SSC09-IV-10 Initial Flight Results from the PharmaSat Biological Microsatellite Mission Christopher Kitts, Karolyn Ronzano, Richard Rasay, Ignacio Mas, Jose Acain, Michael Neumann, Laura Bica, Paul Mahacek, Giovanni Minelli, Erin Beck, Steve Li, Brian Gamp, Seamus Agnew, John Shepard Robotic Systems Laboratory, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara CA 95053
[email protected] John Hines, Elwood Agasid, Charlie Friedericks, Matthew Piccini, Macarena Parra, Linda Timucin, C. Beasley, Mike Henschke, Ed Luzzi, Nghia Mai, Mike McIntyre, Robert Ricks, Antonio Ricco, David Squires, Bruce Yost, Greg Defouw, Aaron Schooley, Diana Ly, Millan Diaz-Aguado, Eric Stackpole, Orlando Diaz, Tammy Doukas Small Spacecraft Office, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field CA 94035;
[email protected] David Niesel, Michael McGinnis The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston TX, 77555;
[email protected] ABSTRACT The mission of the PharmaSat biological microsatellite is to investigate the efficacy of anti-fungal agents in the spaceflight environment. The satellite uses autonomous, in situ bio-analytical and sample management technologies in order to culture and characterize the growth of multiple samples of yeast, which are exposed to differing levels of an anti-fungal agent during their growth cycle. The satellite uses a 10 cm x 10 cm x 30 cm Cubesat-class structure with body-mounted solar panels, an ISM-band transceiver, and a simple PIC-class microcontroller for the main flight computer. PharmaSat was launched on May 19, 2009 from Wallops Flight Facility as a secondary payload on a Minotaur launch vehicle. During the first week of operation, the primary biological experiment was conducted, and data from this experiment was downloaded thereby achieving mission success.