long duty cycle with a patented thermal radiator and an advanced power subsystem.
The BEIHANGKONGSHI-1 satellite is also the world’s first satellite propelled by an iodine electric thruster, the NPT30-I2 electric propulsion system, developed by ThrustMe. This space mission is the collaboration between Spacety Luxembourg and ThrustMe to demonstrate and validate the world first iodine propulsion system in space. The flight mission has been supported by the European Space Agency.
Iodine is seen as an important next-generation propellant to enable economic and environmental sustainability of the space industry and to support future satellite constellations.
Spacety is a global fast-growing new space company with established international headquarters in Luxembourg. Using our low-cost and high-performance cubesat and smallsat fleet, we provide Satellites-as-a-Service (SataaS) to support science, technology demonstration, and commercial services with fast, frequent and flexible space flights. We offer in-orbit demonstration/validation (IOD/IOV) opportunities to space companies and organizations in Europe and in the world.
IOD/IOV is a critical step for a new space technology or product gain space heritage and to enter the global space market. IOD/IOV is particularly important in Europe which has great number of new space technologies and new space companies. Our Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) constellation will monitor and observe the Earth day and night, and rain or shine. This Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) will make SAR imagery of every point on Earth accessible and affordable to end users all around the world.
This article is brought to you by Spacety and reflects only the opinion of the author.
