Tbird

Tbird

NASA's Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator (PTD) Project will test the operation of a variety of novel technologies on a type of nanosatellites known as CubeSats, providing significant enhancements to the performance of these versatile spacecraft. Each of the five planned PTD missions consist of a 6-unit (6U) CubeSat with expandable solar arrays. Flight qualification and demonstration of these technologies are expected to benefit future government and commercial missions. These include propulsion systems and sub-systems that stabilize and point the spacecraft to high accuracy in order to use a laser communications system capable of high-speed broadband. The first mission, PTD-1, was scheduled for launch in December 2020 on a Falcon 9 rocket, from Cape Canaveral, as part of the ride-share ELaNa mission 35., and launched in Jan 2021. PTD-3 launched on May 25 2022 on the SpaceX Transporter-5 rideshare.

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