The Japanese Experiment Module- Exposed Facility as it looks from inside Kibo. Photo:NASA.

As Audacy’s Zero CubeSat approaches launch, the company is already working on the next demonstration to the International Space Station (ISS) named Audacy Lynq. The mission will deploy a second generation client terminal on the ISS, where it will provide communications for commercial users. The service will be offered using the same pricing as future relay services with unit cost as low as $4 per Gb, according to Audacy.

Funded by NASA’s Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), Audacy Lynq will be installed on the Nanoracks External Platform (NREP) in the Japanese Experiment Module Exposed Facility (JEM-EF). There, it will provide up to 100 Mbps of send and receive data services to other NREP users. Audacy ground stations in San Francisco, California and Singapore will support initial data traffic, after which it will become fully integrated with the Audacy relay constellation in 2020.

The program kicked off in mid-2017 and is structured with seven milestone deliverables. This week the team completed the third milestone, finalizing conceptual design, associated requirements, and interface definitions to other ISS systems. The team will now proceed into detailed design, manufacture, and initial testing. Audacy Lynq is scheduled for delivery to the ISS by the end of 2018, and will be fully operational in February 2019.