Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Courtesy: Goonhilly Earth Station

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd and Goonhilly Earth Station are looking for CubeSat passenger payloads on a lunar mission. They are teaming up with the European Space Agency to create “the world’s first commercial deep space mission” for 2019.

Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station is a large radio communication site located on Goonhilly Downs near Helston on the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall, England, UK.

The plan is to carry customer payload in the form of CubeSats into lunar orbit and provide the relay link back to Earth via Goonhilly. “Our plan is to take a payload of scientific research nano-satellites as our paying customers into lunar orbit then provide the communications link back to Earth,” explains a press statement on the concept.

Relay satellite

The nano-satellites will use the standard CubeSat format and will be provided with a Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) compliant radio communications card which will communicate via the Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) relay satellite in lunar orbit.

Lunar Pathfinder.
Courtesy: Goonhilly Earth Station

Given the growth in commercial space missions there’s interest in adding large antennas to the Goonhilly site’s Deep Space Inventory. There’s also a plan to expand the commercial Deep Space network to provide global coverage.

Lunar pathfinder

This new era in low cost space exploration is planned for 2019 – marking the 50th anniversary of the first human landing on the Moon.

The announced plan involves launch of a “Lunar Pathfinder,” built in the UK by SSTL and tracked and operated by Goonhilly.

Lunar Pathfinder will carry a payload of customer owned and built nano-satellites to lunar orbit. Once in orbit, Lunar Pathfinder will release the nano-satellites, some of which will remain in orbit and some may land on the lunar surface.

For more information, download related documents from this site:

http://www.goonhilly.org/lunar