U.S. company Aerospace Corp. continues testing the operability of its flat DiskSat satellites in low Earth orbit after launching four of them in December aboard a Rocket Lab Electron rocket. The satellites were deployed from a dispenser that the company designed specifically for the mission, at an altitude of 550 kilometers, while engineers are currently working to activate Enpulsion’s Nano Field Emission Electric Propulsion systems.
Each DiskSat satellite weighs approximately 17 kilograms and is designed as a disk one meter in diameter and 2.5 centimeters thick. Because of atmospheric drag, the satellites are slowly descending from their current orbit, but the next objective is to use propulsion to lower them and maintain them in very low Earth orbit, meaning an altitude below 300 kilometers.
A Design That Requires Systems to Be Rebuilt
DiskSat differs radically from conventional small satellites. Its structure is made from carbon-fiber composite sheets bonded to an aluminum honeycomb core. This unusual shape forced Aerospace engineers to redesign or modify the power-management, communications, attitude-control, and thermal-control systems.
Darren Rowen, the lead engineer for the demonstration mission, said DiskSat represents the biggest advance in packaged satellites since CubeSats emerged in the early 2000s. However, the first phase in orbit revealed that most of the mission’s components were new, including the platform, dispenser, S-band radio, and ground-station network, imposing a steep learning curve on the operations team.
Thermal Problems and Damaged Batteries
Thermal control was among the main challenges, as thrusters, payloads, star-tracker sensors, and other components were mounted on the satellites’ external surfaces. Engineers had to develop solutions to prevent these components from being exposed to temperatures that were too high or too low. After reaching orbit, the team also discovered stray light affecting the star-tracker sensors and addressed the problem by modifying mission operating procedures.
The most consequential problem involved the battery heaters, which were drawing power unevenly because of a design flaw. Engineers were able to mitigate the flaw through software, but the modification was not fully uploaded and implemented until after both batteries on the DiskSat C satellite and one battery on DiskSat A had permanently failed, according to the paper presented by the mission team at the 2026 Small Satellite Conference.
What Does This Mean for the Technology?
The experiment demonstrates that shrinking a satellite and changing its shape involves more than rearranging components; it requires the reengineering of power, communications, thermal, deployment, and operational systems. Working in an orbit below 300 kilometers provides a practical objective for testing the design, but it also exposes the systems to an environment more sensitive to atmospheric drag, which explains the importance of the propulsion used to lower and maintain the orbit.
Despite the loss of three batteries, Aerospace said the mission remains on track to achieve all of its objectives. The source provides no details about the thrusters’ final performance or the time required to reach very low Earth orbit, so these points remain open until testing is complete.
Transferring the Technology to the Market
The mission is not limited to proving the concept within Aerospace. Neumann Space, Orbotic Systems, and Satlyt have signed commercial licensing agreements for DiskSat technology, while additional companies have expressed interest in it. Catherine Venturini, the principal investigator for the demonstration mission, believes the project’s success will also be measured by its ability to build an industrial base that allows other companies to develop their own DiskSat satellites.