Alpine & Lupine
Blue Canyon Technologies Venus-100 microsatellite bus
BCT’s Venus-100 microsatellite bus provides satellite station keeping and control, articulating solar arrays for power generation, power and data systems for spacecraft health monitoring and payload operations, as well as an S-band RF system to enable satellite command and telemetry as well as payload command uplink.
Ka-Band Antenna
Our Ka-Band fixed antenna receives signals from the APEX 1.0 lander on the lunar surface during M3 operations, with high speed data rates up to 1.3 Mbps.
S-Band Antenna
Our S-Band fixed dish antenna…..M3 operations. It sends signals with data rates up to 8 kbps* and receives signals with data rates up to 256 kbps.
X-Band Antenna
Our X-band deployable antenna articulates to point to Earth while the relay satellites are in lunar orbit. It transmits data to Earth at high speed, up to 1.3 Mbps.
Relay Satellite Tower
ispace-U.S. is developing the tower structure attached to the Venus-100 Bus. It is designed to hold our antenna and houses other communication components to direct the radio traffic during M3. Our relay satellite tower also offers commercial payload mounting space for customers interested in flying components in lunar space.
Orbital Information
Alpine and Lupine are equipped with bi-directional S-band command, telemetry links, and a high-speed Ka-band lunar proximity uplink and X-band downlink to Earth for low-latency real-time communications.
After the primary surface mission, Alpine and Lupine naturally circularize into High Circular Polar Orbits (HCPO). These orbits provide near-global coverage of the lunar surface with a focus region over the poles. For each lunar day cycle, the relays provide simultaneous visibility of Earth and lunar South Pole regions.
Alpine and Lupine’s primary purpose is to enable communications from the Far Side of the Moon back to Earth, but they can also speed up communications from lunar orbit or near-side landing sites. We provide flexible bandwidth options and constant visibility to Earth for customers in cislunar space.
Alpine and Lupine can do more than just communicate between the Moon and Earth. They can support other onboard activities, from Space Domain Awareness (SDA) to Positioning Navigation and Timing (PNT) for technology demonstrations.