MightySat 2.1 "Nearly Perfect" in Early Operations, Checkout

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (8/14/00) -- MightySat 2.1, a joint Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and Department of Defense Space Test Program satellite launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., July 29, has been performing nearly perfectly in early orbit operations and checkout.

"We could not have asked for a more perfect satellite," said Pete Thomas of The Aerospace Corporation, systems engineer for the vehicle, which hosts 10 research payloads, including an advanced imaging instrument.

Thomas, of The Aerospace Corporation's Albuquerque office assigned to the Air Force's MightySat program office, said Aug. 7 that after more than 350 revolutions of Earth in its 565-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit, the second of AFRL's small but capable technology demonstration spacecraft was performing flawlessly.

At 266 pounds, MightySat 2.1, launched aboard the Minotaur 2 launch vehicle, is about twice as large as MightySat 1, deployed from the Space Shuttle Endeavour Dec. 14, 1998.

The July 29 launch also marked the second success for the Minotaur booster, prepared by Orbital Sciences Corporation for the Air Force. It uses surplus Minuteman II rocket motors and Pegasus XL motors. Minotaur is officially called the Orbital/Suborbital Program (OSP) launch vehicle. The OSP development program is managed by the Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base.

MightySat 2.1's primary payload, the Fourier Transform Hyperspectral Imager (FTHSI), is believed to be the first ever such imager to use a monolithic glass interferometer instead of dispersive elements to discern colors in its image, Thomas explained.

Checkout of the FTHSI is being conducted from the Space Test Program's operations center at Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque.

MightySat 2.1 also hosts a pair of Aerospace-built "picosats" similar to those placed into orbit on Feb. 7, 2000, but possessing improved features. The new picosats are to be released into orbit from MightySat 2.1 in about a year and will perform operations lasting up to two weeks.

Thomas said MightySat 2.1 is unique in that the spacecraft bus was built by an outside vendor, Spectrum Astro, Inc., and delivered to AFRL, where the payloads were integrated, environmental testing was conducted, and the bus was transformed into a working space vehicle.

"The team of the Air Force, The Aerospace Corporation, and Jackson and Tull, AFRL's integration and test contractor, conducted a completely 'in-house' integration and test of the satellite," Thomas said.

Personnel from The Aerospace Corporation supporting the four-year development of MightySat 2.1 from concept to launch included a team from the Engineering and Technology Group (ETG) at the company's headquarters in El Segundo, Calif., as well as teams assisnged to AFRL and the Air Force Test and

Evaluation Directorate, both in Albuquerque. In addition, the company supported launch operations from its offices at Vandenberg.

"I cannot possibly imagine being able to accomplish these missions without the Aerospace ETG and systems engineering team," said Randy Kahn, the Air Force program director for the MightySat series of spacecraft.