Faraday Phoenix Hosted Payload Satellite

Faraday Phoenix is In-Space Missions’ flagship hosted payload platform — a 6U CubeSat that carries and operates multiple external customer payloads simultaneously, sharing the satellite bus costs among multiple customers. Payload integrators who cannot afford a dedicated satellite (typically $5–20 million for a dedicated small satellite) can instead host their instrument, technology, or communications payload on a Faraday Phoenix for a fraction of the cost — typically $500K–$2M depending on payload mass, volume, and power requirements.

The Faraday Phoenix bus provides standard interfaces (power, data, thermal) for up to 4 external payloads. Customer payloads typically occupy 0.5U–1.5U of volume with 1–5 W continuous power. In-Space Missions handles satellite manufacturing, testing, regulatory filings, launch procurement, and on-orbit operations — the payload customer focuses only on their own instrument.

In-Space Missions, founded in 2015 and headquartered in Alton, Hampshire, UK, has flown multiple Faraday missions (Faraday-1 in 2019 as part of the SSO-A rideshare on SpaceX Falcon 9) with diverse customers including Planet Labs, University of Aberdeen, and RAF Research and Development. The company is a key player in the UK’s in-orbit verification and demonstration ecosystem.