ION-SCV 2

ION-SCV 2 [D-Orbit]

The ION-SCV 2 (In Orbit Now - Satellite Carrier Vehicle), developed by Italian company D-Orbit, is a free flying CubeSat deployer and technology demonstrator. The CubeSat carrier will host several CubeSats to be deployed once in orbit.

ION-SVC-2 is the first flight of the improved propulsive ION mk02 platform. Positioned in a sun-synchronous orbit at 500 km, ION-SCV 2 will deploy the hosted CubeSats one by one along the orbit in precise orbital slots, according to customer’s specifications. After the CubeSat deployment phase, which may last up to one month, ION CubeSat Carrier will initiate the in-orbit validation phase of payloads directly integrated on the platform.

The ION-SCV 2 or ION-SVC Laurentius mission, also nicknamed Pulse, will deploy several CubeSats in orbit.

It also hosts a number of non-deployable experiments, which include:

• DRAGO (Demonstrator for Remote Analysis of Ground Observations), a space camera in the near infrared to make Earth Observations developed by the IACTEC-Space programme of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC). For this mision, the DRAGO payload is integrated in a standard CubeSat structure which will connect it with the electrical and data interface of the ION Satellite Carrier.

It will be launched on a Falcon-9 v1.2 in 2021 from Cape Canaveral.