The Air Force Research Laboratory's RHEME-2 experiment is scheduled to launch on Saturday, December 1st on the Spaceflight SSO-A SmallSat Express mission. The mission is scheduled for launch at 9:30 AM Pacific Time from Vandenburg Air Force Base in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and will be live-streamed on YouTube.
RHEME-2 is part of AFRL's Radiation-Hardened Electronic Memory Experiment, on which IDEAS-TEK is a contributor. The RHEME project is a planned series of experiments to observe the effects of the radiation in space on electronic components at different orbital altitudes. The data collection will inform and validate radiation tests and simulations done on Earth. A second objective of RHEME, and where the IDEAS-TEK team has made its major contribution, is to develop radiation-tolerant electronics using inexpensive and widely-available design tools to lower the cost of such components in future missions.
Spaceflight SSO-A SmallSat Express will also be a groundbreaking flight for the SmallSat industry, because it will be the single largest rideshare mission from a US-based launch vehicle to date. Spaceflight SSO-A's flight payload will include 64 spacecraft from 34 different customers, including 49 CubeSats from both commercial and government organizations.
UPDATE: Spaceflight SSO-A successfully launched on Monday, December 3rd after being delayed due to weather. The satellite hosting RHEME-2 was successfully deployed along with all of the other satellites aboard this record-setting rideshide launch.
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