UoSAT-5, also known as UoSAT-F, UO-22 and OSCAR 22, is a British

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

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 ...

. It was built by

Surrey Satellite Technology 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 ...

and launched into space in July 1991 from

French Guiana French Guiana, or Guyane in French, is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France located on the northern coast of South America in the Guianas and the West Indies. Bordered by Suriname to the west ...

Mission

UoSAT-5 carries equipment that was similar to that on UoSAT-4, a similar satellite that failed in orbit 1 year previously. The satellite tested new technologies, including validating the performance of

Gallium arsenide Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a III-V direct band gap semiconductor with a Zincblende (crystal structure), zinc blende crystal structure. Gallium arsenide is used in the manufacture of devices such as microwave frequency integrated circuits, monoli ...

solar arrays.

References

University of Surrey Satellites orbiting Earth Amateur radio satellites Satellites of the United Kingdom Spacecraft launched in 1991 {{UK-spacecraft-stub