NASA Signs Agreement with Argentina’s Space Agency for Artemis II CubeSat

NASA has signed an agreement with Argentina’s Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE) for a CubeSat to fly on the agency’s Artemis II test flight. With this agreement, NASA has finalized all partnerships for the four international CubeSats that will fly aboard the mission.

NASA astronaut and Artemis II Mission Specialist Christina Koch examines the Orion stage adapter, a ring-like structure that connects the agency’s SLS rocket to the Orion spacecraft. Several CubeSats will deploy from the adapter to high Earth orbit during the test flight. Credit: NASA/Charles Beason

The ATENEA CubeSat will collect data on radiation doses across various shielding methods, measure the radiation spectrum around Earth, collect GPS data to help optimize future mission design, and validate a long-range communications link.

CubeSats are small but mighty – compact in size, they contain technology demonstrations or scientific experiments that can potentially enhance understanding of the space environment.

In addition to CONAE, NASA is working with German space agency DLR, the Korea AeroSpace Agency, and the Saudi Space Agency to fly payloads aboard Artemis II to access the high Earth orbit environment as part of NASA’s Artemis campaign. Collectively, the CubeSats will gather information to inform and potentially improve how missions to deep space are designed. They will be delivered to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida later this summer for integration with a SLS (Space Launch System) spacecraft adapter.

While the CubeSats will detach from the rocket to study the environment around Earth, the crew in Orion will continue on and venture around the Moon and back over the course of a 10-day journey. Through Artemis, NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.