SNAP-1 is a British nanosatellite in

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 ...

.C Underwood, G Richardson, J Savignol
"In-orbit results from the SNAP-1 nanosatellite and its future potential"
Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society, 2003P Fortescue, J Stark, G Swinerd, "Spacecraft Systems Engineering", Third Edition, Wiley - Section 18.7, pages 597-599 The satellite was built at the Surrey Space Centre by

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, or SSTL, is a company involved in the manufacture and operation of small satellites. A spin-off company of the University of Surrey, it is presently wholly owned by Airbus Defence and Space. The company began o ...

(SSTL) and members of the

University of Surrey The University of Surrey is a public research university in Guildford, Surrey, England. The university received its Royal Charter, royal charter in 1966, along with a Plate glass university, number of other institutions following recommendations ...

. It was launched on 28 June 2000 on board a

Kosmos-3M The Kosmos-3M ( meaning "''Cosmos''", GRAU index 11K65M) was a Russian space launch vehicle, member of the Kosmos (rocket family), Kosmos rocket family. It was a liquid-fueled two-stage launch vehicle, first launched in 1967 and with over 420 s ...

rocket from the

Plesetsk Cosmodrome Plesetsk Cosmodrome () is a Russian spaceport located in Mirny, Arkhangelsk Oblast, near the town of Plesetsk, from which it takes its name. Until 2025 and the commissioning of the Andøya Space, Andøya base in Norway, it was the only operati ...

in northern Russia. It shared the launch with a Russian Nadezhda search and relay spacecraft and the Chinese Tsinghua-1 microsatellite.

Mission

The objectives of the SNAP-1 mission were to: * Develop and prove a modular

commercial off-the-shelf Commercial-off-the-shelf or commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) products are packaged or canned (ready-made) hardware or software, which are adapted aftermarket to the needs of the purchasing organization, rather than the commissioning of ...

(COTS) based nanosatellite bus. * Evaluate new manufacturing techniques and technologies. * Image the Tsinghua-1 microsatellite during its deployment (timed to occur a few seconds after the deployment of SNAP-1). * Demonstrate the systems required for future nanosatellite constellations. For example: three-axis attitude control,

Global Positioning System The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide ge ...

(GPS) based orbit determination, and orbital manoeuvres. * Depending on propellant availability, rendezvous with Tsinghua-1 and demonstrate formation flying. During deployment, SNAP-1 successfully imaged the Nadezhda and Tsinghua-1 satellites that accompanied it on the launch.R Lancaster
"An optical remote inspection system for the Surrey Nanosatellite Applications Program"
University of Surrey MSc thesis, 2001R Lancaster, C Underwood
"The SNAP-1 Machine Vision System"
14th AIAA / USU Conference on Small Satellites, 2000 Once in orbit, SNAP-1 achieved three axis attitude control,W H Steyn, Y Hashida
"In-Orbit Attitude Performance of the 3-Axis Stabilised SNAP-1 Nanosatellite"
15th AIAA / USU Conference on Small Satellites, 2001 then demonstrated its orbital maintenance capability using its butane cold gas propulsion system.D Gibbon, C Underwood
"Low Cost Butane Propulsion Systems for Small Spacecraft"
15th AIAA / USU Conference on Small Satellites, 2001

Architecture

The SNAP-1 satellite contained the following modules: * Power System * VHF Receiver *

S-band The S band is a designation by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for a part of the microwave band of the electromagnetic spectrum covering frequencies from 2 to 4 gigahertz (GHz). Thus it crosses the convention ...

TransmitterZ Wahl, K Walker, J Ward
"Modular and Reusable Miniature Subsystems for Small Satellites: An Example Describing Surrey’s Nanosatellite S-Band Downlink"
14th AIAA / USU Conference on Small Satellites, 2000 * Attitude and Orbit Control System (AOCS) * Cold-Gas Propulsion (CGP) System * On-Board Computer (OBC) * VHF spread-spectrum communications payload *

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 ...

inter-satellite link * Machine Vision System (MVS)

References

{{Orbital launches in 2000 University of Surrey Satellites orbiting Earth Satellites of the United Kingdom Spacecraft launched in 2000