The University of Surrey UoSAT-2 spacecraft mission

Abstract

The UoSAT-2 spacecraft was designed and built at the University of Surrey and launched into a low Earth orbit within the remarkably short timescale of 6 months and on a budget of £450000. It has demonstrated clearly both the feasibility and potential of inexpensive yet sophisticated spacecraft, and has also shown that such projects can be undertaken successfully by a compact university team. Launched by NASA as a secondary payload in March 1984, UoSAT-2 has mission objectives that support cost-effective spacecraft design and operation, evaluation of new technologies in the space environment, provision of flight opportunities for modest space science payloads, evaluation of novel communications services, and the promotion of space education.UoSAT-2 is fully commissioned and operational in orbit, supporting daily experiments on a weekly schedule under the automatic control of an on-board computer. Investigations of digital store-and-forward communications, the effect of the space radiation environment on VLSl devices, CCD Earth imaging, auroral particle-wave studies, spacecraft engineering and space education experiments are being pursued.