KickSat
| KickSat | |
|---|---|
|
|
|
Zachary Manchester with KickSat |
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| Type: | Technology testing and amateur radio satellite |
| Country: |
 United States
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| COSPAR-ID : | 2014-022F |
| Mission dates | |
| Dimensions: | 5.5 kg |
| Size: | 10 cm × 10 cm × 34 cm |
| Begin: | April 18, 2014, 19:25 ( UTC ) |
| Starting place: | Cape Canaveral AFS, SLC-40 |
| Launcher: | Falcon 9 v1.1 |
| Status: | burned up |
| Orbit data | |
| Orbit inclination : | 51.65 ° |
| Apogee height : | 331 km |
| Perigee height : | 299 km |
KickSat was an American technology testing and amateur radio satellite in the format of a three-unit cubesat . The satellite was launched in April 2014 and was then supposed to deploy 104 femto satellites, but that didn't work. In March 2019, the experiment with KickSat-2 was successfully repeated.
KickSat was built by a Cornell University student , radio amateur Zachary Manchester ( amateur radio call sign KD2BHC), and was crowdfunded through the kickstarter.com platform . The launch was made possible by NASA as part of the ELaNa program.
Technology and mission planning
The dimensions of the satellite were 10 cm × 10 cm × 34 cm with a mass of about 5.5 kg. The satellite was designed for communication in the amateur radio range, with transmitters on the frequencies 437.505 MHz and 2401–2436.2 MHz. It had solar cells for energy supply . Kicksat had no drive, but an active position control. The satellite could carry up to 128 "Sprite" femto satellites ( English sprite : Kobold, Elfe, Wicht), but only 104 were on board.
The sprites were to be ejected 16 days after launch and each send 10 milliwatts of power in the 70 centimeter band to send signals to earth, all on the same frequency of 437.240 MHz using code division multiplexing . The femto satellites each consisted of a circuit board with an edge length of 32 mm, which carried solar cells and transmission electronics and to which an antenna was attached. Due to the selected low orbit, it was expected that the sprites would burn up in the earth's atmosphere within a few days, so that no space debris would have been created.
Mission history
The satellite was launched on April 18, 2014 as a secondary payload with a Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station . The main payload of the flight was a Dragon spaceship for the SpaceX CRS-3 ISS supply mission ; In addition, the Cubesats All-Star / THEIA , PhoneSat 2.5 , TSAT and SporeSat were brought into orbit.
KickSat sent data packets from orbit that were received on the ground, but its energy supply did not reach the required voltage to also operate the receiver on board. In addition, the on-board computer was restarted on April 30th, presumably due to radiation, which also set the countdown for the release of the sprites back to 16 days. The femto satellites would not have been launched until May 16th instead of - as planned - May 4th. However, that date came after the satellite was expected to re- enter the earth's atmosphere. Since the receiver did not work because the operating voltage was too low, no command could be sent to release the sprites independently of the timing. The satellite burned up on May 14, 2014 without fulfilling its mission objective.
KickSat-2
The successor satellite KickSat-2 was developed and built by the Ames Research Center of NASA and Stanford University . On November 17, 2018, it was launched into space aboard a Cygnus supply spaceship on an Antares 230 rocket . The Cygnus initially docked with the ISS for three months. It wasn't until after the spaceship cast off in February 2019 that KickSat-2 was released into its own orbit, and on March 18, it dropped 100 sprites. The first reception reports for signals from femto satellites were received on the following day.
Web links
- Kicksat website at kickstarter.com
- Exploring Space with Chip-Sized Satellites . IEEE Spectrum, August 2011
- Animation of the planned sprite suspension from KickSat (Youtube video)
- KickSat in the NSSDCA Master Catalog (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ eoPortal Directory: KickSat
- ↑ a b AMSAT-UK: KickSat Sprites - Radio Competition
- ↑ a b KickSat: Update # 70
- ^ AMSAT-UK: Successful launch of KickSat carrying 104 Sprite satellites
- ↑ KickSat: Update # 72
- ^ Zachary Manchester: KickSat Has Reentered . May 15, 2015.
- ↑ What is KickSat-2? NASA, June 3, 2019, accessed September 5, 2019 .