"Each CubeSat was activated for about an hour in ... while Milani, produced for ESA by Tyvak International in Italy, will perform multispectral mineral prospecting. The commissioning took place ...

Hence the need for the cubesats. Juventas was built and provided for the Hera mission by a Luxembourg company called GOMspace, while Milani is the product of the Italian company Tyvak International.

The Space Development Agency will recompete a contract awarded last August to Tyvak to build 10 prototype satellites meant to inform future technology for the agency's constellation of data ...