Credit: Spire Global

Lemur-2 (Low Earth Multi-Use Receiver) satellites are 3-Unit CubeSats built and operated by the American company Spire Global. These small satellites are used to track maritime, aviation, and weather activity from space equipped with AIS, ADS-B and GNSS-RO sensors. Each Lemur-2 satellite measures 10x10x34,5 cm, weighs less than 6 kg and is powered by a deployable solar array. Most of the Lemur-2 satellites are deployed into low-Earth orbit in small batches from the International Space Station (ISS) or from commercial launch vehicles such as Falcon 9 or Electron rockets. Spire Global is a space-to-cloud data and analytics company that specializes in the tracking of global data sets powered by a large constellation of nanosatellites, such as the tracking of maritime, aviation and weather patterns. Lemur-2 data is highly valuable for public and private weather forecasters across the world and is also is valuable for use in illegal fishing, trade monitoring, maritime domain awareness, insurance, asset tracking and search and rescue.

Satellite info

Nation: USA
Company/operator: Spire Global
Platform/configuration: 3U CubeSat
Mass: 4 kg
Orbit: 400 km - 650 km Low Earth Orbit (LEO)
Instruments:
  • STRATOS (GPS radio occultation measurements)
  • SENSE (ships at sea tracking)
  • AIRSAFE / ADS-B (aircraft tracking)
Purpose: Traffic monitoring, meteorology
Launch vehicles: PSLV-XL, Atlas 5, Antares 230, Soyuz-2-a Fregat, Vega, Falcon 9, Electron
Website: https://spire.com

Lemur-2

Video

Lemur-2 satellites launch overview

Flight no. Date launch Rocket Launch base Orbit Satellites launched Mission succes?
1 28/09/2015 PSLV-XL Satish Dhawan Space Centre (India) 640 km 4

Success

2 23/03/2016 Atlas 5 Cape Canaveral (USA) 400 km 8

Success

3 18/10/2016 Antares 230 Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (USA) 500 km 4

Success

4 09/12/2016 H-2B Tanegashima (Japan) 400 km 4

Success

5 15/02/2017 PSLV-XL Satish Dhawan Space Centre (India) 500 km 8

Success

6 18/04/2017 Atlas 5 Cape Canaveral (USA) 500 km 4

Success

7 23/06/2017 PSLV-XL Satish Dhawan Space Centre (India) 500 km 8

Success

8 17/07/2017 Soyuz-2-1a Fregat Baikonur (Russia) 590 km 8

Success

9 12/11/2017 Antares 230 Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (USA) 450 km 8

Success

10 28/11/2017 Soyuz-2-1b Fregat Baikonur (Russia) Launch failure 8

Failure

11 12/01/2018 PSLV-XL Satish Dhawan Space Centre (India) 500 km 4

Success

12 21/01/2018

Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 (New Zealand) 500 km 2

Success

13 01/02/2018 Soyuz-2-1a Fregat Baikonur (Russia) 500 km 4

Success

14 21/05/2018 Antares 230 Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (USA) 500 km 4

Success

15 11/11/2018

Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 (New Zealand) 510 km 2

Success

16 29/11/2018 PSLV-XL Satish Dhawan Space Centre (India) 485 km 4

Success

17 27/12/2018 Soyuz-2-1a Fregat Baikonur (Russia) 580 km 8

Success

18 01/04/2019 PSLV-QL Satish Dhawan Space Centre (India) 500 km 4

Success

19 05/07/2019 Soyuz-2-1a Fregat Baikonur (Russia) 530 km 8

Success

20 11/12/2019 PSLV-QL Satish Dhawan Space Centre (India) 570 km 4

Success

21 03/09/2020 Vega Kourou (French Guyana) 530 km 8

Success

22 28/09/2020 Soyuz-2-1a Fregat Baikonur (Russia) 560 km 4

Success

23 03/10/2020 Antares 230 Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (USA) 500 km 2

Success

24 07/11/2020 PSLV-DL Satish Dhawan Space Centre (India) 570 km 4

Success

25 24/01/2021

Cape Canaveral (USA) 525 km 7

Success

26 29/04/2021 Vega Kourou (French Guyana) 610 km 2

Success

27 30/06/2021

Cape Canaveral (USA) 525 km 6

Success

28 13/01/2022

Cape Canaveral (USA) 520 km 2

Success

29 25/05/2022

Cape Canaveral (USA) 520 km 4

Success

30 03/01/2023

Cape Canaveral (USA) 520 km 6

Success

31 15/04/2023

Cape Canaveral (USA) 520 km 1

Success

32 18/07/2023

Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 (New Zealand) 520 km 2

Success

33 11/11/2023

Vandenberg Space Force Base (USA) 520 km 2

Success

Images: Spire Global

Kris Christiaens's Avatar

Kris Christiaens

This article was published by FutureSpaceFlight founder and chief editor Kris Christiaens. Kris Christiaens has been passionate and fascinated by spaceflight and space exploration all his life and has written hundreds of articles on space projects, the commercial space industry and space missions over the past 20 years for magazines, books and websites. In late 2021, he founded the website FutureSpaceFlight with the goal of promoting new space companies and commercial space projects and compiling news of these start-ups and companies on one website.