Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL) has selected Innoflight for NASA’s Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE) mission.
SDL, the SunRISE spacecraft provider to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will deliver an array of six (6) solar-powered cubesats that will create 3D maps to determine where large particle eruptions come from on the Sun and how they evolve as they expand outward into space. JPL provides the individual payloads for the mission.
The SunRISE mission is scheduled to launch no earlier than 2023. Once launched, the constellation of cubesats will be flying in a supersynchronous GeoSynchronous Earth Orbit (GSO). They will simultaneously act as a single radio telescope to observe radio images of low-frequency emissions from solar activity and share them via NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN). This will allow NASA to obtain the first ever pattern of magnetic field lines reaching from the Sun out into the interplanetary space.
Innoflight’s Software-defined Compact Radios (SCRs) have been a leader the industry since 2013 when Innoflight’s first SCR, the SCR-100 (S-Band), flew on its maiden voyage. In 2019, Innoflight gained flight heritage on the SCR-100’s successor: the SCR-104 (S-Band). The SCR-106 and SCR-108 are expected to fly in 2022. Since 2013, Innoflight has gone on to sell 200+ SCRs so far. Innoflight has been able to stay ahead of the competition by providing SCRs with market-leading Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) specifications that can be seamlessly integrated with Innoflight’s KI-103 (a.k.a. GNOME, TSAB-certified End Cryptographic Unit). Innoflight’s SCRs support a variety of waveforms depending on the mission needs.
“SDL has a long history of using Innoflight’s radios (SCR-100 and SCR-104) across six programs since 2016,” said Tim Neilsen, SDL Senior Program Manager. “SDL selected the SCR-106 as a good fit for the SunRISE program considering the mission’s Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) requirements and that the SCR-106 leverages the SCR-104 baseband modem, familiar to SDL since it has been integrated into SDL’s space vehicles on previous missions.”
“Innoflight is excited to contribute the DSN-compatible SCR-106 for the SunRISE mission resulting in a better understanding of how the Sun’s radiation affects the space environment, critical information for the astronauts traveling through space,” said Jeff Janicik, Innoflight President and CEO. “Considering the popularity, maturity and on-orbit successes of our SCRs, now at 200+ in sales, Innoflight is laser focused on the next generation baseband modem that will allow for much higher data rates and support a catalog of waveforms.”
Innoflight is a Non-traditional Defense Contractor (NDC) founded in 2004. Innoflight offers state-of-the-art software-defined compact/ground radios, cryptographic and cyber secure systems and processing, networking and data storage avionics. Our core competency is secure Command, Control, Communications and Computers (C4) systems designed through innovative implementation of modern Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) technology. The result is modular, high performance, yet low Size Weight and Power (SWaP) systems at competitive prices. Our products are qualified through an Innoflight rigorous process that includes parts reliability analysis and testing, system-level fault tolerance, and radiation risk mitigation. Our customers include the U.S. government, prime aerospace contractors and commercial space developers.