The Exploration Company is using a mid-band satellite terminal for a key test of its autonomous reuseable space capsule (writes Nick Flaherty).

The Nyx capsule is designed for orbiting the Earth for 3 to 6 months with payloads up to 4000 kg, as well as landing on the Moon to resupply a lunar base with a cargo of 1600 kg.

A subscale re-entry demonstrator of Nyx will be launched on the maiden flight of the new Ariane 6rocket later this year. Once in orbit, the capsule will detach and begin re-entry to Earth. The data from the test flight will be relayed via the Iridium Next satellite network using a Certus DLS-100transceiver from Skytrac.

The transceiver weighs 742 g and is capable of real-time command and control, telemetry streaming and photo/video transmission with 22 kbit/s uplink speeds. As the capsule is an unrecoverable technology demonstrator it will crash into the sea after collecting and transmitting the data.

“Starting at an altitude of 360 miles, the capsule will collect data from systems and sensors, which will be transmitted over the Iridium network to the ground from the DLS-100,” said Thomas Nussmann, lead avionics and power engineer at The Exploration Company. “The ruggedised data link will provide the low latency, global, and reliable satellite connectivity the capsule requires to conduct this demonstration.”