PLUTO Spacecraft - Nanosats Database

Spacecraft	PLUTO
Form factor	CubeSat
Units or mass	6U
Organization	DLR Institute of Space Systems
Institution	Institute
Entity	Government (Civil / Military)
Nation	Germany
Oneliner	The hardware to be tested includes the Integrated Core Avionics (ICA), an ultra-wideband wireless camera and a deployable solar array.
Description	The hardware to be tested includes the Integrated Core Avionics (ICA), an ultra-wideband wireless camera and a deployable solar array. On PLUTO, ICA includes power handling, a software-defined radio and on-board computer, as well as advanced flight software. The ICA components are mounted in a CPCI Serial Space compatible backplane configuration enabling the use of the same components in CubeSats, SmallSats and standalone applications. Using experimental components for the primary bus functions poses a considerable risk of losing the mission without any data. To mitigate this risk a commercial OBC and UHF radio are included as bus components to provide data and reconfiguration capabilities in case the experimental components fail. Furthermore, the operational concept of PLUTO is tailored to provide maximum payload data while minimizing the risk of different payloads impeding each other.. PLUTO will be the first demonstration of a system comprised of one reliable node based on a conventional Gaisler GR712 processor, and two high-performance nodes based on Zynq-7000 SoC for more demanding applications. Further experiments aboard PLUTO will be a retroreflector experiment called SmartRetro for millimeter-precise satellite ranging (SLR) and even identification from DLR Institute of Technical Physics. Other non-DLR experiments flying aboard PLUTO include an in-orbit experiment of new low-power COTS FPGAs by the Technical University of Hamburg
Sources	[1] [2] [3] [4]
Photo sources	[1] [2]
Keywords	License Plate Identification Tag, Wireless

Related Spacecraft

Name	Status	Launcher	Launch	Orbit
PLUTO (PayLoad Under Test Orbiter)	not launched	Isar Spectrum	2027-12-30	not launched
PLUTO+ (PayLoad Under Test Orbiter) copy	not launched	Vega C	2027-12-30	not launched

Last modified: 2026-08-01