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Satnews Daily
July 11th, 2017

PacSci EMC's First Payload Tests of PACSISAT Spell Success


Recently, PacSci EMC successfully completed initial payload tests of new technologies on their on orbit technology demonstrator satellite, PACSCISAT.

After a one week satellite commissioning period in a 515 km, sun synchronous, polar orbit, PacSci EMC successfully
passed built-in-tests (BIT) on both the satellite's primary and redundant Smart Energetics Architecture (SEA™)
sequencing system and devices, fired two Smart Initiators, and demonstrated pyrotechnic rocket based
attitude control maneuvers.

The low power, SEA sequencing system is capable of firing hundreds of pyrotechnic devices with microsecond repeatability and sub-millisecond sequencing. It can be used to deploy solar arrays, scientific instruments and many other devices used on satellites and spacecraft.

PacSci EMC products are used in all phases of vehicle flight beginning with ground-based operations through
lift-off/boost, solid rocket booster jettison, payload fairing separation, booster separation, second stage flight,
payload separation and flight termination.

PACSCISAT was launched on June 22, 2017 on the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle flight C38 (PSLV-C38)
from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India.

Greg Scaven, PacSci EMC’s president, revealed that the goal with this mission was to answer the question ‘has this hardware flown in space before?’ — now the answer is yes. The sequencing system and pyrotechnic
devices will be a game changer for the NewSpace market providing very low power, flexible, high precision
sequencing capability for satellite release and spacecraft operations as well as attitude control capability.