Big Bada Boom 💥 from my show & tell at Satellite Innovation 2020

They just sent me a private video link to my keynote on the new space age.

My Planet Dove satellite (bottom left) survived the massive Antares night launch explosion you see on the poster board. Quite a robust little bird! She was perfectly functional despite the rough ride, landing on the beach at the Wallops launch site. When the morning sun hit the solar panels, this would normally be the signal that it had been deployed in space from the deployment case. So, she deployed the solar arrays just as the NASA team was recovering it on the beach. She was also listening for the ground signal to start transmitting (which would be an adorable tweet of “Yo”, the first sign of life). Must have been confusing for this little Dove.

And it may be the first satellite to have a successful suborbital launch and deployment… while en route to orbit! 😊