Forté

Fast On-orbit Recording of Transient Events, also called P94-1

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General

Designation	24920 / 97047A
Launch date	29 Aug 1997
Country of origin	United States
Mission	Scientific:
Perigee/Apogee	800 km
Inclination	70°
Period	101 min
Launch vehicle	Pegasus XL #17

Advanced radio frequency (RF) impulse detection and characterization experiment. Emphasis is on the measurement of electromagnetic pulses (EMP), primarily due to lightning, within a noise environment dominated by continuous wave (CW) carriers, such as TV and FM stations. Optical sensors will augment the RF system in characterizing lightning events. A principal goal is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the correlation between the optical flash and the very high frequency (VHF) emissions from lightning.

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External resources

http://nis-www.lanl.gov/nis-projects/forte/

sat-index articles

Technical data

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Specifications

Prime contractor	Los Alamos National Laboratory & Sandia National Lab.
Platform
Mass at launch	212 kg
Mass in orbit
Dimension
Solar array
Stabilization	3-axis
DC power	55 W
Design lifetime	3 years

First US satellite entirely made of composite materials (the 41 kg structure was built by Composite Optics). It will feature a 10.7 m antenna

RF system: receiver covering 30-300 MHz and high speed digitizers

Optical system: coarse imager 10 x 10 km resolution

Beacon: 401.565 MHz, downlink: 2215.5 MHz

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