Re-Entry: Three Doves in 24 Hours
Three CubeSat Doves belonging to Planet Lab’s Flock of satellites re-entered the atmosphere in a single calendar day on April 5, 2018 after each spent nearly two years in orbit as part of the company’s Earth-imaging constellation. The three CubeSats were part of “Mission 1” during which Planet established a capability to image the entire Earth at least once per day.
Object: Flock-2 CubeSat, 3U
Mass: ~4.5kg
Origin: USA
Inclination: 51.6°
Deployer: NRCSD-8
Flock-2E 3:
NORAD ID: 41486
Deployed from ISS: May 18, 2016 – 02:15 UTC
Re-Entry: April 5, 2018 – 03:00 UTC ±18 Minutes
Re-Entry Zone: Unknown
Flock-2E’ 6 (EP-6):
NORAD ID: 41568
Deployed from ISS: May 31, 2016 – 04:00 UTC
Re-Entry: April 5, 2018 – 06:47 UTC ±51 Minutes
Re-Entry Zone: Unknown
Flock-2E’ 8 (EP-8):
NORAD ID: 41569
Deployed from ISS: May 31, 2016 – 09:35 UTC
Re-Entry: April 5, 2018 – 22:28 UTC ±120 Minutes
Re-Entry Zone: Unknown
Satellite Description: Flock represents a constellation of three-unit CubeSats operated by Planet Labs to build an Earth-observation constellation based on CubeSats. The satellites were first released from ISS in February 2014 to start orbiting Earth for several months, acquiring images of chosen ground targets.
