"Beginning Of The Swarm"

Electron carried two unrelated satellites: NeonSat-1, a South Korean Earth observation satellite, and ACS3, a NASA test of solar sail hardware. NeonSat-1 was built by the Satellite Technology Research Center at the KAIST university to watch the Korean Peninsula for natural disasters, pairing a high-resolution optical camera with onboard AI. It is the first of a planned 11-satellite NEONSAT constellation.

ACS3 (Advanced Composite Solar Sail System) is a 12U CubeSat built to test lightweight composite booms that unfold a sail pushed by sunlight. After four months of checkout in orbit, it spread its 80-square-metre sail in late August 2024. One of its four booms took on a slight bend as the sail was pulled taut.