Intelligent Payload Experiment

The Intelligent Payload Experiment (IPEX) is a 1U CubeSat developed by Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and JPL. IPEX will validate autonomous science and product delivery technologies supporting TRL advancement of the Intelligent Payload Module (IPM) targeted for the proposed HyspIRI Earth Science Decadal Survey Mission providing a twenty-times reduction in data volume for low-latency urgent product generation. As HyspIRI would carry two flight instruments, a VSWIR hyperspectral imaging spectrometer and a thermal infrared imager that would perform global mapping producing approximately 5TB of data per day, the IPEX mission will demonstrate the support infrastructure needed to produce low-latency near real-time direct broadcast products in advance of the larger science products where the current delivery requirement is two weeks.

This technology validation mission, sponsored by NASA's Earth Science Technology Office, will advance the technology required for the future spaceborne implementation of the IPM required for near real-time low-latency autonomous product generation relevant to climate, ecosystems, fire, geological resource, and coastal ocean science, as well as future Earth observing missions, supporting the Earth Science Decadal Survey.