National Reconnaissance Office Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Release #02-15

Contact: (703) 808-5050 May 18, 2015

NRO’s ULTRASat Providing CubeSat Rideshares on

U.S. Air Force AFSPC-5 Mission

The U.S. Air Force AFSPC-5 mission, scheduled to launch May 20 on an Atlas V 

rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla, will include an NRO auxiliary 

payload, called Ultra Lightweight Technology and Research Auxiliary Satellite 

(ULTRASat). ULTRASat is composed of 10 CubeSats from five organizations. 

Nine of the CubeSats are sponsored by the NRO, and one is sponsored by 

NASA.

This launch marks the first time the Aft Bulkhead Carrier (ABC) will be used on 

an Air Force mission. The ABC is used to carry the auxiliary payload on the 

Atlas V. ABC was developed in 2007 by the NRO and United Launch Alliance 

and has flown on two NRO missions. 

The previous missions carried CubeSats that were built by the U.S. Army and 

other Department of Defense and Intelligence Community entities responsible for 

developing and testing the nation’s next generation of national security assets. In 

addition, since 2007, the NRO and other U.S. government partners, including 

NASA, have worked with universities, service academies, laboratories, and 

private industry to design, create, launch, and operate the CubeSats. By 

participating in this process through the full life cycle of a satellite, students and 

novice engineers experience firsthand how satellite programs and cutting-edge 

technology are applied, including experiments conducted on orbit. 

The NRO’s Office of Space Launch is responsible for planning, integrating, and 

executing the mission to deploy the CubeSats. 

ULTRASat’s CubeSats are housed in eight Poly-Pico Orbital Deployers 

(P-PODs) built by California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) in San Luis 

Obispo, Calif. The eight P-PODs are integrated into a structure built by the Naval 

Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. Seven of the eight P-PODs contain nine 

NRO-sponsored CubeSats, while one of the P-PODs contains one NASAsponsored satellite.
The ULTRASat payload houses nine NRO-sponsored CubeSats, including: 

 Three developed by the U.S. Naval Academy, including the USS Langley, 

whose primary objective is to demonstrate the ability to host a web server 

on a CubeSat. A second, built in conjunction with the George Washington 

University, will characterize the performance of miniature pulse plasma 

thrusters. The third, Parkinsonat, will demonstrate the operation of a 

communications payload with two transponders in the Amateur Satellite 

Service. One transponder enables handheld texting and position/data 

reporting between handheld radios anywhere on Earth and/or the Internet,

and the second transponder can support up to 30 simultaneous text users 

from laptop-type portable ground stations. 

 Three “OptiCubes,” developed by Cal Poly, will provide on-orbit targets for 

ground assets to calibrate sensors for orbital debris studies and smallobject tracking improvements. 

 Two developed by Aerospace Corporation, in coordination with MIT, called 

AeroCube-8, will demonstrate new technologies using, among other 

things, a scalable ion electrospray propulsion system.

 One developed by the Near Space Launch and Air Force Research Lab 

for Globalstar Evaluation and Risk Reduction Spacecraft will demonstrate 

the use of the Globalstar constellation as a path for near-continuous 

command and control of low earth orbit space vehicles. 

The NASA-sponsored CubeSat is:

 The eleventh installment of the Educational Launch of Nanosatellite 

(ElaNa) mission. Privately developed by The Planetary Society, 

LightSail-1 is designed to demonstrate the viability of using solar sailing 

for propulsion on a small, three-unit CubeSat. The Lightsail program is 

embarking on two missions: this 2015 shakedown cruise to test the 

spacecraft’s systems and a full-fledged solar sailing flight in 2016.

-NROThe NRO is a joint Department of Defense-Intelligence Community organization responsible for 

developing, launching, and operating America’s intelligence satellites to meet the national 

security needs of our nation.