CubeCab To Launch 1,000 Satellites For ThumbSat
In the largest single agreement to date, educational satellite company ThumbSat has agreed to launch 1,000 of its satellites on CubeCab’s Cab-3A rocket family.
“We couldn’t be more excited to work with CubeCab,” said Patricia Mayes, Education Outreach Manager for ThumbSat. “NASA is championing ‘the world’s lightest satellite’ to test concepts in a suborbital environment. At ThumbSat we created an affordable opportunity for innovators and students to prove basic concepts in low-earth orbit.”
Typical costs for an educational satellite sharing a ride to orbit run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Over the next five years, the agreement between CubeCab and ThumbSat will enable hundreds of universities and high schools to run their own space-science projects for roughly $20,000 each, with certain customizations moderately increasing the price. The key enabling technology is CubeCab’s low-cost, low-payload rocket, costing only $250,000 per launch, compared to the millions of dollars necessary to launch most rockets, and able to reach orbits that other launch vehicles do not serve.
“Our mission is to make satellite launches like delivering the mail,” said Charles Prael, CubeCab’s CFO. “Reliable, affordable, regularly-scheduled launch services. Nobody else is even trying for that.”
The small satellite marketplace has expanded dramatically in recent years. Launch services have not kept pace. CubeCab’s target is to launch a rocket every business day, dropping lead time for satellite operators from 1-2 years into the realm of 30 days or less.
“CubeCab’s dedicated launch capabilities allow virtually any kind of satellite – research, maneuvering, communications, or imaging – to reach orbit quickly and efficiently,” said Prael. “We’re very pleased that ThumbSat selected the Cab-3A family of launchers, and believe it is the right vehicle to usher in a new era of low cost, reliable space launch.”
About CubeCab
CubeCab is a next-generation launch services provider that is fundamentally changing how small satellite are delivered to orbit, improving both access to space and the launch process. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, CubeCab provides global launch capabilities through its network of partners and affiliates. For more information, please visit http://cubecab.com/.
About ThumbSat
ThumbSat manufactures small satellites to enable low-cost experiments in space, coupled with mission design to make space experiments easy to run and help mitigate orbital debris. For more information, please visit http://www.thumbsat.com/.
Contact: Adrian Tyme
(650) 465-6399
info@cubecab.com
