Prometheus

Prometheus 1.[LANL]

Prometheus is series of 1.5U CubeSats for technology development and demonstration. It was developed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) with the dual objective of evaluating new low-cost development and operations methodologies while also assessing the operational utility that can be provided with CubeSat technology. It was DoD funded.

The Prometheus 1.system consists of CubeSats along with supporting ground and field segment equipment, all designed as an integrated system. LANL is serving as the primary builder and system integrator and will perform on-orbit system checkout, test, and evaluation. The satellites were based on the earlier Perseus satellites. The Prometheus 1.satellites cost less than $100,000 each, are expected to have a service life of three to five years and are demonstrating the capability to transfer audio, video, and data files from man-portable, low-profile, remotely located field units to deployable ground stations terminals using over-the-horizon satellite communications. Each satellite features four deployable solar arrays and a deployable helix antenna.

The eight satellites were launched on a Minotaur-1 booster on the ORS 3 mission. Reportedly, all were performing normally.

Ten more improved Prometheus 1.Block 2 satellites were launched in 2016 to 2018 as a piggy-back payloads on several missions.