Swarm is ESA's first constellation of Earth observation satellites designed to measure the magnetic signals from Earth's core, mantle, crust, oceans, ionosphere and magnetosphere, providing data that will allow scientists to study the complexities of our protective magnetic field.

The magnetic shield protects the planet from charged particles that stream in as the solar wind. Without this shield, life on Earth would be impossible.

This shield is generated mainly deep inside Earth by an ocean of swirling iron in the liquid outer core. How the magnetic field is created and how it changes over time is complex and not fully understood.

This force is constantly changing - at the moment, it shows signs of significant weakening.

But with a new generation of sensors, the Swarm constellation will provide greater insight into these natural processes and the 'weather' in space.

Swarm will be ESA's fourth Earth Explorer mission in orbit, following GOCE, SMOS and CryoSat.

In five months, the trio of satellites will be launched together on a Rockot launcher from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.

Two will orbit very close together at the same altitude - initially at about 460 km - while the third satellite will be in a higher orbit of 530 km.

The different near-polar orbits, along with the various Swarm instruments, improve the sampling in space and time. This helps to distinguish between the effects of different sources of magnetism.

At the press event at the IABG centre in Ottobrunn, Germany, where all three satellites have just completed an intensive testing programme, representatives from ESA, the industrial team, the scientific investigator team and other experts from the scientific community gave presentations on the satellites and the mission's scientific objectives.

It was the last chance to see the satellites before they are packed up and shipped to Russia in May.

ESA's Director of Earth Observation Programmes, Volker Liebig, said, "Swarm is the next mission in our Earth Observation Envelope Programme.

"We expect the innovative Swarm constellation of three satellites orbiting in formation to deliver the best-ever survey of Earth's magnetic field."

Since 2010, engineers from EADS-Astrium, who lead the consortium building the satellites, have testing them against the harsh environment of space by exposing each satellite to different temperatures, vibration and shocks.

The satellites and instruments have their own magnetic properties and therefore influence the measurements they make. The origins of all the magnetic signals stemming from different parts of the satellites were accounted for so that the measurements taken in orbit are not misinterpreted.

The tests were carried out in a 'magnetically clean' environment at IABG, and the instruments on all three satellites performed well.

"This period of the project is really exciting," said Yvon Menard, ESA's Swarm Project Manager.

"We collected excellent test results and the team is eager to verify the performances of the constellation in orbit in order to confirm the promises from the ground test campaigns."

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:15 AEST Paris, France (ESA) Feb 15, 2012 - The first satellites entirely designed and built by Hungary, Poland, Romania are now orbiting Earth after the successful maiden flight of ESA's small Vega launcher. The latest addition to Europe's versatile family of space launchers, Vega carried nine satellites, seven of them built by European universities.

This group of ESA-sponsored educational CubeSats included Goliat from Romania, PW-Sat from Poland and Masat-1 from Hungary.

The unique opportunity to launch the first satellites from these countries was made possible by a fruitful collaboration between the ESA launcher and education programmes.

"Since Vega's first mission was a qualification flight, ESA decided to offer the chance to European Universities of a free ride into space for small scientific or educational payloads," noted Antonio Fabrizi, ESA's Director of Launchers.

Following the agreement to include an educational payload, including up to six CubeSats, on Vega's first flight, ESA issued a call that led to a flood of proposals from universities all over Europe.

As a result of the overwhelming response, the number of available CubeSat slots on Vega was increased to nine. Seven university teams eventually made it in time, including UniCubeSat-GG and e-st@r from Italy, XaTcobeo from Spain and Robusta from France.

The student teams took advantage of a rare and invaluable hands-on opportunity to design, develop and operate their own space missions.

ESA provided technical expertise and educational support for integrating, testing and preparing the satellites for launch.

"The launch of these CubeSats on Vega, each carrying scientific or technology experiments, represents a huge educational achievement both by ESA, the student teams and their countries," said Giuseppe Morsillo, well as for relations with ESA's Member States.

"This success is particularly important for Romania, Poland and Hungary, as a clear demonstrator that investing in space also means bringing bright young talents - the workforce of the future - to the front line, so promoting and reinforcing from its very basis the competitiveness of our economies."

"Romania, Poland and Hungary have a history of participation in several European space projects and activities," commented Karlheinz Kreuzberg, Head of the ESA Director General's Cabinet, whose team is also responsible for establishing cooperation agreements with non-ESA EU Member States and preparing their eventual membership of ESA.

"The next major step has now been achieved by these countries with the deployment of their first national satellites, extending the ground for collaboration on new, collaborative, European space ventures."

Giuseppe Morsillo concluded, "This step is also very important as it helps in reinforcing the dialogue with European countries from ESA's perspective of increasing the number of its Member States by progressively including other Member States of the EU.

"The transfer of ESA's space knowhow to new partner countries can also definitively pass through an educational exchange."

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:15 AEST Warsaw, Poland (SPX) Feb 14, 2012 - On the 13th of February 2012, the first Polish satellite - PW-Sat - was successfully deployed on orbit. The first Polish satellite, built by students, was successfully launched on the 13th of February 2012 on-board the new European rocket Vega.

This marks the end of the preparation stage for the PW-Sat project and the beginning of a new era for the Polish space sector.

The PW-Sat project was initiated in 2004 at the Warsaw University of Science and Technology (Politechnika Warszawska, PW) with the support from the Polish Space Research Center (Centrum Badan Kosmicznych, CBK). The main aim of this project is to educate engineering students through participation in a real space project.

The satellite is a CubeSat 1 unit format (10x10x11,3 cm, 1004 grams of mass) which hosts a deployable tail structure of 100 cm in length. Once on orbit, tested and verified, this tail will be deployed in order to speed-up the rate of PW-Sat's orbital decay.

The deployment of the tail should result in a faster deorbitation of PW-Sat in approximately one year, as opposed to four years without the tail. If the tail works as designed, then PW-Sat might be the baseline for more advanced studies on a low-cost and effective deorbitation system for small satellites.

PW-Sat was deployed from the P-POD mechanism approximately 70 minutes after launch. One hour later the first signal from PW-Sat was picked by the ground station in Warsaw, Poland. The mission of PW-Sat started.

PW-Sat is an example of a modern approach to provide hands-on experience to engineering students. After graduation, most of the students working in the PW-Sat project will probably join the emerging Polish aerospace sector.

Some of them already started to work in various space projects, including the BRITE-PL scientific satellites.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:15 AEST Silver Spring MD (SPX) Jan 06, 2012 - On January 4, 2012, the Amateur Radio satellite, ARISSat-1/KEDR ended its 5 month mission as it deorbited through Earth's atmosphere. A report from the AMSAT web site states, "The last full telemetry captured and reported to the ARISSatTLM web site at 06:02:14 UTC on January 4 were received from ground stations as the satellite passed over Japan."

ARISSat-1/KEDR was deployed on August 3, 2011 from the International Space Station (ISS) during EVA# 29 and immediately began its primarily mission as an educational lab allowing teachers and students worldwide to interact with its many STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) based activities from their classrooms via amateur radio.

In addition to promoting education, ARISSat-1/KEDR served as a test platform, carrying several new amateur radio configurations into space for the first time. Included in this group of "firsts" was:

+ The AMSAT Software Defined Transponder allowing digitally processed simultaneous transmit and receive communication between ham radio stations.

+ Satellite telemetry was downlinked using forward error correcting BPSK1000 software developed for this mission.

+ new Integrated Housekeeping Unit or IHU.

+ Maximum Power Point Tracking or MPPT power management unit optimizing usage of power generated by the solar cell arrays.

As a STEM based education spacecraft, students were able to study space science from a whole new prespective. First, by tracking the condition of ARISSat-1/KEDR daily as they received its telemetry in real time using amateur radios in a classroom environment. Slow Scan TV (SSTV) images taken by four onboard cameras could also be received through a ham radio and then decoded using free software available from the internet.

Those receiving the images could then upload them to the internet for others to review (see www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/SSTV). In addition, listeners were able to receive special certificates for submitting reception reports, collecting "secret words" announced during special message transmissions, and collecting call signs transmitted in Morse code.

Students were also given the opportunity to submit digitized documentation of science projects and photos to ARISS. These were placed on a memory chip. The chip was attached to ARISSat-1 during final assembly and flown on board during its mission. This project was called "Fly a File" and the submissions can be viewed here.

Further details on ARISSat-1/KEDR's state-of-the-art mission and its accomplishments can be found at the home page.

ARISSat-1/Kedr was built in the United States by volunteer amateur radio operators under the direction of the Radio Amateur Satellite Corp. (AMSAT) on behalf of ARISS. Export of the satellite to Russia was provided by NASA in December 2010. RSC/Energia installed the Kursk State Technical University Student Experiment and provided an Orlan spacesuit battery to power the spacecraft during eclipse.

The satellite was delivered to the ISS by RSC/Energia on a Russian Progress Cargo Vessel in January 2011. It was subsequently deployed by Russian cosmonauts on August 3, 2011. Through the education support of the ARRL and the efforts of dedicated teachers and students, ARISSat-1/KEDR successfully completed its education mission.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:15 AEST Warsaw, Poland (SPX) Oct 19, 2011 - PW-Sat, a student Cubesat project and the first Polish satellite, has just been delivered to ESTEC in the Netherlands. This is an important step towards the launch of this mission.

PW-Sat is a small-satellite project led by the Warsaw University of Technology (Politechnika Warszawska - PW in short). The project was initiated in 2005 and since the beginning it was designed and developed as a 1U CubeSat (one unit - one litre of volume). The main purpose of PW-Sat is to demonstrate a speed-up of the deorbitation process and to familiarize students with a real satellite project.

Throughout the years, the design of PW-Sat changed several times - for example a sail-type experiment was tested. After some changes in design, a tail-like (length - 200 cm) structure was chosen, which will be tested once PW-Sat reaches orbit.

PW-Sat was selected by the European Space Agency to be launched aboard the new European small-size rocket (Vega) together with eight other small CubeSats. After some delays, it is probable that Vega rocket will launch for the first time in January 2012. PW-Sat will be launched on this maiden flight.

In order to secure the place on the first Vega rocket, the flight model of PW-Sat had to be assembled in the first week of October 2011. Later a short set of tests (vibrations, functional tests and vacuum-thermal checks) were done, after which the satellite was sent to ESTEC in Netherlands.

On the 18th of October 2011, the PW-Sat ha sreached ESTEC as the first delivered Cubesat, where it will undergo a series of additional tests.

This small student's CubeSat is going to be first Polish satellite, fully designed and assembled in Poland. Although Polish universities and science institutes have a long tradition in space missions, as demonstrated in several different and ambitious instruments, still a full satellite was never built in Poland.

Just few months later, the first Polish scientific satellite - BRITE-PL "Lem" - will be launched, probably on board a Dnepr rocket.

If no further delays occur and Vega launches on time, there will be a big success for Polish students to celebrate. Not only will they be the constructors of Poland's first satellite.

They will also win a kind of small "first satellite race" with the BRITE-PL "Lem", which is being built and supported fully by governmental scientific institutions."

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:15 AEST Tehran (XNA) Oct 12, 2011 - Iran is going to launch domestically- built Navid satellite by Safir satellite launcher by the end of March 2012, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported on Sunday.

Navid (promise) is a research satellite and is currently undergoing pre-launch tests, said the report without further details.

In June, Iran put the Rasad (surveillance) satellite in the orbit to render images to the country.

Iran put a satellite into orbit in 2009 and sent some small animals into space in 2010. It plans to send man into space by 2020.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:15 AEST Guildford, UK (SPX) Oct 10, 2011 - Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the launch of Surrey's first satellite, UoSAT-1. Launched into orbit on 6th October 1981, UoSAT-1 was designed and built by a team from the University of Surrey led by SSTL founder Sir Martin Sweeting.

SSTL exploited the rapid advances being made in the late 1970's in microelectronics to enable the team to build a tiny but sophisticated satellite using the technology found in everyday consumer products. As a result, UoSAT-1 was much cheaper, lighter and quicker to build than comparable existing satellites and so the first modern 'microsatellite' was born.

Sir Martin said: "Thirty years later we continue to exploit the amazing technological advances in consumer products to bring affordable space exploration to SSTL's customers, with a range of small satellites spanning 6kg to 600kg for Earth observation, communications and navigation services.

"Working with the Surrey Space Centre on new concepts for small satellites, SSTL maintains its highly innovative approach - challenging and changing the economics of space."

Between 1979 and 1981 a dedicated team of four staff and eight part-time academics worked day and night to build this first British amateur spacecraft, learning satellite design and construction "on the fly".

Using donated materials and a home made clean-room, UoSAT-1 was the pioneer of the cost effective "commercial off-the-shelf" (COTS) based small satellites for which SSTL has become synonymous.

In the early 1980's satellite equipment was purpose-built for space at huge expense taking many years, so that the technology used was often obsolete by launch. With very limited onboard storage and processing power, the Earth observation and science satellites of the day were micro-managed using expensive world-wide ground station networks to command them and gather data as they orbited the globe.

The mass production that fed the public's appetite for microcomputers made microprocessors and memory suddenly very affordable. With re-programmable on-board computers and an early 256x256 pixel CCD array imager (a forerunner of today's digital camera), UoSAT-1 became the first modern microsatellite operating a regularly uploaded schedule, storing mission data and returning this to a single ground station in Guildford - but it was also monitored by thousands of schools and radio amateurs worldwide using simple receiving equipment.

Fundamentally changing the design and operation of microsatellites allowed the University, and its spin-out company SSTL, to build smaller satellites that were much cheaper to launch and didn't require a network of ground stations - making space accessible to everyone and not just the global superpowers of the day.

Onboard computing also made it possible to de-risk systems, using software to reconfigure systems in the event of problems and provide flexible features to support experiments and failsafe operation.

Since UoSAT-1 was launched 30 years ago, SSTL has continued changing the economics of space by innovation. By continuing to adopt the latest COTS technologies and configuring them for use in space, SSTL ensures that innovation and economics are at the forefront of its satellite design.

Its latest platform, the SSTL-50, is designed to fly new sets of systems on each mission and is geared to launching new technologies into space quickly and economically.

SSTL recently announced a series of new highly capable satellite systems providing 1-metre high resolution optical imaging, a SAR (radar) satellite for all-weather day/night remote sensing and a small geostationary communications satellite.

With 8 satellites under construction or awaiting launch and 14 advanced navigation payloads for Europe's GNSS constellation in manufacture, SSTL is busier than ever.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:15 AEST Washington DC (SPX) Sep 22, 2011 - The Naval Research Laboratory's Tactical Satellite IV (TacSat-4) has been encapsulated inside the fairing (nose cone) of an Orbital Sciences Corporation Minotaur-IV+ launch vehicle in preparation for a Sept. 27 launch from the Alaska Aerospace Corporation's Kodiak Launch Complex.

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) sponsored the development of the payload and the first year of operations. The Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) Office funded the launch that is managed by the Space Development and Test Directorate (SD), a directorate of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC).

TacSat-4 is a Navy-led joint mission which provides 10 Ultra High Frequency (UHF) channels and allows troops using existing radios to communicate on-the-move (COTM) from obscured regions without the need for dangerous antenna positioning and pointing.

To augment current geosynchronous satellite communication, the TacSat-4 spacecraft will be deployed into a unique, highly elliptical orbit with an apogee in the high latitudes of 12,050 kilometers.

"Communication is a critical warfighting requirement," said Dr. Larry Schuette, ONR's director of innovation. "Developed, more rapidly and at lower cost, TacSat-4 supplements traditional communications satellites and provides much needed support to forward deployed forces at sea and Marines on the ground."

TacSat-4 provides flexible up and down channel assignments, which increase the ability to operate in busy radio-frequency environments and will cover the high latitudes and mountainous areas where users currently cannot access UHF satellite communications (SATCOMs).

The NRL Blossom Point Ground Station provides the command and control for TacSat-4. The Virtual Mission Operations Center (VMOC) mission planning system allows dynamic reallocation to different theaters worldwide that enables rapid SATCOM augmentation when unexpected operations or natural events occur.

TacSat-4 is an experimental spacecraft that will test advances in several technologies and SATCOM techniques. Ultimately, TacSat-4 will augment the existing fleet by giving the SATCOM Support Centers (SSC) an additional space asset to provide communications to otherwise under-served users and areas that either do not have high enough priority or do not have satellite visibility.

The project also helps define future options for launching one or more smaller, highly elliptical orbit (HEO) satellites allowing the military to achieve the benefits of a combined HEO and geosynchronous orbit constellation.

The spacecraft bus was built by NRL and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) to mature ORS bus standards. It was developed by an Integrated (government and industry) System Engineering Team, the "ISET Team," with active representation from AeroAstro, Air Force Research Laboratory, Johns Hopkins Laboratory APL, ATK Space, Ball Aerospace and Technologies, Boeing, Design Net Engineering, General Dynamics AIS, Microcosm, Microsat Systems Inc., Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory, Orbital Sciences, NRL, SMC, Space System Loral, and Raytheon. The Office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR and E) funded the standardized spacecraft bus.

TacSat-4 is managed by the Naval Research Laboratory Naval Center for Space Technology and will be the 100th NRL built satellite launched into a celestial orbit.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:15 AEST Paris (ESA) Aug 30, 2011 - Sometimes all it takes is fresh air to get a new lease of life. ESA's Proba-2 microsatellite is a good example: an influx of nitrogen has replenished its fuel tank, in the process demonstrating a whole new space technology.

On 16 August a telecommand was sent from ESA's Redu ground station in Belgium to boost the gases in Proba-2's unusual 'resistojet' engine. Used to maintain the microsatellite's orbit at 600 km altitude, this experimental engine runs on xenon gas heated before ejection to provide added thrust.

The command added nitrogen gas to the fuel tank, bringing its pressure close to its launch level.

"What makes this repressurisation unique is that the added gas was not stored in a pressurised state but produced from a solid material at room temperature, the first of four 'cool-gas generators' on Proba-2," explained Laurens van Vliet of Dutch research organisation TNO, which developed the technology.

"Nitrogen, like xenon, is an inert, non-reactive gas, so the resistojet can work just as well with a xenon-nitrogen mixture."

The bottle-shaped cool-gas generators are filled with a rigid solid material that, once triggered, produces more than 250 times its own volume in pure nitrogen gas.

"The generators are a huge step forward because they can be stored without pressure with no danger of leaking, and require no maintenance," added Berry Sanders of TNO. "Proba's generators had not been touched in six years.

"This is very different to standard systems with gas under pressure, which are much more complex and need regular checking and maintenance."

The other three generators will be used later in Proba-2's orbital lifetime.

TNO designed the Proba-2 cool-gas experiment in close cooperation with Netherlands-based Bradford Engineering, responsible for constructing it. The resistojet design came from UK company Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd while the experiment was integrated with the satellite by Belgium's QinetiQ Space.

The technology had been fast-tracked for space by the Dutch National Space Office as part of ESA's General Support Technology Programme, supporting the development of promising prototypes into flight-ready hardware.

"With this test the technology has been 'space-proven', such demonstrations being one of the main goals of the Proba-2 mission," concluded Mr Sanders.

It now has many other potential uses in space, including propulsion systems, oxygen production for astronauts and inflatable structures such as antennas, booms, landing airbags and full-sized habitat modules.

TNO and its partners are also looking at a range of terrestrial applications where it would remain dormant for most - preferably all - of its life but would have to work reliably in emergency situations, including fire extinguishers, inflating life rafts or vehicle airbags.

TNO is in the process of transferring the intellectual property involved to a dedicated company, CGG Technology BV.

Proba-2 is the latest in ESA's Project for Onboard Autonomy series of satellites, dedicated to the in-orbit demonstration of innovative technologies.

Proba-2 was launched on 2 November 2009. Less than a cubic metre in volume, it carries a total of 17 new technologies and four science payloads focused on the Sun and space weather.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:15 AEST Morehead UK (SPX) Aug 23, 2011 - A Russian Dnepr rocket roared out of a silo launcher into space carrying a satellite with hardware designed and built at Morehead State University. The rocket launched from Yasny, Russia, on the Kazakhstan border, successfully carried an Italian microsatellite into space. The Educational Satellite, called EduSat, was built by the University of Rome with components by MSU and Kentucky Space.

MSU's Space Science Center (SSC) and Kentucky Space collaborated with the University of Rome' Sapienza Aerospace Engineering School on a series of student-driven educational satellite projects. The goal was for students to develop, build and fly a series of four satellites (EduSat, UNISAT-5, UNISAT-6, and UNISAT-7). These satellites were built in Rome and in Morehead and controlled from MSU by students using the big dish antenna and by Italian students using satellite ground assets in Europe.

"The launch was flawless and orbit insertion occurring 960 seconds after liftoff has been successfully confirmed. All seven satellites were successfully deployed. Components of the Italian microsatellite EduSat were designed and built by our students," said Dr. Ben Malphrus, chair of the Department of Earth and Space Sciences and director of the Space Science Center.

"For the first time ever hardware built in Kentucky is orbiting planet Earth."

The first in the series of missions, EduSat is an innovative Microsatellite weighing about 24 pounds and approximately the size of a small microwave oven. A Dnepr Rocket, a refurbished intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that previously contained nuclear warheads, was modified by a Russian-Ukranian company, Kosmotras LLC, to carry commercial payloads, or satellites that need a ride to Earth's orbit.

EduSat is a secondary payload on this flight that includes NigeriaSat-2, which will become part of the international Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) project, Sich-2 satellite and BPA-2, both satellites belonging to the State Space Agency of Ukraine, RASAT owned by the Space Research Technology Institute of Turkey, and two additional U.S.-built satellites--Aprizesat-5 and Aprizesat-6, built by SpaceQuest, a microsatellite company in Fairfax, Va. Jeff Kruth, SSC staff RF and electrical engineer, worked with SpaceQuest on its first series of microsatellites before coming to MSU in 2006.

During its first 30-days on orbit, EduSat will test an orbital deployer designed to release femto-class satellites. While the femtosats will not be released on the first mission, the deployment system that will ultimately deploy them will be tested.

A follow-on mission in 2012 (UNISAT-5) will deploy four femto-class satellites (with masses of under one pound each), two of which were developed by Morehead State University students and faculty. The femtosatellites (invented by MSU's Bob Twiggs), called PocketQubs, will be ejected from the UNISAT-5 "mothership" at apogee.

MSU has built two of the PocketQubs in house, with the others built by university students in the U.S. and Europe. These femtosats, among the smallest satellites ever launched, will have earth and space monitoring sensors and test micro/nano technology for space applications. The EduSat mission is a precursor mission that will lead the way to flying the PocketQubs by flight-testing the orbital deployer that will launch the PocketQubs from the larger satellite.

The orbital deployers, called the MRFODs-Morehead-Roma Femtosatellite Orbital Deployers-were designed and built by undergraduate students in the MSU space science program under the direction of Kevin Brown, assistant professor of space science. The orbital deployer was conceived to provide a reliable and adaptable deployment system for the recently developed PocketQub standard as well as other femto-class satellite form factors. To accelerate prototyping of the MRFODs, the 3D printer at the SSC was used. 3-D printing is an additive manufacturing, rapid prototyping technology that greatly facilitates the engineering design process.

Printed prototype models provide a quick turnaround time and a cost effective alternative to developing prototypes from traditional materials and with costly machinging processes. The 3D printed models have been invaluable in development and testing; including: functionality and fit-checks. Using this technique, the MRFOD systems were produced in less than nine months; using traditional manufacturing processes for prototyping, the engineering models would have taken significantly longer to produce and the cost would have been greater.

The PocketQub is a new satellite standard that was proposed in 2009 by Professor Robert Twiggs for a satellite even smaller than the CubeSat. PocketQubs are 5 cm cubes and can literally fit in a pocket. The PocketQub leverages the CubeSat standard and also leverages the revolution in the miniaturization of electronics. PocketQubs will ultimately have a wide range of applications including: Network Nodes, Sensor Systems, Satellite Constellations, Inexpensive, Redundant, and Spatially Organized Earth Remote Sensing Platforms.

Students at the SSC served as the principle engineers in the development of two of the first PocketQubs (Eagle-1 and Eagle-2) and the MRFOD designed to deploy the femtosats from Edusat (the mother ship). Eagle-1 and 2 will test deployable de-orbit systems and establish flight heritage for femtosat systems including power systems and transceivers. The primary payloads on EduSat are environmental sensors dedicated to secondary education research.

The series of educational and research space missions is an on-going project for designing, building and launching a student-built satellite, and testing prototype technologies including extremely small space systems. The missions provide students with opportunities to engage in research and at the same time push the envelope of micro-nano technologies for space applications.

Dr. Malphrus, Brown, and undergraduate students Nathan Fite and Tyler Rose traveled to Italy for the integration activities. Dr. Malphrus was in Russia for the launch.

A group of students including Clay Graves, Jonathan Fitzpatrick, Ben Cahall, Caleb Grimes, and Margaret Powell will serve as the ground operations team for launch and early operations of the satellite from the MSU Mission Operations Center. Brown is the Engineering Team Lead on the project and Chantal Cappalletti from the University of Rome, is the principle investigator. The project was funded by Kentucky Space and the Morehead State University Center for Regional Engagement.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:48:15 AEST Subscribe to our daily selection of space, military, environment and energy newsletters responseText http://visitor.constantcontact.com/manage/optin/ea?v=0016gbbKsaiGSpQFojVO8ZoHw%3D%3D