TacSat-2
Artist's rendering of TacSat-2
|
|
| Mission type | Technology |
|---|---|
| Operator | AFRL |
| COSPAR ID | 2006-058A |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Manufacturer | MicroSat Systems |
| Launch mass | 370 kilograms (820 lb) |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | December 16, 2006 |
| Rocket | Minotaur I |
| Launch site | MARS LP-0B |
| Contractor | Orbital |
| End of mission | |
| Decay date | February 5, 2011 |
| Orbital parameters | |
| Reference system | Geocentric |
| Regime | Low Earth |
| Eccentricity | 0.00080924004 |
| Perigee | 413 kilometers (257 mi) |
| Apogee | 424 kilometers (263 mi) |
| Inclination | 40& degrees |
| Period | 92.9 minutes |
TacSat-2 (also known as JWS-D1 or RoadRunner) is an experimental satellite built by the USAF's Air Force Research Laboratory with an operational life expected to be not more than one year as part of the 'Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration' program.
The TacSat series of experimental spacecraft are designed to allow military commanders on a battlefield to request and obtain imagery and other data from a satellite as it passes overhead. Collected data will be delivered to field commanders in minutes rather than hours or days. The sensor on TacSat-2 can collect color images sharp enough to distinguish ground objects as small as 1 meter in diameter.
TacSat-2 was launched on 16 December 2006 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport using an Orbital Sciences Minotaur launch vehicle. The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport is a commercial space launch facility located on the Delmarva Peninsula 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Chincoteague, Virginia.
Satellites in the TacSat series were planned to use commercial or available launchers, and largely off-the-shelf components, in order to reduce costs.
The space platform was built by MicroSat Systems of Littleton, Colorado. The core avionics of the spacecraft including command and data handling, electrical power switching and distribution, and subsystem & payload interfaces is handled by an Integrated Avionics Unit (IAU) developed by Broad Reach Engineering. The spacecraft flight software consists of the low level drivers, and bus manager functionality provided by Broad Reach Engineering, ADCS Software by ASI, and a number of higher level applications by 3rd parties, most notably the Autonomous Tasking Experiment (ATE) by Interface & Control Systems.
The developers originally asked for bids from contractors for a camera. These were priced at around US$10 million. The team then bought a high-end observatory telescope costing around $20,000 and added a camera sensor ($2 million), delivering a sensor capable of 1m ground resolution.
...
Wikipedia