SAN FRANCISCO \u2013Spanish startup UARX Space is remedying anomalies identified during the maiden flight of OSSIE-D, an orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) launched Oct. 1 aboard SpaceX\u2019s Transporter-18 mission. At least 10 PocketQubes have been deployed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cImmediately after launch, we experienced a communications blackout with our spacecraft,\u201d Andr\u00e9s Villa Granata, UARX co-founder and chief technology officer, told SpaceNews by email.<\/p>\n
To fix the situation, UARX \u201cdecided to send a backup command to the OTV to enable\u201d fault detection, isolation and recovery automation \u201cthat would deploy the payloads without ground station intervention,\u201d Villa Granata said.<\/p>\n
UARX sent the command to deploy payloads two days after launch \u201cbut, without reliable two-way communications with the vehicle, we didn\u2019t know if the command was properly received,\u201d Villa Granata said. \u201cWe made this decision to prioritize our customers\u2019 missions in case OSSIE had more serious problems\u201d and because we were \u201caware of the lifetime of the spacecraft operating on batteries.\u201d<\/p>\n
UARX now knows that the communications blackout was caused by \u201ca configuration error on the interface of the Ground Station service we are using,\u201d Villa Granata said. \u201cThe configuration was corrected, and from that point communication with OSSIE has been nominal. Since then, all spacecraft systems check outs have been performed and everything is performing nominally.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since communications have been restored, UARX was \u201cable to wake up the sequencer from its ultra-low-power mode and download our deployment telemetry,\u201d Villa Granata said. \u201cThe telemetry shows that our commands sent\u201d two days post-launch \u201cwere received correctly. We also obtained telemetry that indicates all commanded deployments were executed correctly and the payloads were released.\u201d<\/p>\n
Additional payloads remain onboard OSSIE, short for Orbit Solutions to Simplify Injection and Exploration, a 200-kilogram class OTV. Some are hosted payloads like Dawn Aerospace\u2019s Docking and Fluidic Transfer Port<\/a>.<\/p>\n Others satellites on OSSIE \u201cwill be released in the future, Villa Granata said. \u201cHowever, we cannot provide specific details about these customers.\u201d<\/p>\n OSSIE customers<\/p>\n Prior to launch OSSIE-D was scheduled to deploy satellites seven and 30 days post-launch.<\/p>\n Some customers have posted news of their missions like German nonprofit AMSAT-Deutschland, which sent three PocketQubes into orbit on OSSIE-D.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the successful launch was still being celebrated in Bochum and preparations for the next planned activities were underway, a surprise announcement came in on Saturday evening, October 3,\u201d AMSAT-DL posted<\/a> Oct. 4. \u201cWe would like to inform you that we have decided to initiate the deployment sequence for the OSSIE-D payload earlier than originally planned. The deployment sequence for the deployable payloads began on October 2, 2026, at 1:48:09.950 p.m. CEST.\u201d<\/p>\n Since AMSAT-Deutschland did not expect its satellites to be deployed so soon, \u201cno one had been listening to the transmission frequencies,\u201d the post said. \u201cThe signals from the ERMINAZ satellites went unheard at first.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur three ERMINAZ-2 PocketQubes have been successfully deployed from the Picobus Deployer from Libre Space Foundation on OSSIE-D,\u201d AMSAT-DL President Peter Gulzow told SpaceNews. \u201cTwo of our Satellites, ERMINAZ-2U and ERMINAZ-2V, are operating and under commissioning. The third one, ERMINAZ-2X status is unknown, as we have not yet been able to acquire a signal from it.\u201d<\/p>\n