Dnepr-1 Orbits 16 Satellites, Including Cube Satellites Made by U.S. Students
MOSCOW, Russia, April 18, 2007 - Satnews Daily - A Dnepr-1 carrier rocket has successfully deployed 16 satellites into orbit in the largest cluster launch so far this year. The launch was the first for Dnepr since July 2006 when another Dnepr-1 crashed shortly after lifting off from Baikonur due to a premature first stage engine shutdown. The mishap destroyed its payload of 18 satellites that included a number of “CubeSats” or cube satellites.
The Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) said all 16 foreign satellites were put into orbit, and that control over them had been passed to its customers. It said Dnepr-1 delivered into orbit EgyptSat-1, six Saudi satellites (SaudiSat-3 and five SaudiComSats), seven CubeSats and a P-Pod.
The CubeSats are small satellites developed by U.S. university students under the CubeSat Program while another is Colombia’s first in-orbit satellite. The U.S. CubeSats were made by California Polytechnic State University and Stanford University's Space Systems Development Lab. The CubeSat Program creates launch opportunities for universities previously unable to access space. More than 60 universities and high schools are participating in the CubeSat Program.
Also launched were Egyptsat-1 or MisrSat 1 intended for remote sensing and scientific research. Saudi Arabia's SaudiSat-3 is photo imaging remote sensing satellite while SaudiComsat-4 to -7 are communications satellites. The SaudiComsats are LEO micro- satellites (12 kg) to be used for storing and forwarding communications. These satellites are among 24 satellites planned for launch into different orbits thereby covering large parts of the world.
One of the CubeSats, CAPE-1, was developed by the University of Louisiana (UL). CAPE-1 (Cajun Advanced Picosat Experiment) intends to gather data and transmit this data to a ground station at the UL Lafayette campus. A team of UL engineering students will run experiments and maintain the satellite while in orbit. CAPE-1 is UL’s first in-orbit satellite.
The CubeSats CP-3 and CP-4 sprang from the Cal Poly Picosatellite Project (PolySat) founded in 1999. The project involves a multidisciplinary team of undergraduate and graduate engineering students working to design, construct, test, launch, and operate a CubeSat. CP-1 and-2 were destroyed in the failed Dnepr launch in 2006.
CP-1 was the first satellite developed at Cal Poly. Its objective was to provide a reliable bus system to allow for flight qualification of a wide variety of small sensors and attitude control devices.
Libertad-1, another CubeSat, is the first Colombian satellite. It was designed and built by students of the Universidad Sergio Arboleda. It weighs just 995 grams and has a dimension of 10 x 10 x 10 cm. Its mission is to transmit compressed signals and receive temperature data. In the future, Libertad-1 may also retransmit audio signals and transmit digital images taken by its built-in camera.
AeroCube-2 is a 1kg nanosatellite for technical research built and operated by the Aerospace Corporation.
CSTB-1 (CubeSat TestBed 1) is a 1.5 kg nanosatellite for technical research. A Boeing Integrated Defense Systems Advanced Systems team of engineers built the spacecraft as a testbed for components that will be used in Boeing’s nanosatellites (spacecraft weighing less than 10 kg).
CSTB-1 carries four microcontrollers, a redundant communications system with two independent radios, two high-capacity batteries, a deployable antenna, a sophisticated control system that determines the attitude (relative position) of the spacecraft by using sun and magnetic field sensors, a simple attitude control system that uses embedded magnetic torque coils and multifunctional boards on the side panels that contain a variety of sensors and electronics.
MAST (Multi-Application Survivable Tether) Experiment is a low-cost CubeSat experiment to demonstrate space tether survivability. It consists of three tethered CubeSats.
Tethers Unlimited, Inc. (TUI) and Stanford University's Space Systems Development Laboratory have teamed to develop and fly a small, very inexpensive experiment to demonstrate TUI's “Hoytether” technology and obtain on-orbit measurements of the degradation of space tethers by orbital debris and micrometeorites.
TUI is a research and development company specializing in advanced space technologies and scientific computing solutions. Over the past several years, TUI has expanded its focus and expertise to address technology needs in spacecraft grappling systems, radiation protection architectures, distributed sensor systems, and other advanced space technology areas.
The lifetimes of current single-line tethers are limited by damage due to meteorite and orbital debris impactors to periods on the order of weeks. Although single-line tether lifetimes can be improved by increasing the diameter of the tether, this incurs a prohibitive mass penalty. The Hoytether is a tether structure composed of multiple lines with redundant interlinking that is able to withstand many impacts.
For launch, these three picosatellites stack together into a volume about the size of a loaf of bread. Once on orbit, the picosatellites will separate and deploy a 1,000 meter long Hoytether structure.
The middle picosatellite, called "Gadget,” will then slowly crawl up and down the tether, taking pictures of the tether as it goes. These pictures will be transmitted to a ground station for analysis to determine how quickly the tether experiences damage due to impacts by micrometeoroids and orbital debris, as well as due to erosion by atomic oxygen and UV light.
The MAST program was funded through a combination of private and government research funds. The development of the underlying technologies was funded by NASA. Construction and qualification testing costs for the picosatellite flight models and the launch costs were funded by TUI internal funding and private investments.
