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Atomos Space’s first mission on orbit is a trial by fire
The company has faced two main issues related to communications and the spacecraft rotation rate — and it’s largely solved both those problems.
The company has faced two main issues related to communications and the spacecraft rotation rate — and it’s (largely) solved both problems, despite enormous constraints, infrequent data packets and extremely limited bandwidth. Atomos’ spacecraft were moving too fast, and in direct opposition, such that they couldn’t perform the data “handshake” with those Iridium satellites to actually transmit information back down to Earth. The issue was exacerbated by the limited comms; the teams didn’t realize something was wrong until the fourth day after deployment, and the spacecraft could only digest new commands in-between long periods of what were essentially communications blackouts.
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