Audacy’s First Satellite Gets Closer to Launch

Audacy’s engineering team poses with the Audacy Zero satellite. Photo: Audacy.

With just three months left on the launch clock, Audacy’s Zero demonstration satellite has completed all environmental testing, the company reported. Hosted at SSL, Zero has undergone random vibration testing (to simulate the launch environment) and thermal vacuum testing (space environment) over the last week, passing both successfully.

In the time remaining to liftoff, the team will now focus on software improvements, end-to-end communications tests including the ground segment, and mission operations training. While a full-up mission operations team is not required for a satellite of this size, one objective of the Audacy Zero mission is to shake out the company’s mission operations capability. To that end, teams in the Singapore and San Francisco, California locations will go through joint mission simulations. Training scenarios will include both Hardware-Out-of-the-Loop (HOOTL) simulations using a virtual satellite, as well as Hardware-in-the-Loop (HITL) scenarios, commanding the actual satellite and ground teleport equipment to be used in-flight.