An array of 13 tiny CubeSats is set to take a piggyback ride to the Moon and beyond on the first flight of NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) in 2018, using excess capability on the big new rocket to demonstrate nanosats beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) for the first time.
The U.S. space agency selected the CubeSats to fly as secondary payloads on the first Exploration Mission with SLS (EM-1), a swing around the Moon with an unmanned Orion crew capsule intended to gauge the integrated performance of the two new human-exploration vehicles. They will ride in individual spring-loaded dispensers on the Orion stage adapter, which will jettison them after the Orion has separated from the Interim Cryogenic Upper Stage that will push it on a trajectory around the Moon and back to Earth.
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