May 14, 2007

Cal Poly CubeSat in Orbit

Cal Poly's CP-4 CubeSat was launched into Earth orbit on April 17. The dramatic image of the tiny spacecraft was taken by AeroCube-2, a picosatellite built by The Aerospace Corporation.

Both miniature spacecraft were lauched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan< by a Russian Dnepr rocket.

CP-4  is conducting a power dissipation experiment and is expected to operate for about one year.

CubeSat is an international collaboration of more than 80 universities, high schools and private firms developing picosatellites containing scientific, private and government payloads. In addition to Cal Poly’s two CubeSats, which have been in the making for more than four years, the March 26 launch will carry the first CubeSats built by Boeing and the nation of Colombia, along with satellites built by the University of Louisiana, the AeroSpace Corporation and Tethers Unlimited, a satellite development company.

Built to specifications developed by Cal Poly and StanfordUniversity<’s Space Systems Development Laboratory, all the picosatellites aboard the Dnepr-1LV rocket were launched from picosatellite orbital deployers (P-Pods) designed and built at Cal Poly. The rocket carried three Cal Poly P-Pods bolted into its fairing.

 

Photo credit: The Aerospace Corporation