LAUNCHES, TELEMETRY & STANDARDS

SmallSat & PocketQube News Digest

Verified engineering dispatches on new PocketQube rideshare clusters, in-orbit technology demonstrations, orbital debris regulations, and nadir lab. dataset releases.

Regulation & Environment

Solar Cycle 25 Peak & The 5-Year Deorbit Rule: Why 500–550 km SSO PocketQubes Pass Without Propulsion

Because a 1P PocketQube has twice the area-to-mass ratio of a 1U CubeSat, natural atmospheric drag clears 1P missions from 550 km within 2.5–4.2 years under moderate-to-high solar activity.

Under the FCC 5-year post-mission disposal rule (effective September 2024) and ESA’s Zero Debris Charter, low-Earth-orbit spacecraft must re-enter within five years of mission completion.

For 1U–3U CubeSats with ballistic parameters around 0.015 m²/kg, rideshare drops above 525 km frequently require drag sails or propulsion if launched near solar minimum.

By contrast, a 250 g 1P PocketQube (ballistic parameter ≈0.033 m²/kg) experiences roughly twice the deceleration, naturally complying with the 5-year ceiling up to ~560 km at moderate solar flux—as confirmed empirically by Grizu-263A (628 days from 525 km) and Delfi-PQ (~2 years from 525 km).

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FCC IB Docket 18-313 / ESA Space Debris OfficeRead dispatch
Launch Campaign

Transporter-15 (Alba Flight 10) Deploys HUNITY, SARI-1/2 and ANISCSAT, Pushing PocketQube Census Past 90 Spacecraft

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Transporter-15 rideshare mission successfully placed four new PocketQubes into Sun-synchronous orbit via SEOPS and AlbaPod deployers, including BME Budapest’s 3P HUNITY and Azerbaijan’s first student PocketQube ANISCSAT.

Launched on 28 November 2025 from Vandenberg Space Force Base aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9, the Transporter-15 mission carried Alba Orbital’s tenth PocketQube cluster (Alba Flight 10) integrated with SEOPS.

Leading the engineering manifest is HUNITY (NMHH-1), a 3P PocketQube developed at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) that continues the flight-proven SMOG-P, ATL-1, SMOG-1 and MRC-100 RF spectrum monitoring heritage with deployable solar arrays.

The cluster also deployed SARI-1 and SARI-2 (1P educational picosatellites for Saudi Arabia) and ANISCSAT (1P, developed by Baku State University and Azercosmos), bringing the cumulative nadir lab. 2013–2025 PocketQube census to 93 spacecraft.

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Alba Orbital / SpaceX Transporter-15Read dispatch
Platform Update

From İTÜpSAT1 (2009) to Connecta, Skylink and Grizu-263A: Two Decades of Turkish CubeSat & PocketQube Flight Heritage

nadir lab.’s expanded 125-mission index now unifies Türkiye’s complete miniature satellite lineage across both form-factor families—from 1U/2U/3U university and defence CubeSats (İTÜpSAT1, TÜRKSAT-3USAT, BeEagleSat, HAVELSAT, UBAKUSAT, ASELSAT) to commercial 3U/6U CubeSats (Plan-S Connecta) and 1P/3P PocketQubes (Grizu-263A, Hello Space Istanbul-1 & Skylink).

Launched on 23 September 2009 aboard PSLV-C14, Istanbul Technical University’s 1U İTÜpSAT1 inaugurated Türkiye’s indigenous miniature satellite era, followed by TÜRKSAT-3USAT (3U, 2013), the QB50 2U pair BeEagleSat and HAVELSAT (2017), UBAKUSAT (3U, 2018), and ASELSAT (3U, 2021).

In January 2022, Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit University’s Grizu-263A extended this heritage to the 50 mm 1P PocketQube class, while Plan-S (Connecta T1.1/T1.2/T2.1 3U/6U CubeSats) and Hello Space (Istanbul-1 and Skylink-1/2 1P/3P PocketQubes) launched commercial IoT and Earth-observation constellations from 2022 through 2025.

With the REV 0.1 platform expansion, nadir lab. provides side-by-side orbital decay models, CAD/PC-104 templates, and mission records for both CubeSat (1U–12U) and PocketQube (1P–3P) engineering teams.

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nadir lab. Heritage Index / İTÜ / Plan-S / Hello Space / ZBEÜRead dispatch
Launch Campaign

Transporter-13 (Alba Flight 9) Deploys Five PocketQubes Including HADES-ICM (SO-125) and Three 3P Unicorn-2 Imagers

Five PocketQubes—Alba Orbital’s Unicorn-2O, 2P and 2Q (3P), AMSAT-EA’s HADES-ICM (1.5P) and Hydra Space’s Hydra-W (1.5P)—were deployed directly via AlbaPod on SpaceX Transporter-13.

SpaceX’s Transporter-13 rideshare flight on 15 March 2025 carried Alba Orbital’s Flight 9 cluster into a ~520 km Sun-synchronous orbit.

AMSAT-EA and Hydra Space Systems commissioned HADES-ICM (designated SO-125 in the amateur radio OSCAR series), a 1.5P spacecraft carrying a V/U FM voice repeater and a graphene thermal radiation payload developed by Smart IR.

Hydra-W (1.5P) hosts a terahertz electronics experiment from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), while Unicorn-2O, 2P and 2Q expand Alba Orbital’s 3-axis stabilized night-time optical Earth observation fleet.

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SatNews / AMSAT-EARead dispatch
In-Orbit Milestone

Seven PocketQubes Launch on Transporter-12: First PocketQube-to-ChipSat Optical Link (POQUITO) and Turkish Skylink-1/2 IoT Pair

Alba Flight 8 on SpaceX Transporter-12 deployed seven PocketQubes from six countries via D-Orbit ION, including Luxembourg’s POQUITO, Poland’s HYPE, Portugal’s PROMETHEUS-1, Türkiye’s Skylink-1/2, and Spain’s HADES-R & Hydra-T.

On 14 January 2025, seven PocketQubes were injected into Sun-synchronous orbit aboard a D-Orbit ION orbital transfer vehicle launched on SpaceX Falcon 9 Transporter-12.

University of Luxembourg’s 1P POQUITO (185 g) demonstrated the first in-orbit visible-light optical communication link between a host PocketQube and an onboard femtosatellite (ChipSat), using internal PCB-trace magnetorquer coils for attitude damping.

Turkish IoT operator Hello Space expanded its fleet with two 3P LoRaWAN spacecraft (Skylink-1 and Skylink-2), while student teams at AGH University of Krakow (HYPE) and the University of Minho / IST / CMU (PROMETHEUS-1) achieved the first national PocketQube milestones for Poland and Portugal.

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SnT Luxembourg / Hello Space / CMU PortugalRead dispatch
In-Orbit Milestone

Interplanetary 6U CubeSats Mature: Following MarCO and LICIACube, ESA’s Hera Carries Milani and Juventas Toward Didymos–Dimorphos

Building on NASA JPL’s MarCO-A/B at Mars and ASI’s 6U LICIACube during the DART kinetic impact, ESA’s Hera planetary defense mission carries two 6U XL CubeSats—Milani (hyperspectral dust/mineral mapper) and Juventas (low-frequency radar sounder).

Deep-space 6U CubeSats have transitioned from experimental technology demonstrators to baseline planetary science assets. After NASA JPL’s MarCO-A/B (2018) relayed InSight’s Mars landing and ASI’s LICIACube (2022) autonomously tracked and imaged the DART impact plume at Dimorphos from 55 km range, ESA launched the Hera spacecraft on 7 October 2024.

Stowed inside Hera’s Asteroid Deck are two 6U XL CubeSats: Milani (developed by Tyvak International), carrying the ASPECT visible/near-IR hyperspectral imager and VISTA thermogravimetric dust analyser; and Juventas (developed by GomSpace), carrying the JuRa 60 MHz monostatic radar to probe the internal rubble-pile structure of Dimorphos.

Unlike LEO CubeSats that dump reaction wheel momentum against Earth’s magnetosphere via magnetorquers, deep-space 6U buses rely on cold-gas micro-thrusters, inter-satellite S-band links, and radiation-tolerant avionics.

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ESA Hera Mission / Tyvak International / GomSpaceRead dispatch