Tartan-Artibeus 1 (Unicorn 2TA1)

Tartan-Artibeus 1 [Carnegie Mellon University]

The Tartan-Artibeus 1 mission is a picosatellite developed by the Carnegie Mellon University and Alba Orbital to the 1P PocketQube form factor. It is being launched as part of the Alba Unicorn constellation under the name Unicorn-2TA1.

The mission’s goal is to demonstrate the viability of PocketQube-scale nanosatellites that operate reliably without batteries, eliminating the cost and complexity of battery-based power systems in nanosatellites. The sensor-equipped, 5 cm × 5cm × 5cm cube (1/8 the size of a CubeSat) will sense its environment and perform orbital edge computing to process sensor data in a way that is robust to intermittent operation.

During the mission, the satellite will collect telemetry data about its operation (power state, stored energy, GPS location) and will collect and process sensor data about its environment using applications such as machine learning and inference. The results will be sent back to Earth using a low-power radio.