NASA Kodiak Launch Delayed

Anonymous Coward writes "Launch of the Kodiak Star has been delayed an additional 24 hours beyond Monday's scheduled attempt because of a solar flare. A flare of significant magnitude occurred this morning at11 a.m. EDT producing a "proton flux" exceeding the allowable launch criteria for the Athena I. These high levels of charged particles can cause a "data upset" in the launch vehicle guidance system affecting its reliability. This is the first launch into Earth orbit from Kodiak Island. The Kodiak Star payload consists of four satellites, of which one, Starshine 3, is sponsored by NASA. The 200-pound sphere will be used by students to study orbital decay. (Full Story at nasa.gov home) And I recall programming the 4-bit bit-slice, 4k-ram early Landsat clones... Musta been about 120-micron striplines, 'cause they were hardened. Somebody refresh my old, worn mind..."

launch status

[zardor]

Check out this status report [spaceflightnow.com] on the spaceflightnow website for more detailed updates on the attempt to get this bird off the ground over the past week or so.

fp

payloads

[zardor]

There are 4 payloads on this rocket. The following descriptions are from the spaceflightnow website [spaceflightnow.com]

The NASA-sponsored, student-built Starshine 3 satellite is covered with 1,500 aluminum mirrors, the highly reflective sphere will be seen flying overhead with the naked eye, allowing schoolchildren around the world to track the satellite.

The three Department of Defense Space Test Program payloads are PICOSat, PCSat and Sapphire.

PICOSat, built by Surrey Satellite Technology in the U.K., features four onboard experiments including tests of a flexible polymer battery, using GPS to study the ionospheric impacts to communications and navigation signals and vibration control for satellite sensors.

The Prototype Communications Satellite, or PCSat, is the first in a planned series of small spacecraft designed, built and tested by midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy. The craft will be used to relay position data from amateur radio operators to ground stations.

Sapphire, built by Stanford University, carries a couple of experiments and a voice synthesizer microchip designed to convert text messages into a human voice for transmission over amateur radio frequencies.

i see

[Hexagram 23]

very enlightening