Logan, Utah – August 7, 2017 – Today, at SmallSat 2017, NanoRacks is pleased to announce that the Company is adding polar orbit launches of small satellites into its portfolio of commercial launch opportunities. NanoRacks will work with Berlin-based Astro- und Feinwerktechnik Adlershof GmbH (Astrofein) to manufacture and supply deployers. Additionally, NanoRacks is working on seeking Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) Launch Services from Antrix Corporation Limited (Antrix), the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
“We have received significant customer demand for polar orbits,” says NanoRacks Senior Vice President of Business Development, Richard Pournelle. “And we’ve also received strong feedback for the customer support we offer. So that leads us into this exciting opportunity to support PSLV launches. At NanoRacks, we provide our customers much more than a launch and a deployer – we provide a full program that ensures the customer is equipped and prepared with everything they need to plan for mission success.”
These polar orbit opportunities come in addition to NanoRacks’ market leadership in low-Earth orbit, which continues to include deployments from the NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer (NRCSD) and Kaber Deployer on the International Space Station, as well as the External NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer (E-NRCSD) mounted on the outside of Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft.
NanoRacks has chosen to partner with Astrofein due to their robust and high-quality deployer systems with a long flight heritage and a success rate of 100 percent. Astrofein has over 20 years of experience in aviation and spaceflight.
Astrofein finds in NanoRacks a partner with an outstanding launch service heritage and a wide distributed network. The years of customer orientated launch support services in combination with the deployer technology of Astrofein will result in a well-rounded package solution for the launch service for the CubeSat community.
About NanoRacks Polar Orbit Opportunities
NanoRacks provides a turnkey launch service for customers looking to fly satellites ranging from 1U to ESPA-class satellites. Launch opportunities on PSLV start in 2018, and are available with 3-4 flights per year at ~500 kilometers polar orbit.
Contact NanoRacks at info@nanoracks.com or your business development representative for details on pricing and schedule. All flights are subject to regulatory approval and export controls.
Questions? Visit NanoRacks in the East Colony Room at SmallSat from August 7-10, 2017.
Download the full press release pdf and for continued updates, follow @NanoRacks on twitter.
For media inquiries, please email Abby Dickes at adickes@nanoracks.com
About NanoRacks:
NanoRacks LLC was formed in 2009 to provide commercial hardware and services for the U.S. National Laboratory onboard the International Space Station via a Space Act Agreement with NASA. NanoRacks’ main office is in Houston, Texas, right alongside the NASA Johnson Space Center. The Business Development office is in Washington, DC. Additional offices are located in Silicon Valley, California and Leiden, Netherlands.
In July 2015, NanoRacks signed a teaming agreement with Blue Origin to offer integration services on their New Shepard space vehicle. NanoRacks, along with partners at ULA and Space Systems Loral was also recently selected by NASA to participate in the NextSTEPs Phase II program to develop commercial habitation systems in low-Earth orbit and beyond.
As of June 2017, over 550 payloads have been launched to the International Space Station via NanoRacks services, and our customer base includes the European Space Agency (ESA) the German Space Agency (DLR,) the American space agency (NASA,) US Government Agencies, Planet Labs, Millennium Space Systems, Space Florida, NCESSE, Virgin Galactic, pharmaceutical drug companies, and organizations in Vietnam, UK, Romania and Israel.