Spinsat

Spacecraft nº:

US spacecraft nº:

Launch data: Designation  40314 / 98067FL Launch date  21 Sep 2014 ejected from Kibo at 14:30:42 UT on Nov 28, 2014 Launch site  CC, SLC-40 Launch vehicle  Falcon-9 v1.1 Mission  Technology Earth orbit: Perigee / Apogee  405 x 416 km Eccentricity   Inclination  51.65 ° Period  92.77 min

Spacecraft data:

End of live:

Description:

• The satellite is 56 cm diameter sphere, one of two left over from the ANDE 2 project, with a weight of 57 kg. It is powered by batteries. The payload is equipped with retro-reflectors, antennas, and Electrically-controlled Solid Propellant (ESP) Thrusters spread in pairs throughout the surface of the payload.
• The SpinSat mission has three goals:
  • to characterize the performance of Electronically-controlled Solid Propellant (ESP) thrusters in orbit
  • to test the Space Surveillance Network's ability to observe and characterize state changes induced by the ESP firings
  • to provide a calibrated drag experiment at higher solar activity than the ANDE and ANDE 2 missions
• As a secondary mission, SpinSat carries a 9k6 GFSK UHF store and forward AX.25 packet system with 2 W of RF output for the radio amateur community.

Mission details:

• On Nov 28, 2014 the Japanese JEM-RMS robot arm extracted the SSIKLOPS (Cyclops) deployer and its attached SpinSat satellite from the Kibo airlock and positioned it for deployment. The Cyclops then ejected SpinSat into orbit at 1430:42 UTC. SpinSat is a 50 kg Naval Research Lab satellite to test new microthrusters for attitude control. SpinSat has been cataloged as 1998-067FL.