# YAM-5
*missions*

## Specifications
- **operator**: loft-orbital
- **platform**: longbow-bus
- **actual launch**: "2023-01-03T00:00:00.000Z"
- **current status**: operational
- **orbit type**: LEO, Falcon 9 Transporter-6 rideshare
- **tasking supported**: 0
- **last verified date**: 2026-05-24
- **verified by**: community
- **claim status**: unclaimed

## Editorial
YAM-5 (Yet Another Mission 5) is a smallsat operated by Loft Orbital, launched 3 January 2023 on a Falcon 9 Transporter-6 rideshare from Cape Canaveral.[^skyrocket-yam3] The satellite carries NORAD catalogue number 55076 and orbits in a sun-synchronous orbit at 97.3 degree inclination; published TLE data places the altitude at approximately 455 km by some orbital trackers[^skyrocket-yam3] and in the 500-600 km range by SatNOGS.[^satnogs-yam5]

YAM-5 has an 83 kg bus mass.[^skyrocket-yam3] The catalogue lists the platform as longbow-bus; Loft Orbital's announcement of YAM-8 identifies YAM-8 as the first mission on the Longbow bus,[^loftorbital-yam8-longbow] while catalogue and community tracking sources place YAM-5 within the pre-Longbow LeoStella ESPA-class series.[^skyrocket-yam3][^satnogs-yam5] The specific LeoStella bus variant has not been specified in publicly available documentation as of May 2026.

The satellite carries five hosted payloads. First, a Kineis RF Space Lab: a reconfigurable software-defined RF payload for in-orbit validation of IoT modulation schemes.[^kineis-yam5] Second, the MURI (Multiband Uncooled Radiometer Imager), a two-band longwave infrared radiometric imager operating at 10.8 and 12.0 micrometres with an uncooled focal-plane array, developed by Leonardo DRS with support from NASA Earth Science Technology Office, targeting approximately 1 percent absolute radiometric accuracy.[^nasa-muri-yam5][^esto-muri] Third, a customer flight computer. Fourth, a sensing payload. Fifth, an experimental S-band transmitter operating in the 2240-2290 MHz and 2400-2483.5 MHz bands.[^anywaves-yam] YAM-5 remained operational as of May 2026.[^satnogs-yam5]

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Source: https://eo-atlas.org/missions/yam-5
Maintainer: SpectraWorks B.V. (CC-BY 4.0)