Aerospace tests four pancake-shaped DiskSats in orbit

At Rocket Lab’s facility on Wallops Island, Virginia, engineers lowered a flat, disk-shaped spacecraft into a rocket fairing. Months later, four 17-kilogram DiskSats are in low-Earth orbit, the first demonstration flight of Aerospace Corporation’s new form factor after a December 2025 launch on an Electron rocket.

The spacecraft were deployed at 550 kilometers and are slowly descending as atmospheric drag pulls them lower. Engineers are commissioning Enpulsion Nano Field Emission Electric Propulsion systems, which are intended to propel the DiskSats below 300 kilometers, into very low Earth orbit, or VLEO.

The design is not a conventional small satellite made thinner. Its bus is 1 meter in diameter and 2.5 centimeters deep, built from carbon-fiber composite facesheets bonded to an aluminum-honeycomb core. Aerospace had to redesign or modify power management, communications, attitude control and thermal systems; components including thrusters, payloads and star trackers sit on the spacecraft’s exterior.

The orbit has delivered hard lessons. Stray light reached the star trackers and engineers changed how they operated the mission. More seriously, battery heaters drew power unevenly. Software mitigated the flaw, but by the time the fix was uploaded, both batteries on DiskSat C and one battery on DiskSat A were permanently disabled. Aerospace engineer Darren Rowen called it a painful lesson, while saying the mission remains on track to complete its objectives.

So what changes in practice? The demonstration is turning an unusual spacecraft architecture into something other companies can attempt: Neumann Space, Orbotic Systems and Satlyt have signed commercial licensing agreements, and other companies have expressed interest. The technology is still being proven in orbit, while Aerospace is pairing that test with an effort to create an industrial base for future DiskSats.