Atlas V GEMSat Launch 2013

LAUNCH VEHICLE:

Atlas V

 

LAUNCH SITE:

Vandenberg Air Force Base

 

LAUNCH TIME:

December 6, 2013 - 07:14:30 UTC

 

NUMBER OF CUBESATS:

12

 

PRIMARY PAYLOAD:

NROL-39

P-Pod Satellite Name Organization Size Beacon Details More Info
1 FIREBIRD Montana State University, University of New Hampshire, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Aerospace Corp. 1.5U (x2) Flight Unit 1: 437.405 MHzFlight Unit 2: 437.230 MHzGMSK AX.25 9600bps, 1W, 60 sec period More Info
2 AeroCube5 Aerospace Corp. 1.5U (x2)
3 ALICE Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) 3U 460 MHz, GFSK, 12.5% duty cycle (5 seconds of 3 bursts per second then 40 seconds of RX)Beacon is based on when ALICE is 2 minutes away from AOS contact with our ground station. This information is uploaded from ephemeris data from our ground station. Will beacon until comms are established. More Info
4 SNaP U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command 3U
5 MCubed-2 Michigan eXploration Laboratory 1U 437.485 MHz, 9600 baud, 10 sec period More Info
5 CUNYSAT-1 Medgar Evers College, The City University of New York 1U 437.505 MHz, 9600 bps GMSK, CW More Info
5 IPEX Cal Poly, SLO - PolySat 1U 437.270MHz: Morse Code of "IPEX" every 45s at 15wpm, 9600 baud AX.25 FSK Beacon every 127s and 20s. More Info
6 SMDC-ONE (David) U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command 3U More Info
7 TacSat-6 U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command 3U
8 SMDC-ONE (Charlie) U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command 3U More Info

The CubeSats are integrated into 8 P-POD deployers which are contained in the NPSCuL built by the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). The NPSCuL together with the 8 P-PODs and 12 CubeSats is referred to as the Government Experimental Multi-Satellite (GEMSat), and is attached to the Centaur upper stage's Aft Bulkhead Carrier (ABC). The assembled GEMSat is shown in the photo below ready for mate to the launch vehicle along with members of the GEMSat team consisting of NPS, Office of Space Launch (OSL), United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Cal Poly, SLO.

For those of you supporting us on launch day, don't forget to join the IRC channel. Information about the channel can be found at http://www.cubesat.org/index.php/collaborate/ground-operators.