WASHINGTON — Three satellites on a SpaceX Transporter rideshare launch in November failed to deploy, including one from a company that previously stated its satellite was in orbit and operating.
Momentus announced Dec. 5 that three of the five satellites that it flew on the Transporter-9 launch Nov. 11 did not appear to deploy from the Falcon 9’s upper stage. The company used a third-party deployer, rather than its own Vigoride tug, on that mission, and said that it was able to confirm that the Hello Test 1 and 2 satellites from Turkish company Hello Space were released.
“Momentus cannot confirm the deployment of the remaining three satellites for three other customers and based on the results of a detailed investigation undertaken, the company does not believe those satellites were released from the third-party deployer system,” Momentus stated.
The company did not mention in the announcement the names of those three satellites. In previous statements the company identified the satellites as AMAN-1, JINJUSat-1 and Picacho, and a company spokesperson confirmed that manifest Dec. 7.
Picacho was a 1U cubesat developed by Lunasonde, a startup based in Tucson, Arizona. The company planned to use Picacho to demonstrate technology for its plans to map subsurface mineral and groundwater resources using very-low-frequency radio waves.
Lunasonde had indicated that the satellite was orbit after the launch and operating. In a Dec. 1 article by the Arizona Daily Star, Jeremiah Pate, founder and chief executive of Lunasonde, said the company had received telemetry that confirmed that Picacho had deployed its main antenna, a device like a tape measure nearly four meters long.
“The scary part for us is the deployment of that large antenna, and that intended deployment didn’t happen for a few days,” Pate said in the article, which provided no other details about the status of Picacho.
Pate also said on social media that the satellite…
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