Opal

Orbiting Picosat Automatic Launcher, also called OO-38 and OPAL OSCAR-38

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General

Designation	26063 / 00004C
Launch date	27 Jan 2000
Country of origin	United States
Mission	Technology
Perigee/Apogee	773 km
Inclination	100.2°
Period	100.4 min
Launch vehicle	Minotaur #1

Stanford University's second Satellite QUIck Research Testbed (SQUIRT) satellite. The SQUIRT program, offered by the Satellite Systems Development Laboratory (SSDL) in the Stanford University Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, is designed to expose graduate level students to all aspects of the design and construction of a satellite. Each SQUIRT micro-satellite is meant to be constructed in one year on a budget of just $50,000. The design for OPAL was started in early April of 1995.

OPAL's (Orbiting Picosat Automatic Launcher) primary mission is to test the feasibility of launching 6 picosatellites from a mothership satellite (Stensat, MENS, Artemis). The 0.5 kg Stensat, built by an AMSAT-NA group, carries an amateur radio transponder. The DARPA/Aerospace Corp. MEMS (Micro Electro-mechanical Systems) picosatellites (2 of them), carry an intersatellite communications experiment and are connected by a 30-m tether. Santa Clara University's Artemis payload consists of 3 picosatellites (Jak (200 g), Thelma (500 g) and Louise (500 g)) that carry a VLF wave experiment.

OPAL uses a mechanical launching system to eject three hockey-puck sized picosats.

The satellite's secondary payloads consist of a suite of miniature accelerometers and a flux gate magnetometer that will be validated in space. Four experimental payloads are supplied by various US organisations including RF Beacon, GPS Ionospheric Sounding Payload, Polymer Battery, and Ultra Quiet Stabilisation Platform

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External resources

http://ssdl.stanford.edu/opal/index.html

http://www.aero.org/news/current/picosat.html
sat-index articles

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Sub satellites

MENS (26080 / 00004H):
The MENS satellites are smaller than a deck of cards (10 x 7.5 x 2.5 cm). They are linked by a tether. The satellites can communicate with each other and with the ground station by radio (with omni-directional antennas). Two transmissions were successful.

Stensat (26094 / 00004M):
Downlink: 436.625 MHz, Uplink: 145.84 MHz, "J" FM voice repeater

JAK (26093 / 00004L)
Louise (26091 / 00004J) (no-data received)
Thelma (26092 / 00004K) (no-data received)

Technical data

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Specifications

Prime contractor	SSTL
Platform
Mass at launch	50 kg
Mass in orbit
Dimension	hexagonal prism 23.5 cm height, 21 cm outside radius
Solar array
Stabilization	none
DC power
Design lifetime

Uplink: in 420-450 MHz band
Downlink: 437.100 MHz (1.7 W)
data rate 9600 baud

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