DRAGONSat (Dual RF Astrodynamic GPS Orbital Navigator Satellite) is a pair of nanosatellites that will be demonstrating autonomous rendezvous and docking (ARD) in low

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surf ...

orbit (LEO) for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...

. It will be gathering flight data with a global positioning system (GPS) receiver strictly designed for space applications to gather flight data in the space environment. ARD is the capability of two independent spacecraft to rendezvous in orbit and dock without crew intervention. One DRAGONSat was built by the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

and the other one was built by

Texas A and M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public university, public, Land-grant university, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M Unive ...

, the

Space Shuttle Payload Launcher Space is the boundless Three-dimensional space, three-dimensional extent in which Physical body, objects and events have relative position (geometry), position and direction (geometry), direction. In classical physics, physical space is often ...

(SSPL), These satellite projects will rendezvous and dock with each other in space without the benefit of human intervention. DRAGONSat is planned to be an eight-year program with a launch of the satellites approximately every two years. The first three missions will test individual components and subsystems while the final mission will culminate with the successful docking of two satellites. Each mission builds upon the previous mission culminating in a fully autonomous rendezvous and docking mission. Both universities are required to use GPS receivers designed by NASA in order to determine its functionality. One of the objectives is to demonstrate precision real-time

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...

capability as well as precision relative navigation between the two satellites.

Operations

DRAGONSat is a pair of two 5 inches x 5 inches x 5 inches satellites which are launched from the

Shuttle The original meaning of the word shuttle is the device used in weaving to carry the weft. By reference to the continual to-and-fro motion associated with that, the term was then applied in transportation and then in other spheres. Thus the word ma ...

orbiter payload bay. Both satellites are built of aluminum with a mass of approximately 7.5 kg. Each picosatellite is covered with

photo-voltaic cell A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physical and chemical phenomenon.

s and will enable a longer active life in orbit. Each satellite also has a

dipole antenna In radio and telecommunications a dipole antenna or doublet is the simplest and most widely used class of antenna. The dipole is any one of a class of antennas producing a radiation pattern approximating that of an elementary electric dipole w ...

and two antennas for the GPS receiver. The satellites are ejected from the SSPL which is located on the payload bay sidewall.

Protocols

Both DRAGONSat are launched together in the Space Shuttle Payload Launcher (SSPL) from the side walls of the orbiter payload bay. They are ejected as a pair and once they are at a safe distance from the Space Shuttle, they will separate and begin the experiment. Data collection will be downlinked to

ground station A ground station, Earth station, or Earth terminal is a terrestrial radio station designed for extraplanetary telecommunication with spacecraft (constituting part of the ground segment of the spacecraft system), or reception of radio waves f ...

s for as long as the satellites are able to transmit.

Specifications

:''Section source' ;DRAGONSat-1 "BEVO-1" * Country: USA * Application: Spacecraft docking technology * Operator:

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

* Contractors: University of Texas at Austin * Equipment: DRAGON GPS Receiver * Configuration: 5" cube * Propulsion: none * Lifetime: 3.5 kg * Mass: 5 kg ;DRAGONSat-2 "AggieSat-2" * Country: USA * Application: Spacecraft docking technology * Operator:

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

* Contractors: Texas A&M University * Equipment: DRAGON GPS Receiver * Configuration: 5" cube * Propulsion: None * Lifetime: 3.5 kg * Mass: 3.5 kg

Launches

STS-127 STS-127 (ISS assembly flight 2J/A) was a NASA Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS). It was the twenty-third flight of . The primary purpose of the STS-127 mission was to deliver and install the final two components of th ...

Shuttle On July 30, 2009 STS-127 Flight Day 16 the first pair of DRAGONSats were inserted into orbit. Space Shuttle ''Endeavour'' placed them in orbit at 8:35 am EDT. for their multiyear mission to study automatic dockings in space. Deployment occurred over central

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...

at an altitude of 218 miles.Space Launch News: Crew Departs Shuttle after "Fantastic Mission" , July 31, 2009, Story by Charles Atkeison
/ref>

References

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External links