At the Interplanetary SmallSat Conference in May 2021, Rocket Lab presented a conceptual paper on Electron and Photon on-orbit refueling for dedicated interplanetary smallsat missions.
The partnership provides Photon customers downlink and uplink capabilities in UHF, S-band, X-band, and Ka-band.
Rocket Lab partnered with Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) to provide ground station support for Electron launch vehicle and Photon satellite bus customers.
The partnership makes KSAT the sole provider of ground station services for Rocket Lab's Electron and Photon customers.
Rocket Lab's Photon is a satellite bus designed for seamless pairing with the Electron launch vehicle.
As of April 8, 2019, Photon was designed to operate a high-powered iteration of the 3D-printed Curie propulsion system that had been deployed on four orbital Electron missions.
As of April 8, 2019, Photon had an available payload mass of up to 170 kg for Low Earth Orbit missions.
As of February 28, 2024, Rocket Lab described an "Explorer" Photon variant as having a lightweight carbon composite structure and capability for long-duration interplanetary cruise.
As of April 8, 2019, the first operational Photon was planned to be launched from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in Q4 2019 with customer missions in active planning for 2020.
As of February 27, 2024, Rocket Lab used variant names for its Photon family including Photon, Pioneer, Lightning, and Explorer.
As of February 28, 2024, Rocket Lab described a Photon variant with a bus mass of approximately 300 kg optimized for Electron and targeted for LEO and beyond.
On April 8, 2019, Rocket Lab introduced Photon, a satellite bus based on the Electron rocket's Kick Stage.
As of April 8, 2019, Photon included an S-band communication system, a high-performance attitude control system, and a robust avionics suite.
As of June 6, 2022, Eta Space's planned cryogenic fluid management test module was to be based on a Photon bus.
As of February 9, 2021, Rocket Lab's next mission was announced as launching in March 2021 and featuring commercial satellites across four constellations, government R&D satellites, and a Photon risk reduction demonstration.
Rocket Lab added lunar payload services to the Photon satellite bus on 2019-10-21.
Under an agreement announced 2019-10-22, Rocket Lab will provide Electron and Photon customers access to the KSAT network of ground stations as an additional service.
Rocket Lab plans to focus on its satellite program in 2020 and offer a high-performance spacecraft bus called Photon that complements its Electron launch vehicle.
Rocket Lab’s Photon bus will be used to deliver NASA’s CAPSTONE cubesat to the Moon after launch on an Electron rocket next year under a contract awarded to Rocket Lab by NASA on 2020-02-14.
Rocket Lab won the CAPSTONE contract on 2020-02-14 to launch a NASA lunar cubesat mission using an Electron rocket and Rocket Lab’s Photon satellite bus.