Alba Orbital is a Scottish company that specializes in building PocketQube satellites and Albapod satellite deployment systems. Alba Orbital is the developer and manufacturer of the Unicorn-1[1] and Unicorn-2[2] satellite platforms.
Overview
Alba Orbital specializes in designing and building PocketQube satellites. The company has developed two satellite platforms. The Unicorn-1 platform is a 1P (5cm x 5cm x 5cm) PocketQube satellite, while its larger counterpart, Unicorn-2, is a 2P satellite (5cm x 5cm x 10cm).[3]
Launches
Alba Orbital is a launch broker and has purchased capacity with several space companies, including SpaceX and Rocket Lab, to launch PocketQube satellites into orbit.[4] The company also hold contracts with the European Space Agency for ARTES.[5] These launches harbor clusters[6] containing space for PocketQubes that are sold to teams wanting to launch pods. Every Alba Orbital flight uses Albapod deployers to release the clusters. These deployers come in two sizes: 6P and 96P.[citation needed] As of December 2023, Alba Orbital has successfully launched seven missions into low Earth orbit, while one mission failed before deployment on the first flight of Orbiter SN1.