Concept of Operations

The DESCENT mission consists of two 1U CubeSats connected via a 100m long bare tape tether. The two cubes will be launched to the International Space Station (ISS) by NanoRacks, and will subsequently be inserted into orbit. Following deployment, the two spacecraft will be controlled from York University's ground station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Once the satellite's attitude has been determined and controlled, the two cubes will be separated from each other to deploy the tether. After observing the deployment dynamics, the spindt array will be enabled nominally resulting in CubeSat re-entry within a few days. The entire mission duration is expected to be less than six months.