Argotec expands its role in NASA missions with MiniCOR for Space Weather

Argotec expands its role in NASA scientific missions with MiniCor (Miniature CORonagraph), the mission dedicated to the observation of the Sun's coronal mass ejections and the monitoring of Space Weather. The program is managed by Argotec Us from its facility in Melbourne, Florida.

As part of the NASA H-Fort program, Argotec will provide the 12U Hawk Lite satellite platform, designed to image solar flares and collect high-frequency data on coronal activity and CMEs. The payload is developed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL).

Argotec's US team contributed to the successful completion of MiniCOR's Critical Design Review (Cdr). The production and testing phases are now underway, a step that strengthens Argotec Us' role as an industrial partner for highly complex scientific missions. The CubeSat, weighing 32 kg, will be equipped with a miniaturized coronagraph and instruments for solar monitoring and data processing on board. During a six-month mission it will study the CMEs, the solar wind and the dynamics of the inner corona, contributing to the development of systems for predicting Space Weather events.

“The MiniCOR mission demonstrates the growing capabilities of our US team in building sophisticated space platforms for NASA and other highly complex government missions. The completion of the Cdr represents an important milestone and we are proud to enter the production phase,” explains Corbett Hoenninger, General Manager of Argotec Us. “The completion of the Cdr represents a critical step in bringing MiniCOR from the design phase to reality. MiniCOR will demonstrate that powerful and frequent space weather observations do not necessarily require a large space platform,” adds Kathy Batho, MiniCOR Program Manager at Johns Hopkins Apl.