The past few days have brought more news of the HyperActive programme, expected to launch in mid-2021, whose primary aim is a flight demonstration of hyperspectral imaging and communication payloads.
NanoAvionics, a leading nanosatellite bus manufacturer and mission integrator, has revealed the remaining three payloads of its D-2/AtlaCom-1 rideshare mission hosted on board its M6P 6U nanosatellite bus.
The additional payloads, a camera for hyperspectral remote sensing, a new high-gain X-band antenna and an upgraded X-Band downlink transmitter, are all part of the HyperActive collaboration.
As well as demonstrating hyperspectral imaging and communication payloads HyperActive aims to evaluate market interest for hyperspectral imaging data captured and processed as part of the programme.
The consortium partners for this international collaboration comprise a number of players from both South Africa and Mexico. Dragonfly Aerospace is a South African space company focused on creating high-performance imaging payloads that are designed for compact satellites enabling large imaging constellations.
A key instrument of the programme is the Mantis imager, a hyperspectral camera for remote sensing developed by Dragonfly Aerospace, which will also provide an X-band data download ground station for the mission.
The high-gain X-band antenna and transmitter to send the data back to Earth are products of the consortium’s partner CubeCom, also from South Africa.
Responsible for processing the collected hyperspectral data and distributing it to interested parties around the world is Space JLTZ, a space company from Mexico. The generated data can be used to protect populations against natural disasters, and to develop innovation solutions to optimize various industries, among many other uses.
The other partners are NanoAvionics of the US as a supplier to the consortium, as well as a mission contributor from Mexico, the Polytechnical University of Atlacomulco.