USA-221, also known as FalconSat-5, is an American military

minisatellite In genetics, a minisatellite is a tract of repetitive DNA in which certain DNA motifs (ranging in length from 10–60 base pairs) are typically repeated two to several hundred times. Minisatellites occur at more than 1,000 locations in the huma ...

, which was launched in 2010. The fifth

FalconSat FalconSAT is the United States Air Force Academy's (USAFA) small satellite engineering program. Satellites are designed, built, tested, and operated by Academy cadets. The project is administered by the USAFA Space Systems Research Center under ...

spacecraft to be launched, it carries four technology development and

ionospheric The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays ...

research experiments. The satellite was constructed and is operated by the

United States Air Force Academy The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) is a United States service academies, United States service academy in Air Force Academy, Colorado, Air Force Academy Colorado, immediately north of Colorado Springs, Colorado, Colorado Springs. I ...

Spacecraft

USA-221 is a spacecraft, measuring by by . It operates in a

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

with an

apogee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. The line of apsides (also called apse line, or major axis of the orbit) is the line connecting the two extreme values. Apsides perta ...

of , a

perigee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. The line of apsides (also called apse line, or major axis of the orbit) is the line connecting the two extreme values. Apsides perta ...

of , and 72 degrees of

orbital inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Earth ...

. The Space Plasma Characterization Source (SPCS) studies how a cold gas ammonia thruster and a

Hall effect thruster In spacecraft propulsion, a Hall-effect thruster (HET) is a type of ion thruster in which the propellant is accelerated by an electric field. Hall-effect thrusters (based on the discovery by Edwin Hall) are sometimes referred to as Hall thrust ...

behave in space, and how they affect the spacecraft's surroundings. Meanwhile, the Wafer-Integrated Spectrometer, WISPERS, will observe the plume generated by the Hall thruster, allowing a comparison to be made to theoretical data. The other two experiments will study the Earth's ionosphere. SmartMESA, the Smart Miniaturized Electrostatic Analyzer, was designed to record the ion density of the ionosphere, as well as the temperature, to allow a study of how temperature affects ion density. It is a reflight of the original SmartMESA mission, which was lost when

FalconSat-2 FalconSAT-2 (FS 2, COSPAR 2006-F01) was a satellite built by students of the United States Air Force Academy as part of the FalconSAT program. It was intended to be placed into low Earth orbit to study the effects of plasma on communications with ...

failed to achieve orbit. The Receiver UHF/VHF Signal Strength, or RUSS, experiment, is intended to receive radio signals in the

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...

and VHF bands, to determine the levels and effects of ionospheric interference. SmartMESA, also known as the Integrated Miniaturized ElectroStatic Analyzer, and WISPERS were respectively ranked as the 26th and 31st most important experiments for DoD satellites in 2006, by the US Space Experiments Review Board.

Launch

USA-221 was launched from Pad 1 of the

Kodiak Launch Complex Kodiak may refer to: Places * Kodiak, Alaska, a city located on Kodiak island * Kodiak, Missouri, an unincorporated community * Kodiak Archipelago, in southern Alaska * Kodiak Island, the largest island of the Kodiak archipelago ** Kodiak Launc ...

, using a

Minotaur IV Minotaur IV, also known as Peacekeeper SLV and OSP-2 PK is an active expendable launch system derived from the retired LGM-118 Peacekeeper ICBM. It is operated by Northrop Grumman Space Systems, and made its maiden flight on 22 April 2010 car ...

carrier rocket with a

HAPS Haps is a village in the Dutch province of North Brabant. It is located in the former municipality of Cuijk, about south of the town of Cuijk. Since 2022 it has been part of the new municipality of Land van Cuijk. History The village was firs ...

upper stage; however USA-221 was deployed prior to ignition of the HAPS stage. The Minotaur was launched at 01:25:00 UTC on 20 November 2010, with FalconSat-5 separating into its low Earth orbit just over 25 minutes later. The launch also carried STPSat-2,

FASTSAT Fast, Affordable, Science and Technology Satellite-Huntsville 01 or FASTSAT-Huntsville 01 of the NASA. FASTSAT-HSV 01 was flying on the STP-S26 mission - a joint activity between NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense Space Test Program, or Do ...

and

NanoSail-D2 NanoSail-D2 was a small satellite built by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and Ames Research Center to study the deployment of a solar sail in space. It was a three-unit CubeSat, measuring with a mass of . Its solar sail had an area of , a ...

FASTRAC Fastrac may refer to * JCB Fastrac, a tractor by J. C. Bamford * Fastrac rocket engine, NASA's (cancelled) project * Fastrac (software), VTLS software * Formation Autonomy Spacecraft with Thrust, Relnav, Attitude, and Crosslink, A University of Te ...

O/OREOS The O/OREOS (Organism/Organic Exposure to Orbital Stresses) is a NASA automated CubeSat nanosatellite laboratory approximately the size of a loaf of bread that contains two separate astrobiology experiments on board. Developed by the Small Spac ...

, and RAX. Collectively, the deployment mission was designated STP-S26, and marked the third flight of the Minotaur IV.

References

External links

Busek (Natick, MA USA)- Propulsion System Vendor
{{Orbital launches in 2010 Spacecraft launched in 2010 USA satellites