The "Offical" IEH-3 Decal.
The Petite Amateur Navy Satellite (PANSAT) is a small satellite in development at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). The main objective is to support the Space Systems Engineering and Space Systems Operations Curricula by providing a "hands-on" hardware project where exposure to the many facets of a space system development and life cycle can be experienced. The spacecraft itself will provide digital, spread spectrum communications using the amateur radio 70 cm band. Once in orbit, PANSAT will further provide educational training through a space-based laboratory for officer students at NPS.
PANSAT will be launched from the Shuttle into a low-Earth orbit with an altitude of 300 nmi (555 km). and whose orbit plane will be inclined 28.45° from the Earth's equatorial plane. PANSAT is manifested on the STS-95 Shuttle mission as part of the International Extreme-ultraviolet Hitchhiker-3 (IEH-3) experiment. STS-95 (Discovery) is scheduled to launch on 29 October 1998.
Integration and testing of PANSAT at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) started 4 June 1998. This included a post-ship functional checkout followed by mass properties testing and system level vibration testing. Following PANSAT-specific testing, the spacecraft was integrated with the IEH-3 pallet, or bridge. The IEH-3 bridge was shipped to NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) for final integration with the Shuttle the first week of Aug., 1998.
The STS-95 mission crew is as follows (Source: http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-95/mission-sts-95.html ).
PANSAT is tentatively scheduled to be deployed on flight day 1 of the ten-day mission. The spacecraft will require at least eight hours of battery charging for one battery to reach approximately 50% capacity. Initial orbit predictions allow for a potential first contact from NPS as soon as 11 minutes after Shuttle deploy. Once initial on-orbit checkout has been performed and software modules have been uploaded to the spacecraft, PANSAT will begin its functions as a store-and-forward communication system, or orbiting mailbox. The user interface will be much like a bulletin board system, where messages and telemetry stored on the spacecraft can be listed and down-loaded to the ground. Also, amateur radio users can up-load messages for retrieval by other users.
PANSAT Spacecraft in OpenInventor format (2 Mbytes). Viewable on an SGI workstation. Download the file, then run "ivview file_name."
PANSAT Configuration in Acrobat PDF file format (103 kbytes).
Photo of initial integration of PANSAT spacecraft.
Photos from our integration and test at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD.
PANSAT Artwork by non-other than your humble web site host (Dan -- with a little help from others).
Do you use Analytical Graphics, Inc. Satellite Tool Kit? Get the 3D PANSAT model for use with Satellite Tool Kit / VO module (7 k Text file). -- [This is not an endorsement]
Check out the "Official PANSAT Web Site."
Note: NPS Space Programs web pages will be updated following delivery of the PANSAT spacecraft to NASA/GSFC.
Last Updated: 10 Nov. 1998.