"Matson, Robert" wrote: > > Hopefully this one will have a faster initial spin applied > so that it will be easier for the students to observe. Hello Rob, Starshine 2, scheduled to be launched in November, will carry an internal cold gas spin system with 2 small thrusters on the outside that will impart a 5 degrees / second spin rate. On Starshine 1, there was no such system and somehow the satellite stopped spinning after its ejection from the Hitchhiker canister. On Starshine 3, to be launched on August 31, there is no gas system but a new ejection mecanism has been developed by Planetary Systems Corp. that will spin the satellite while ejecting it from the top of its Athena 1 launch vehicle. If this system passes the test, it will be used on Shuttles to eject the future Starshine satellites from a pallet in the cargo bay. On Starshine 3, there will also be a radio transmitter that will allow the measurement of the spin rate and the downlink of performance data from the clusters of solar cells around the satellite. Starting from Starshine 3, the satellites are one meter in diameter, instead of 48 cm for the number 1 and 2, and carry over 1500 mirrors instead of 878. Dan -- Daniel Deak representant, projet spatial Starshine Drummondville, Quebec COSPAR site 1746 : 45.8537°N, 72.4857°W, 90 m., UTC-5:00 Site en francais sur les satellites: French-language satellite web site : http://www.obsat.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Apr 12 2001 - 14:47:38 PDT