Cubesats installed in an adapter for the Artemis 1 SLS launch. Credit: NASA/Cory Huston
SALT LAKE CITY — After flying cubesats on the first two Space Launch System missions, NASA will not include them on the rocket’s next flight.
In a presentation at the Small Satellite Conference here Aug. 24, David Hitt of the NASA SLS Payload Integration Office said the agency elected not to incorporate cubesats as secondary payloads on the Artemis 3 launch, scheduled for no earlier than mid-2027.
The key factor in the decision is the change in the configuration for the SLS stemming from NASA’s move earlier this year to convert Artemis 3, originally planned to be a lunar landing mission, into a low Earth orbit test of the Orion spacecraft docking with lunar landers being developed by Blue Origin and SpaceX.
Since Orion will remain in low Earth orbit on Artemis 3, NASA will not use an upper stage on SLS, preserving the final remaining Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage, or ICPS, upper stage for the Artemis 4 lunar landing mission. NASA instead will install an inert “spacer” in place of the ICPS on the SLS for Artemis 3.
