Lewis was an American satellite which was to have been operated by
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
as part of the
Small Satellite Technology Initiative. It carried two experimental Earth imaging instruments, and an
ultraviolet astronomy payload. Due to a
design flaw it failed within three days of reaching orbit, before it became operational.
Lewis was a spacecraft, which was designed to operate for between one and three years.
It was built by
TRW under a contract which was signed on 11 July 1994.
Its primary instruments were the
Hyperspectral Imager, the
Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array and the
Ultraviolet Cosmic Background experiment.
A number of technology demonstration payloads were also flown.
Launch
Lewis was launched by a
LMLV-1 (Athena I) rocket flying from
Space Launch Complex 6 at the
Vandenberg Air Force Base
Vandenberg may refer to:
* Vandenberg (surname), including a list of people with the name
* USNS ''General Hoyt S. Vandenberg'' (T-AGM-10), transport ship in the United States Navy, sank as an artificial reef in Key West, Florida
* Vandenberg S ...
.
The launch was originally scheduled to take place in September 1996, but it was delayed due to technical problems affecting the rocket.
Launch finally occurred at 06:51:01 GMT on 23 August 1997, and Lewis was successfully placed into a parking orbit with an
apogee of , a
perigee of , and 97.5 degrees of
inclination. Lewis was to have raised itself into a higher orbit, at an altitude of .
Mission failure
On 26 August, the satellite began spinning out of control at a rate of 2
rpm, which led to a loss of communications with ground controllers, and affected the ability of its
solar arrays to generate power. Controllers were unable to regain contact with the spacecraft,
and it was declared a total loss. It reentered the atmosphere at 11:58 GMT on 28 September 1997. The cause of the failure was later established to be a design flaw in the spacecraft's attitude control system, which had been designed for the
TOMS-EP spacecraft and was not sufficiently modified to be compatible with Lewis.
See also
*
1997 in spaceflight
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis (Satellite)
Spacecraft launched in 1997