Sherpa-AC1 CubeSat deployer for Spaceflight, Inc. carrying hosted payloads and CubeSats.
Sherpa-AC1 CubeSat deployer for Spaceflight, Inc. from the USA, carrying hosted payloads and CubeSats was launched with the Transporter-5 RideShare mission on SpaceX’ Falcon 9 rocket on May 25th, 2022.
The Sherpa-AC1 CubeSat deployer is a commercial satellite dispenser developed by Andrews Space, a subsidiary of Spaceflight Industries, and was introduced in 2012. The maiden flight was on December 3rd, 2018 on the Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket operated by SpaceX, and it consisted of two separate unpropelled variants of the dispenser.
Riding atop the launcher’s final stage, Sherpas’s release follows deployment of the primary mission payload for the dispensing of Micro-satellites, and CubeSats. Sherpa builds upon the capabilities of the Spaceflight Secondary Payload System (SSPS) by incorporating propulsion and power generation subsystems, which creates a propulsive tug dedicated to maneuvering to an optimal orbit to place secondary and hosted payloads.