German Orbital Systems and Scanway aim for a joint moon mission

Orbital Systems early announced today that they have joined Scanway with a Letter of Intent for launching CubeSats around the moon.

“Today we are happy to announce, that German Orbital System and Scanway, a NewSpace company from Wroclaw, Poland, have signed a Letter of Intent in the framework of the European SpaceTech Transfer Forum in Warsaw to work towards a joint CubeSat mission into the orbit of the moon.

Scanway develops cutting edge multispectral payloads for small satellites, which can also be used for laser data transmission. The company is in the process of building a first engineering model of a 6U CubeSat called ScanSAT to demonstrate feasibility. GOS will actively support this development aimed to be completed in the end of the year 2019.

The next step of the cooperation will be the design and development of ScanSAT, based on the findings from the engineering model. GOS will contribute to the project by providing the whole platform as well as the launch service in cooperation with its sister company EXOLAUNCH. The cooperation in the framework of the ScanSAT project will allow both partners to focus on their strengths and by doing so to develop a competitive and cost effective solution which will bring forward both companies.

But ScanSAT is not the ultimate goal of this promising cooperation. Scanway and GOS aim higher. Together, the companies commit to work towards a joint moon mission which will bring ScanSAT based CubeSats into the moon orbit to provide multispectral imagery from the moons surface. This imagery can be used to investigate location of potential resource deposits on the moon and to prepare for future robotic and manned missions to the surface.The satellite will also use Scanways technology to communicate with Earth via laser communication. The companies further announced, that two units of space inside the 6U+ spacecraft will be dedicated to student experiments from Germany and Poland.

By signing the LoI German Orbital Systems and Scanway start a new chapter in the cooperation of both countries which will ultimately result in achievements of worldwide significance.”