OrCa in orbit!!!

On Thursday, March 26, at 4:18p EDT, the Orbital Calibration (OrCa) 12U cubesat launched as a rideshare on the AEHF-6 mission.  The launch vehicle was a ULA Atlas V, and was placed into a highly elliptical geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO).  It was also the first launch under the new U.S. Space Force!  The mission will allow us to improve our modeling and prediction of resident space objects (i.e., debris, satellites, etc.) by having a well-characterized target on orbit.  The spacecraft was machined and assembled here at GT-AE, with various environmental testing and surface characterization done at GTRI.  The project is a partnership with GT-AE and GTRI.  More details can be found here, with a link to the launch video here.