NARRATOR:
This relatively small
satellite is a first of
its kind for NASA.
It�s designed to open
up secondary payload
opportunities, or give
piggyback rides to orbit
for science experiments
and technology validation.
It serves as a bus that
puts research on the
affordable fast track.
It�s name�
MARK BOUDREAUX:
FASTSAT: Fast Affordable
Science and Technology
Satellite.
FASTSAT is a spacecraft
bus giving access to
space for experiment
and technology type
of payloads that desire,
require access to space
in a very fast schedule,
but an affordable, low-cost
model. Here at Marshall
Space Flight Center,
the engineers designed,
developed, and tested this
spacecraft.
We went through our
environmental test chambers,
and we space-hardened this
instrument for low-Earth
orbit.
TIM SMITH:
Most satellites are built,
a fast schedule is 36 to
46 months, and we did it
in 12 to 15 months.
FASTSAT is a microsatellite
which is a satellite in the
200 to 400 pound range.
It is 26 inches by 28 by 38
inches which is a class of
satellites called an ESPA class.
ESPA class is intended to fly on
a number of launch vehicles.
MARK McElyea:
The FASTSAT satellite will be
launched aboard a Minotaur IV
launch vehicle, and that�s
controlled out of the Kodiak,
Alaska launch site.
Once the satellite is deployed
on orbit, the mission operations
revert to the Mission Ops Center,
and we�ll be coordinating through
the ground sites to receive data
and get ready to start commanding
for the satellite.
JOE CASAS:
The primary benefit for the FASTSAT
science is its enabling capability
for what I would call lower-cost,
quick-response science.
There are essentially six experiment
payloads.Three of which are what we
call heliophysics experiments, and those
contribute to the entire science realm
of understanding of the energetics of
the Sun, and how the Sun�s energetics
affect us here on Earth.
Not just in the common ways of the
daylight and the night time, but also
in terms of what we call space weather
which essentially affects our
communications. Many of us have
experienced the dropout of cell
phones, changes in GPS signals.
Those are all things that are
contributed by the heliophysics
of the interaction of the Sun and
the Earth.
Now the other experiments,
one of them is the nanoSail which
is a NASA Marshall experiment.
DEAN ALHORN:
Nanosail-D has several different science
objectives. The main objective is to make
sure we can deploy a satellite out of
FASTSAT without recontact between it
and the main satellite.
Our second objective is to deploy the
sail so that it will deorbit within a
known period of time.
And that will allow us to take the first
step toward understanding how solar sails
will operate in space
MARK BOUDREAUX:
NASA and the Department of Defense are
collaborating, where that we�ve helped
design and build the spacecraft,
and they are providing access to space.
They are providing the Minotaur launch
vehicle.
NARRATOR:
FASTSAT serves as a low-cost platform that
opens up new opportunities for researchers
to conduct scientific and technology experiments
on an autonomous satellite in space.