Cadets brief FalconSAT progress to staff, stakeholders

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  • Air Force Academy Public Affairs
U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. --  Cadets in their senior capstone engineering program are briefing progress on the FalconSAT-6 and FalconSAT-7 spacecraft as well as on-going operations involving FalconSAT-3 today from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The event, hosted by the Departments of Astronautical Engineering and Physics, is the Fall 2013 End-of-Semester Review for the program.

Students will highlight program progress for Academy faculty and staff as well as representatives from sponsoring organizations such as the Air Force Research Lab, the Space Test Program, Air Force Space Command, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and several supporting commercial space companies that are providing payloads, subsystems and other support operations.

One of the recent highlights of the FalconSAT-6 program include completion of a major testing milestone Nov. 14 at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. The test validated the structural finite element model and verified that the satellite's structural design can withstand the dramatic vibration environment that a satellite experiences during launch.

FalconSAT-3 is currently still in operation six years after launch and FalconSAT-6 and FalconSAT-7 are currently manifested for launch on the STP-2 mission aboard a Falcon Heavy launch vehicle made by SpaceX.

The briefing will be followed by lunch in the Space Systems Research Center and a tour of the facility during which guests can see first-hand the status of FalconSat-6 and FalconSat Operations.