The payload consists of four small satellites to be launched aboard a Lockheed Martin Athena I launch vehicle. The Athena I being used for this launch was reassigned from NASA's Vegetation Canopy Lidar (VCL) mission that is under review pending resolution of technical challenges associated with developing the science instruments.

NASA's spacecraft in the Kodiak Star mission is Starshine 3, a satellite program developed by the Rocky Mountain NASA Space Grant Consortium and built by the Naval Research Laboratory.

The Starshine 3 satellite, about one meter in diameter and weighing about 200 pounds, is covered with front-surface aluminum mirrors. They were machined by technology students in Utah and polished by participating grade schools from all over the world.

Once the satellite is in orbit the students will visually track the satellite and report their findings on the project's web site.

The high inclination that can be achieved by launching from Kodiak Island, AK, will allow students in Alaska, northern Canada, the British Isles, Scandinavia and Russia who cannot see the Starshine satellites deployed in lower latitude orbits to participate in the project.

PICOsat, the primary Department of Defense Satellite, is a technology demonstration satellite carrying four experiments in the areas of vibration isolation technology, ionospheric observations and polymer battery characteristics. PICOsat was built at Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) in the United Kingdom.

The second DoD spacecraft is a Prototype Communications Satellite (PCSat), operating in the amateur radio band, designed and manufactured by Midshipmen of the United States Naval Academy.

It will become part of the amateur radio community's Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS) in low earth orbit receiving digitized identity and position data from amateur radio operators and transmitting it to one or more ground stations.

The third DoD spacecraft is SAPPHIRE, a micro-satellite designed and built by students at Stanford University and Washington University-St. Louis.

The primary mission of Sapphire is to space-qualify two sets of "Tunneling Horizon Detector" infrared sensors designed and built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Stanford University. Secondary experiments include a digital camera and voice synthesizer.

The Kodiak Star is targeted for launch Aug. 31, 2001.

Kodiak Launch Complex
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