Alba Orbital

Alba Orbital, is a British company building PocketQube satellites. Alba Orbital is the developer and manufacturer of the Unicorn-1 and Unicorn-2 satellite platforms.


Alba Orbital
Limited company
IndustrySatellite Manufacture
Founded5 October 2012
Headquarters
Glasgow
,
United Kingdom
Key people
Tom Walkinshaw
ProductsPocketqube Platforms and Components
Number of employees
20
Websitewww.albaorbital.com

The company holds contracts with the European Space Agency. [1]

Overview

Alba Orbital builds and designs spacecrafts and consults with those building small satellites. Its Unicorn-1 platform is a 1P picosatellite, and is about the size of a can of Irn-Bru, while its slightly larger Unicorn-2 platform is a 2P satellite that is about the size of a bottle of the same [2]

Launches

Alba Orbital is a launch broker , and in the last year it has announced partnerships with several space companies, including Vector and Rocket Lab, in order to send PocketQube satellites into space. These launches harbor clusters[3] containing space for PocketQubes that is sold to teams wanting to send a pod along. The first launch had room for 6P worth of PocketQubes, and the second launch will have room for 12P [4]. There are three launches planned for 2020 and onward, with partnerships and pod owners not yet known. The first of these future launches will have room for 18P, while the final two will have room for 96P. All Alba Orbital launches use Albapod deployers in order to release the clusters. These deployers come in two sizes: 6P and 96P. Due to demand for pod space, Alba Orbital has a waiting list. If demand is high enough, launches will increase in size in order to account for those on the waiting list. [5] [6]

The first launch that Alba Orbital brokered took place 6 December 2019 by an Electron rocket. The launch orbited the Alba Cluster 2 of six PocketQubes. The satellites put on orbit were called: SMOG-P, ATL-1, FossaSat-1, Noor 1a (Unicorn-2b), Noor 1b (Unicorn-2c) and TRSI. For more information see PocketQube#Launched.

gollark: Which repository?
gollark: I could probably PR in a bit more documentation for the websocket bit, though, good idea.
gollark: I'm just saying that because that documentation exists, it's fine, but it's not "self-documenting".
gollark: Having documentation there clears it up, though.
gollark: Consider the "rich" function. If you consider the arguments there, and its name, you might be able to guess "oh, maybe that gets the richest users", but you may get it wrong and end up annoyed.

See also
  • PocketQube – The satellite format Alba Orbital specialize in building

References
  1. ESA. "ESA ARTES Contractors".
  2. Wired. "Alba Orbital: pushing the limits of space development".
  3. "Scottish satellite firm plans second PocketQube launch mission". The National.
  4. Alba Orbital. "Launch".
  5. Vector. "Vector to Conduct Dedicated Launch of Alba Orbital PocketQube Satellites on First Orbital Attempt".
  6. Satnews Daily. "Alba Orbital Prepares a Pod for PocketQube Launch".
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