In-space transportation company Momentus revealed last week that three out of the five satellites it launched on board a Falcon 9 rocket on November 11 failed to deploy. The fate of these satellites, AMAN-1, JINJUSat-1, and Picacho, remains unknown.

Momentus supported a total of five payloads for four different customers during this mission. They confirmed the successful deployment of Hello Test 1 and 2, satellites belonging to Turkish company Hello Space. However, the deployment of the remaining three satellites did not go as planned.

The lost satellites include AMAN-1, an Earth observation satellite for Poland's SatRev, JINJUSat-1, another Earth observation satellite for South Korea's CONTECv, and Picacho, a communication prototype satellite for Tucson startup Lunasonde.

Despite initial telemetry data received from Picacho, Lunasonde was unable to establish contact with the satellite. The company suspects that the weak telemetry signals they received indicate that Picacho's antenna was successfully deployed in orbit. Consequently, Lunasonde is now focusing on locating and establishing communication with its lost satellite.

Jeremiah Pate, CEO of Lunasonde, expressed the rarity of this situation, stating that "a situation such as this—where there are no clear indications of exactly what transpired—is unprecedented." Nonetheless, the company is actively working to assume Picacho's presence in orbit and is determined to locate it.

Picacho, a communication prototype, was an essential part of Lunasonde's plan to deploy a constellation of microsatellites. These microsatellites would utilize low-frequency radar technology to map minerals and other resources hidden beneath the Earth's surface.

Momentus, which utilized a deployer from an unidentified third party for this Transporter-9 mission, instead of its in-house Vigoride tug, is currently conducting an investigation into the cause of the deployment failure.

SpaceX's Transporter missions continue to garner significant demand, with Transporter-9 carrying a total of 113 payloads. Of these, 90 were directly deployed from the Falcon 9 rocket, while the remaining satellites were deployed from an orbital transfer vehicle.

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