Astrid-1 and Astrid-2 were two

microsatellites A microsatellite is a tract of repetitive DNA in which certain DNA motifs (ranging in length from one to six or more base pairs) are repeated, typically 5–50 times. Microsatellites occur at thousands of locations within an organism's genome. ...

designed and developed by Swedish Space Corporation on behalf of the Swedish National Space Board. They were piggyback launched on a Cosmos-3M launch vehicle from

Plesetsk Plesetsk (russian: Плесе́цк) is an urban locality (a work settlement) and the administrative center of Plesetsky District, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, situated about northeast of Moscow and south of Arkhangelsk. Municipally, it is ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

. Astrid 1 on January 24, 1995, and Astrid 2 on December 10, 1998.

Astrid-1

Sweden's first microsatellite was piggybacked with the launch of

Tsikada Tsikada (russian: Цикада meaning ''cicada''), was a Soviet satellite navigation system including ten Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. It transmits the same two carrier frequencies as the U.S. TRANSIT satellite system.Bernhard Hofmann-Well ...

, a Russian

navigation satellite A satellite navigation or satnav system is a system that uses satellites to provide autonomous geo-spatial positioning. It allows satellite navigation devices to determine their location (longitude, latitude, and altitude/elevation) to high pre ...

and FAISAT, a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

communications satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth ...

. It carried an

Energetic Neutral Atom Energetic Neutral Atom (ENA) imaging, often described as "seeing with atoms", is a technology used to create global images of otherwise invisible phenomena in the magnetospheres of planets and throughout the heliosphere. The solar wind is compo ...

imager called PIPPI (Prelude in Planetary Particle Imaging), an

Electron The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no ...

Spectrometer A spectrometer () is a scientific instrument used to separate and measure spectral components of a physical phenomenon. Spectrometer is a broad term often used to describe instruments that measure a continuous variable of a phenomenon where the ...

called EMIL (Electron Measurements - In-situ and Lightweight) and two UV

imager An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of cur ...

s called MIO (Miniature Imaging Optics), one for imaging the Earth's

aurora An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of bri ...

and one for observing Lyman alpha-emission from the Earth's

geocorona The geocorona is the luminous part of the outermost region of the Earth's atmosphere, the exosphere. It is seen primarily via far-ultraviolet light ( Lyman-alpha) from the Sun that is scattered from neutral hydrogen. It extends to at minimum 1 ...

. This payload, named after characters in Astrid Lindgren's books (the idea came from a

n scientist ), was developed by the Swedish Institute of Space Physics in Kiruna. On March 1, a DC to DC converter for the scientific instruments failed, possibly due to a

short circuit A short circuit (sometimes abbreviated to short or s/c) is an electrical circuit that allows a current to travel along an unintended path with no or very low electrical impedance. This results in an excessive current flowing through the circui ...

, ending its scientific mission. However, the satellite was operated until September 27, serving as a testbed for various software algorithms and store-and-forward communications. The entire satellite was built in a year and the cost, including launch, was 1.4 million U.S. dollars.

Astrid-2

Astrid-2 was Sweden's second microsatellite and it was piggybacked with Nadezhda 5, a Russian

on December 10, 1998, on a Kosmos-3M rocket from Plesetsk in Russia. Its payload, built by the Swedish Institute of Space Physics in Kiruna and

Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Located north of the c ...

and the Royal Institute of Technology (Alfven Laboratory) in Stockholm, was EMMA (Electrical and Magnetic field Monitoring of the Aurora), LINDA (Langmuir INterferometer and Density experiment for Astrid-2), MEDUSA (Miniaturized Electrostatic DUal-tophat Spherical Analyzer) and PIA (Photometers for Imaging the Aurora). It was used to explore the

electric Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...

and magnetic fields in the upper ionosphere and to measure

neutral Neutral or neutrality may refer to: Mathematics and natural science Biology * Neutral organisms, in ecology, those that obey the unified neutral theory of biodiversity Chemistry and physics * Neutralization (chemistry), a chemical reaction in ...

and charged particles and

electron The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no ...

density. On July 24, 1999, the contact with the satellite was lost. During its 7 and a half months in space, Astrid-2 delivered a large amount of information to researchers.

References

{{reflist

External links

Astrid-1 at Swedish Space Corporation

Astrid-2 at Swedish Space Corporation

from NASA's Mission and Spacecraft Library
Astrid-2 Quicklook
from NASA's Mission and Spacecraft Library
Astrid-1 at Astronautix

Satellites orbiting Earth Space programme of Sweden Science and technology in Sweden Microsatellites Geospace monitoring satellites

Astrid-1

Astrid-2

See also

References

External links