As with all LEO observation satellites, MisrSat-1 will photograph a strip of the Earth equal to its imaging swath with each orbit. As the satellite revolves around the Earth on one axis the Earth rotates on another, shifting the scanned strip with each orbit. This eventually allows the satellite to photograph the entire planet as it circles around it, and the software at the ground station works to fit these images together to create the complete picture. Two ground stations have been established to communicate with MisrSat-1. The first, located in Egypt's southernmost governorate of Aswan, was completed at the end of 2006 and is dedicated to receiving images from the satellite. Since beginning operations, it has already received images from the American LandSat and the French SPOT satellites.
Dr. Mohammad Argon, Director of the Egyptian Space Program said that a composite satellite photo was taken by the MisrSat-1 (Egyptsat 1) launched on April, 17, 2007. The photo presents the colours of the desert areas around Cairo, indicating their geology and the urban communities surrounding the ring road. The MisrSat-1 will photograph a strip of the Earth equal to its imaging swath with each orbit. As the satellite revolves around the Earth on one axis the Earth rotates on another, shifting the scanned strip with each orbit. This eventually allows the satellite to photograph the entire planet as it circles around it, and the software at the ground station works to fit these images together to create the complete picture.
A trio of mini-satellites has failed in their attempt to deploy a kilometre-long tether in space. The setback means the low-cost Multi-Application Survivable Tether (MAST) experiment, launched on 17 April, may not achieve its goal of testing the survivability of a thin, braided tether in space. Over the past week, mission managers determined that the tether-deploying element, known as Ted, had properly separated from the tether inspector, a tiny satellite called Gadget. But a glitch in the restraint system kept Ted from pushing away hard enough to keep unreeling the tether from its spool. So the tether deployed just a few metres, rather than a full kilometre
A pico-satellite developed by Boeing to evaluate miniature spacecraft technologies was successfully launched to orbit on April 17 by an ISC Kosmotras Dnepr rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Initial system checks indicate that the CubeSat TestBed 1 (CSTB1) spacecraft is operational and ready for a series of on-orbit demonstrations that will help Boeing further develop nano-satellites weighing less than 22 pounds.
"Our pico- and nano-satellite activities are part of a broader Boeing effort to enable a more operationally responsive space" - Alex Lopez, vice president of Boeing Advanced Network and Space Systems.
During the CSTB1 demonstrations, Boeing will test several new technologies, software designs and on-orbit operations for nano-satellite functions.
"Our team is excited that CSTB1 is in orbit, and we're ready to proceed with our demonstrations. These satellites can quickly and inexpensively test miniature, low-power components and subsystems to help reduce the power requirements and weight of larger satellites" - Scott MacGillivray, manager of Boeing Nano-Satellite Programs.
Boeing developed the CSTB1 spacecraft at its new Engineering Development Centre in Huntington Beach, California, where engineers are exploring new ways to reduce the size, weight and power needs for key satellite components. The new facility includes a Mission Operations Centre where on-orbit operations for CSTB1 will be conducted.
"On-orbit tests of CubeSats like CSTB1 can be conducted years earlier than larger satellites and at considerably less cost than Earth-based testing. Nano-satellites also are less costly to develop and deploy than larger satellites and can piggy back on rockets launching larger payloads" - Scott MacGillivray.
Weighing a little more than two pounds, CSTB1 consists of four microcontrollers as the brains, redundant communication systems with two independent radios, two high-capacity lithium-ion rechargeable batteries, a deployable antenna, a sophisticated control system that determines the attitude of the spacecraft using sun and magnetic field sensors, a simple attitude control system using magnetic torque coils and multi-functional boards containing sensors and electronics. Future missions may test better control accuracy, additional electrical power, more communications bandwidth and higher computational performance.
CubeSats are very small satellites shaped as 10cm cubes with mass less than 1kg. The CubeSat Project is a collaborative effort between California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo and Stanford Universitys Space Systems Development Laboratory.
A Dnepr-1 carrier rocket has successfully deployed 16 satellites into orbit in the largest cluster launch so far this year. The launch was the first for Dnepr since July 2006 when another Dnepr-1 crashed shortly after lifting off from Baikonur due to a premature first stage engine shutdown. The mishap destroyed its payload of 18 satellites that included a number of CubeSats or cube satellites. The Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) said all 16 foreign satellites were put into orbit, and that control over them had been passed to its customers. It said Dnepr-1 delivered into orbit EgyptSat-1, six Saudi satellites (SaudiSat-3 and five SaudiComSats), seven CubeSats and a P-Pod.
A Russian-Ukrainian rocket put Libertad-1, the first Colombian satellite, into orbit Tuesday, the satellite's designers said. The satellite, 10 cm high, 10 cm wide and weighing 1 kg, is the smallest of its kind, with a basic mission of transmitting "compressed signals," capturing position images and receiving temperature data. The Engineering and Astronomic Observation Faculty of Sergio Arboleda University in Bogota headed the project and contacted the Russian-Ukrainian Kosmotras enterprise to launch it. In the future, the small satellite may also retransmit audio signals and transmit digital images taken by a built-in camera. Satellites from 13 other countries also travelled Tuesday with Libertad-1 from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
A Dnepr rocket laden with 14 small international satellites was launched from an underground missile silo, on Tuesday on its first mission since failure struck the launcher last year. The first launch of a Dnepr rocket since a crash in July 2006 successfully delivered a payload of Egyptian, Saudi and US satellites into orbit on Tuesday after taking off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome. The Ukrainian-Russian rocket's payload included seven tiny research satellites developed by universities in the US and Colombia. One is a thermos-flask-sized satellite that will ride up and down a 1-kilometre-long tether in space, like a skier in a gondola lift The three-stage rocket lifted off at 06:46 GMT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The 111-foot-tall booster worked as planned and its cache of payloads were successfully deployed from the rocket's third stage a few minutes later.
A Dnepr rocket, a civilian version of the heavy R-36M2 Voyevoda (SS-18 Satan) inter-continental ballistic missile, carrying 18 Russian and foreign-made micro-satellites crashed on July 26, 2006 shortly after lift-off from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan, due to a first stage engine shutdown.
The new Dnepr carrier rocket is expected to put into orbit an Egyptian satellite, EgyptSat, six Saudi Arabian satellites - one SaudiSat-3 and five SaudiComSat - as well as 3 P-Pod micro satellites and six university satellites CubeSat. Source Novosti