TechEdSat 4 (TES 4)

Spacecraft nº:

US spacecraft nº:

Launch data: Designation  40455 / 1998-67FY Launch date  13 Jul 2014 Launch site  WI, LA-0A Launch vehicle  Antares-120 Mission  Technology, education Launch platform  ISS Kibo, LEO Deployment date  04 Mar 2015 - 01:20 Perigee / Apogee  393 x 402 km Inclination  51.6 ° Period   min

Description:

• TechEdSat 3 (Technical and Educational Satellite 3) is a 3U CubeSat. It was built as a conjoined project between San Jose State University (SJSU) and the University of Idaho as a collaborative engineering project, with oversight from the NASA Ames Research Center.
• The TechEdSAT-3 will be the first flight test of an Exo-Brake passive de-orbit system. Building on the predecessor, TechEdSAT-3p is a triple cubesat (3U) with a set of dual advanced avionics systems powered by the previous core system. In 2U of the packaging (roughly 2/3 of the volume), there is stowed an erectable deployment system that would place the Exo-Brake in the desired orientation. Scaled as a 10 day experiment, the deployed system has the ballistic coefficient of 5 kg/m2 - and is constructed as a tension-based structure that would not entangle itself. During the de-orbit process, GPS data from the dual avionics as well as collected TLE (Two Line Elements) provided by the USSTRATCOM will be used to analyze the flight dynamics and compared to computational models. This experiment will be the antecedent of related experiments at larger scale (e.g., for a 1.5 day de-orbit) and controllability. The effort was built by teams from the San Jose State University
• TechEdSat 4 is a similar satellite. Its primary objectives are to further develop a tension-based drag device, or “Exo-Brake,” and demonstrate frequent uplink/downlink control capabilities.

Mission details:

• TechEdSat 4 was launched on board of Cygnus CRS-2 to the International Space Station to be deployed from the Japanese airlock.