Cadets at work building two more Academy satellites

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  • Air Force Academy Public Affairs
U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. --  Cadets are hard at work today building the Academy's next two satellites, while another pair of satellites are currently rotating in orbit thousands of miles about the Earth.

The latest additions to the Academy's growing space fleet are the Falcon SAT-6 and Falcon SAT-7 satellites; the Falcon-SAT program is the Academy's capstone undergraduate systems engineering course, managed by the Department of Astronautics.

"'Learning Space by Doing Space' is not only the motto of the Space Systems Research Center, it is a way of life," said Lt. Col. David Barnhart, the director of the Space Systems Research Center. "Within the SSRC, Falcon SAT is the flagship cadet-built small satellite program, unparalleled in the world at the undergraduate level."

The Falcon-SAT program puts a team of senior cadets into the role of a satellite system integrating contractors.

The satellite is typically launched as a secondary payload on a commercial or DOD launch vehicle and subsequently monitored and controlled by cadet operators from a ground station at the Academy.

"Falcon-SAT is a full-spectrum space acquisition and operations experience that transforms cadets into our nation's future space leaders," Barnhart said.

During a hands-on learning process, cadets are taught all aspects of satellite engineering. Small teams focus on payload requirements and interfaces and all typical satellite systems including electrical power, data handling, communications, attitude control and orbit control. Once on-orbit, cadets monitor satellite health, control payload and subsystem activity, and review payload status, all from the Academy. Additionally, cadets turn textbook examples into operational scenarios to execute experimental missions.

Falcon-SAT-6 is a small satellite, with a mass of 181 kilograms. It is currently in the first year of a three-year development plan design phase.

This latest Academy satellite is sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory.

The second satellite being worked on at the Academy is Falcon SAT-7 is a CubeSat, one of several projects underway at the SPARC.

"The SPARC mission is to provide cadets experience working on space physics research projects of interest to the Air Force and Department of Defense," said Dr. Geoff McHarg, director of the Academy's Space Physics and Atmospheric Research Center. "We accomplish this by working one-on-one with cadets from multiple disciplines in independent study and capstone courses."

Their latest scientific payload bound for space will do so aboard Falcon SAT-7.

Falcon SAT-7 carries a single payload in its tiny frame. That payload is a new optical payload known as a photon sieve, which can replace traditional optics.

"The photon sieve is a thin membrane with of billions of tiny holes, each of which causes diffraction," McHarg said. "The holes are cleverly arranged to add up correctly to make an image. The photon sieve is made from a very thin membrane material, much like plastic wrap used in a kitchen that can be rolled into a small space, and stowed into our little spacecraft."

Once in orbit, the satellite will open to release three arms that stretch the photon sieve's metal membrane out in only two seconds to deploy a 10-inch diameter telescope. This will become the world's first space-based membrane telescope, and it will be used to image the sun. The sieve was created and patented at Academy's Laser and Optics Research Center.

"If we can demonstrate that this works, use of a photon sieve opens up the possibility of putting larger telescopes on small satellites," McHarg said. "This is critical for both NASA and the DOD because the resolution of a telescope is dictated by the size of the primary optic. Traditional space-based telescope optics are limited to the size of the host spacecraft. For instance, the Hubble Space Telescope is the size it is because it had to fit inside the Space Shuttle."

Falcon SAT-7 and Falcon SAT-6 are scheduled for launches in May, 2015.

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