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Beating the odds: The story of West Virginia's first spacecraft


West Virginia’s first spacecraft, Simulation to Flight-1 (or STF-1), launched into orbit on Dec. 16, 2018, on the first-ever NASA Venture Class Launch Services mission via the Rocket Lab Electron rocket.
The launch occurred from New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula and STF-1 was one of 10 smallsats deployed as part of NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites mission. First contact was achieved a few days later.
“I don’t think words can express the amount of happiness and sense of accomplishment that came across the team during the first successful communications,” NASA computer engineer Justin Morris said as he reflected to the early days of the mission. ....

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NASA's ELaNa 20 mission first to fly on Virgin Orbit launch


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Ten NASA-sponsored CubeSats are preparing to fly on the agency’s next Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) mission, making this the first payload carried by Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket.
With the small satellites safely secured inside the payload fairing, and the fairing mated to the rocket, Virgin Orbit is gearing up for ELaNa 20, the Dec.19, 2020, Launch Demo 2 flight from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.
“This initiative actually enables the market for future CubeSats or future missions needing a ride to space by providing different approaches and different options to better meet spacecraft needs,” Hector Viera, NASA’s contracting officer representative for Virgin Orbit. “This launch is going to open the doors for them (Virgin Orbit) and for NASA, and that’s a good thing.” ....

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