Pancake Satellites Prove Flatter is Better, Aerospace Corp. Claims

SALT LAKE CITY - The Aerospace Corp. is doubling down on its bet that the future of spaceflight is flat, continuing to demonstrate the viability of pancake-shaped DiskSats after their December launch on a Rocket Lab Electron.

“It’s the biggest advancement in containerized satellites since cubesats were introduced in the early 2000s,” Darren Rowen, DiskSat demonstration mission chief engineer, told SpaceNews. Because nothing says progress like comparing your tech to something from 20 years ago.

Following launch from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, four DiskSats were deployed from Aerospace’s custom-built dispenser to an altitude of 550 kilometers. The 17-kilogram DiskSats are now slowly descending due to atmospheric drag, because even satellites enjoy a good gradual descent, while engineers proceed with commissioning of Enpulsion Nano Field Emission Electric Propulsion systems.

The Enpulsion thrusters are needed to move the DiskSats to very low Earth orbit (VLEO), an altitude of less than 300 kilometers. Because why settle for regular low Earth orbit when you can go extra low?

“Propulsive lowering and sustainment at lower altitude is coming next,” said Catherine Venturini, DiskSat demonstration mission principal investigator. Coming next, presumably, after they figure out how to keep the batteries from dying.

DiskSats are strikingly different from traditional microsatellites. The bus with a 1-meter diameter and 2.5-centimeter depth was constructed with carbon fiber composite facesheets bonded to an aluminum-honeycomb core. It's basically a satellite that could double as a very expensive coaster.

“We’ve seen lightweight composites used in aviation and other industries, but they haven’t made their way into spacecraft primary structures,” Rowen said. Because satellites are notoriously conservative when it comes to adopting new materials.

Because of the unusual form factor, Aerospace engineers redesigned or modified satellite power management, communications, attitude control and thermal subsystems. Essentially, they had to figure out how to make everything work in a shape that resembles a giant hockey puck.

“The early-orbit phase of the DiskSat mission was a time of intense learning from ‘firsts’ on many fronts,” Rowen, Venturini and co-authors wrote in “DiskSat: On-Orbit Performance and Lessons Learned from the Inaugural Flight of TwoDimensional Satellites,” a paper presented at the 2026 Small Satellite Conference. “With nearly every subsystem being new, whether it was the bus, the dispenser, the S-band radio, or the ground network, the operations team faced a steep learning curve.” Translation: everything was new, and they had no idea what they were doing, but they learned a lot.

Thermal control was one challenge since thrusters, payloads, star trackers and other components were mounted on DiskSat exteriors. “We had to do a lot of engineering to figure out how to keep them from getting too hot and too cold,” Rowen said. Because space tends to be extreme, and satellites are picky about their temperatures.

The custom-built dispenser was another big risk because “if it doesn’t work, the mission is over,” Rowen said. No pressure or anything.

Once in orbit, Aerospace engineers discovered stray light reaching star trackers, a problem they remedied by revising DiskSat’s concept of operations. Because nothing says 'steep learning curve' like having to change your entire operational plan because of some pesky photons.

Battery heaters drawing power unequally caused more serious problems. Engineers were able to mitigate a flaw in the battery heater design through software. By the time the change “was fully implemented and uploaded, both batteries on DiskSat C and one battery on DiskSat A were permanently disabled,” according to the paper. So, some batteries are dead, but hey, at least they're not too hot or too cold.

“This was a painful lesson learned,” Rowen said Aug. 24 in at the Small Satellite Conference. “Despite this outcome, the mission is on track to complete all of the mission objectives successfully.” Because what's a few dead batteries between friends?

While conducting the demonstration mission, the Aerospace Corp. is transferring DiskSat technology. Neumann Space, Orbotic Systems and Satlyt have signed DiskSat commercial licensing agreements. Additional companies have expressed interest. Because everyone wants a piece of the pancake.

“The success to this demo is not only the actual technology and proof of concept, but this parallel effort of getting it out there to trying to build an industrial base to build their own DiskSats in the future,” Venturini said. So, the real win is not just the flat satellites, but the potential for a whole flat-satellite industry.