ALMASat 1

Spacecraft n°:

Italian spacecraft n°: 29

Launch data: Designation  38078 / 12006B Launch date  13 Feb 2012 - 10:00 UT Launch site  Ko, ELV Launch vehicle  Vega Mission  Technology Earth orbit on Feb 13.70: Perigee / Apogee  315 x 1441 km Eccentricity  0.08 Inclination  69.49 deg Period  102.53 min

Spacecraft data: Prime manufacturer  University of Bologna Platform   Operator  University of Bologna Mass at launch  12.5 kg Dry Mass   kg Basic shape  Cube Dimension (m)  0.30m side Equipment   Solar array  Solar cells Stabilization   Propulsion  None DC power   Design lifetime  25 yrs

Photo of Lares, ALMASat-1 and the seven CubeSats before encapsulation in fairing. Credit: ESA

LARES, ALMASAT and Cubesats being prepared for launch. Credit: ESA

Credit: ESA

Description:

• ALMASat (ALma MAter SATellite) is an small satellite program of the University of Bologna.
• The first ALMASat (ALma MAter SATellite) demonstration mission was due for launch on November 2005 on board a Dnepr-1 rocket, but has been delayed to a launch on the maiden Vega flight in early 2012.
• Among the possible future applications, there is the on-orbit experimentation of a passive electro-dynamic de-orbiting system, jointly developed by Alenia Spazio (Turin plant) and the University of Rome "la Sapienza".
• The satellite weighs about 12.5 kg and consists of a cubical prism, 300 mm side, with a modular structure made of six shop-machined Al trays, kept together by eight stainless steel bars. Four Al/Al honeycomb lateral panels, which are the support structure of glued solar panels, complete the satellite structure. This architecture has been selected in order to have a multi-purpose bus, to be used with minor changes for several missions, accommodating payloads with different volume and power requirements.

Mission details:

• ESA's new small satellite launch vehicle, Vega, made its first flight successfully on Feb 13, 2011.
  The Vega booster took off from the Ensemble de Lancement Vega (ELV) at Kourou and headed northeast. The Zefiro 9A third stage burnt out at 1005 UTC and entered a marginal orbit (one estimate is around -30 x 775 km; another solution from the limited data available is around 50-60 km x 250-500 km). The stage probably reentered at first perigee at around 1112 UTC south of New Zealand, and has not been cataloged. The AVUM stage first burn was completed at 1008 UTC and probably reached an orbit of around 180 x 1450 km. At 1048 UTC the AVUM second burn began and resulted in a 1435 x 1452 km x 69.5 deg orbit.
• The LARES 'Laser Relativity Satellite' is the primary payload and was released into this orbit at 1055 UTC.
• The next largest payload is AlmaSat-1, a 12.5 kg student satellite from the University of Bologna, which will test a cold gas microthruster system and the platform for a future Earth observing satellite.
  At 1106-1110 UTC AVUM's third burn lowered the perigee resulting in an orbit of around 310 x 1441 km. At 1110 UTC the three P-PODs released their cargo. Finally at 1111 UTC AlmaSat was ejected, and the AVUM vented its remaining propellant, ending up in a 272 x 1431 km x 69.5 km orbit.