ALEXIS, the little satellite that could -- 4 years later
- and others
The 113-kg Array of Low Energy X-ray Imaging Sensors (ALEXIS) satellite was launched from the fourth flight of Pegasus on 25 April, 1993 into a 750 x 850 km, 70 degree inclination orbit. Due to damage sustained at the time of launch, ground controllers did not make contact with the satellite until late June. By late July, full satellite operations had been restored through the implementation of new procedures for attitude control. Science operations with the two onboard experiments began at that time. Now 4 years later is still collecting more than 100 MB of mission data per day. ALEXIS was originally designed to be a high risk, single string. {open_quotes}Smarter-Faster-Cheaper{close_quotes} satellite, with a 1 year nominal and a 3 year design limit. This paper will discuss how well the various satellite and experiment subsystems are surviving a variety of low and high radiation environments and what improvements have been made to make operations more autonomous. 11 refs., 2 figs., 2 tabs.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 538048
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-97-3430; CONF-970991-; ON: DE98000276; TRN: 97:005473
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 11. annual AIAA conference on small satellites, Logan, UT (United States), 15-18 Sep 1997; Other Information: PBD: 1997
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
The ALEXIS small satellite project: better, faster, cheaper faces reality
The anomalous background observed by the ALEXIS telescopes