Santa Clara University ParaSat Program
Artemis Picosatellite Project
SCREEM LAB
 
 

Launch Information Feb. 17, 2000 - Here are the keplerian elements for the last four picosats (JAK and StenSat, T&L) released from OPAL   Feb. 12, 2000 - Thelma and Louise (a.k.a. Thunder and Lightning) were launched from OPAL at 05:43:53 PST                           No signal has been heard from T & L... Our fingers are crossed...                           Congratulations to OPAL for successfully completing ALL of the short-term mission requirements Feb. 11, 2000 - T & L are scheduled to be released from OPAL during the 2/12 5:40am PST pass over Stanford                           Tracked objects around OPAL has confirmed JAK and StenSat ejection from OPAL                           During the morning pass, downloaded OPAL telemetry confirmed JAK's ejection                           No signal has been heard from JAK                           Stay Tuned...    Feb. 10, 2000 - JAK was commanded to launch from OPAL during the 7pm PST pass over Stanford tonight                            Still waiting for confirmation                           Keps will be published as soon as they're available                           Thelma and Louise are soon to follow                           Congratulations to Aerospace for successfully completing their picosatellite operations   Feb. 8, 2000 - OPAL is in nominal operations mode                         OPAL has successfully ejected the first picosatellites (built by Aerospace Corp.) into orbit                         Multiple confirmations: NORAD tracking, pico beacon, and OPAL onboard telemetry Upon ejection from OPAL, the three Artemis picosatellites can be monitored as follows: JAK:                        437.1 MHz downlink                                 Morse Code transmission Thelma and Louise:  437.1 MHz downlink                                 FM transmission, FSK, 1200 baud OPAL was successfully deployed from JAWSAT and the first OPAL beacon was heard at the SSDL ground station at Stanford University at 4:40 a.m. PST on Thursday, January 27, 2000.  For more up-to-date information on OPAL's status, please see here. The latest OPAL keplerian elements can be found here OPAL pass schedule calculated from the above keps can be found here. OPAL was successfully launched at 7:03 p.m. PST on January 26, 2000 out of Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA! The following URL shows a webcast of the launch: http://www.webcastingtv.com/jawsat/     Media Coverage News Coverage Videos KRON (Channel 4) Evening News: January 26, 2000 KPIX (Channel 5) Evening News: January 18, 2000 San Jose Mercury News: January 16, 2000 EETimes.com: October 11, 1999 ABCNews.com: December 16, 1998    Introduction The Santa Clara Remote Extreme Environment Mechanism (SCREEM) Laboratory concentrates on designing mechanisms to survive extreme environments.  Developing small satellites, as part of this educational program, is our way of tackling the extreme environment of space.  A group of six female undergraduate senior engineers, who go by the name of Artemis, are one of the lab's teams striving to develop new space technology......                                                  Welcome to the  Artemis Picosatellite Project                                                                     at Santa Clara University.   Artemis is building satellites that weigh less than a kilogram by utilizing a commercial microprocessor, transmitting on amateur radio frequencies from the picosatellite to ground, and using commercial off-the-shelf batteries to power the picosatellite. The mission being explored covers the feasibility of such miniature spacecraft for lightning science and mothership-daughtership technology verification. These picosatellites are slated for launch in the OPAL (Orbiting Picosatellite Automatic Launcher) microsatellite in September 1999.  "The primary mission of the OPAL picosatellite payl