Powerful Prospects

摘要

On June 15, Garvey Spacecraft Corp.'s Prospector-18 rocket took off from a test range near Mojave, Calif., carrying four cubesats to a height of roughly 3,000 meters on a mission designed to characterize the launch environment. Although the parachute attached to the cubesats ejected prematurely near the end of the rocket burn, NASA recovered the rocket and payloads. The cubesat's on-board instruments gathered data that will help NASA officials determine exactly what happened during launch and prepare for future flights, said Garrett Skrobot, launch services program mission manager at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Cubesat developers remain eager to conduct additional high-altitude testing on Prospector rockets, he added.