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Athena EPIC

Active Mission

NASA, the U.S. Space Force, NOAA, and NovaWurks have strategically aligned efforts to gain wisdom from Athena — a SmallSat that will demonstrate the ability of NovaWurks SensorCraft architecture to support future missions. Athena serves as a pilot opportunity for transformational activities by pathfinding an innovative space vehicle architecture, learning from commercial best practices, implementing a whole-of-government approach, and reducing schedule to launch as well as lifecycle costs.

Mission Type

SmallSat

Partners

U.S. Space Force, NOAA​, NovaWurks

Launch

Summer 2025

objective

Demonstrate measurement technology from new host​
Featured Story

NASA Tests Scalable Satellite Tech to Launch Sensors Quicker

Editor’s note: NASA’s Athena EPIC satellite launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg…

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Athena will demonstrate a critical science measurement, but also an architecture that is adaptable and more cost-effective for the taxpayer and the government.

Kory Priestley

Kory Priestley

Athena Principal Investigator, NASA's Langley Research Center​

Athena EPIC Mission Video
Credit: NASA/Langley Video Services Team

Taking Cues from Human Biology

NovaWurk’s Hyper-Integrated Sat- lets, or HISat’s, are engineered to aggregate, share resources, and conform to different sizes and shapes.

The cellular architecture of the craft allows greater flexibility with payload designs and concepts, dropping the price-point, yielding greater access to space and multiple orbits to make the most use of its observational capability.

“We’re really merging the capabilities of the HISat’s and the payload,” Priestley said. “So, our payload doesn’t need to bring as many resources to the overall effort.”

Given the seamless integration of the payload, sensor and the host craft, teams are easily finding new and needed science applications and collaborations that Athena can provide for future science missions.

Athena Sensorcraft
Athena Sensorcraft
NASA/Langley Research Center

TRACERS Blog Posts

Athena EPIC launched as a rideshare on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. The primary NASA payload on the launch is NASA's TRACERS mission.