Otter Spacecraft - Nanosats Database

Spacecraft name	Otter
Form factor	CubeSat
Units or mass	6U
Status	not launched, expected in 2025
Launcher	Falcon 9, (Transporter-12)
Organization	Naval Postgraduate School (NPS)
Institution	University
Entity	Academic / Education
Headquarters	US
Oneliner	Communications payloads including line-of-sight communications using two banks of LEDs.
Description	Otter with have 1550 nm optical comms package. The Otter CubeSat will fly New Zealand DST’s second communications payload, Tui, a risk reduction effort for space-based maritime domain awareness capabilities. Two NPS-built payloads are also manifested on Otter – an X-band transmitter and the next iteration of LOOP to continue experimenting with line-of-sight communications by using two banks of LEDs, transmitting in green and near-infrared wavelengths, that are capable of modulating light for basic messaging. More than 20 NPS students will have directly contributed to the Mola and Otter CubeSats in the FVEY series.
Sources	[1] [2] [3]
Photo sources	[1]
Keywords	Laser transmitter

Last modified: 2025-01-14