MANTIS was successfully integrated with its EXOpod Nova deployment system in Berlin, provided by Exolaunch as part of their mission management and integration service, prior to completing its integrations with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 before lift-off from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
MANTIS, which stands for Mission Agile Nanosatellite for Terrestrial Imagery Services, will be the first satellite launched as part of ESA InCubed, the co-funding program run by ESA Φ-lab which focuses on commercial development activities across the entire Earth Observation (EO) value chain, including satellites, ground applications, downstream applications and new EO business models. As a participating member state, the UK Space Agency has contributed £2.2 million of funding to this initiative in order to support the advancement of space-related innovation within the UK. The satellite will host an innovative multispectral, high-resolution optical payload for EO and a secondary payload, a high-performance and reconfigurable processing unit aimed at exploiting the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to derive insights onboard.
