Pleiades - Orpheus Spacecraft

Educational mission using the PROVES (Pleiades Rapid Orbital Verification Experimental System) open-source CubeSat architecture with camera payload.

Pleiades-Orpheus has two primary missions. The first is to fly a 1U CubeSat built entirely by students from IHS CubeSat. The 1U CubeSat shall be based on the PROVES (Pleiades Rapid Orbital Verification Experimental System) open-source CubeSat architecture being developed for educational use.

Pleiades-Orpheus will also contain an imaging payload with the mission of capturing an image of the Earth, which will then be analyzed to determine the trends of light pollution in roughly North America. Students participating in the Pleiades-Orpheus mission shall gain valuable experience with the integration, launch, and operation of a spacecraft as a part of their academic experiences.

The Pleiades-Orpheus mission should be classified as an amateur mission. This project is primarily initiated and developed by high school students under the mentorship of Bronco Space. Additionally, most of the students involved either have HAM radio licenses or are studying for HAM radio licenses. Amateur operators and satellite hobbyists shall also be able to use the open source PROVES architecture to build their own CubeSats or (because all spacecraft built for this project are open source) they shall be able to directly replicate the Pleiades spacecraft to act as a known foundation for their own missions. Radio amateurs shall be able to receive packets and the resulting images from Pleiades-Orpheus for as long as it remains operational.

The satellite will alternate between Long Range (LoRa) and Frequency-Shift Keying (FSK) communication modes. This approach caters to a wider range of users with different technical capabilities. Furthermore, the mission’s repeater mode will enable monthly competitions for the amateur radio community where those who have the top three strongest signals received will be rewarded with a commemorative sticker, fostering a sense of community and achievement.

• PLATFORM - PROVES

• CroCube
• CTC-0
• Djibouti-1B
• LASARSat
• OWLSAT-3
• OWLSAT-4
• OWLSAT-5
• OWLSAT-6
• OWLSAT-7
• OWLSAT-8
• OWLSAT-9
• OWLSAT-10
• OWLSAT-11
• OWLSAT-12
• Pleiades - Orpheus
• SC1
• Tomorrow-S3
• Tomorrow-S4
• XCUBE-1