NASA's Space Technology 5 Satellites Soar Into Space 22 March 2006

NASA's Space Technology 5 successfully larger spacecraft. launched today at 9:04 a.m. EST, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on a Pegasus The spacecrafts' orbit is a "string of pearls," in a XL rocket. near-Earth polar elliptical that will take them from approximately 300 kilometers (190 miles) to 4,500 ST5 is testing new micro-spacecraft technologies kilometers (2,800 miles) from the planet. and operations' techniques. The three spacecraft will conduct science validation using They start out only a few meters apart. Within measurements of the Earth's magnetic field approximately 20 days, they are placed into a collected by the miniature boom-mounted formation 40 to 200 km (approximately 25 to 125 magnetometers on each. miles) apart from each other to perform coordinated multi-point measurements of the Earth's magnetic Initial contact with ST5 was made at 9:27 a.m. field. This type of measurement is useful for future EST, as the spacecraft passed over the McMurdo missions that will study the effect of solar activity on Ground Station in Antarctica. the Earth's magnetosphere; the magnetic bubble that surrounds Earth and helps to protect it from Art Azarbarzin, ST5 project manager at NASA's harmful space radiation. Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., described next week's planned activities for the The ST5 project was built and tested at Goddard spacecraft. "During the first day, we ensure the for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. It is an three craft are correctly operating. During the next instrumental part of the New Millennium Program, few days, we deploy and test the magnetometer which develops and tests critical and revolutionary booms. Finally we prepare them for the science technologies needed to enable future endeavors in demonstration and make any necessary orientation space. For information about the ST5 project and adjustments," Azarbarzin said. mission on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/st5

Miniaturized components and technologies are Source: NASA integrated into each of the ST5 micro-satellites. Each micro-satellite weighs approximately 25 kilograms (55 pounds) when fully fueled and is about the size of a 13 inch television.

Jim Slavin, ST5 project scientist at Goddard said, "The lessons learned from the development and flight of ST5's three full-service micro-spacecraft constitute a major step toward the use of constellations or swarms of small spacecraft to accomplish science that cannot be done with a single spacecraft, no matter how capable."

Although small compared to their counterparts, each of the spacecraft is considered full service. They contain power, propulsion, communications, guidance, navigation and control functions found in

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APA citation: NASA's Space Technology 5 Satellites Soar Into Space (2006, March 22) retrieved 29 September 2021 from https://phys.org/news/2006-03-nasa-space-technology-satellites-soar.html

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