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PharmaSat

Field	Value
name	PharmaSat
image	330070main PreSat Assembly 428-321.jpg
image_caption	PharmaSat undergoing preflight testing
image_size	300px
mission_type	Biological research
operator	NASA
COSPAR_ID	2009-028B
SATCAT	35002
website
mission_duration	6 months (planned)
(final)
spacecraft_bus	3U CubeSat
manufacturer	NASA Ames Space Center
launch_mass	4.5 kg
power	Solar cells and batteries
launch_date	19 May 2009, 23:55 UTC
launch_rocket	Minotaur I
launch_site	MARS, Pad 0B
launch_contractor	Orbital Sciences
decay_date	14 August 2012
orbit_reference	Geocentric orbit
orbit_regime	Low Earth orbit
orbit_periapsis	428 km
orbit_apoapsis	466 km
orbit_inclination	40.4°
orbit_period	93.52 minutes
apsis	gee

(final)

PharmaSat was a nanosatellite developed by NASA Ames Research Center which measured the influence of microgravity upon yeast resistance to an antifungal agent. As a follow on to the GeneSat-1 mission, the Ames Small Spacecraft Division conducted the PharmaSat mission in collaboration with industry and local universities.

PharmaSat was the first nanosatellite to implement biological science guided by its Principal Investigator. The mission was designed to aid the development of medicines or techniques to enable long-term crewed space travel and habitation.

Background

The PharmaSat mission builds upon technology demonstrated by GeneSat-1, which used a CubeSat to study microfluidics and optics in the space environment. It was designed to provide life-support, growth, monitoring, and analysis capabilities for microorganisms.

Based, like GeneSat-1, around a three-unit CubeSat platform; PharmaSat was designed to accomplish five functions in an autonomous free-flying platform:

Provide life support and environmental control for growth of the yeast strain in 48 independent microwells;
Dose the growing yeast with antifungal agent at the appropriate point on the growth curve with three distinct, well-defined dosage levels, plus a zero-dose control;
Track the population of the yeast via optical density of each microwell before, during and after antifungal administration;
Determine well-by-well yeast viability at multiple, well-defined times after antifungal administration using a colorimetric reagent, Alamar Blue;
Telemeter the resulting population and viability data to Earth, along with system status data.

Operations

PharmaSat was launched at 23:55 UTC on 19 May 2009 aboard a Minotaur I launch vehicle from Pad 0B at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island. PharmaSat was flown as a secondary payload co-manifested with the US Air Force Air Force Research Laboratory's TacSat-3 spacecraft.

PharmaSat was successfully inserted into a low Earth orbit at approximately 459 km above the Earth, following which it was activated and began transmitting radio signals to two ground control stations. The primary ground station at SRI International in Menlo Park, California, transmitted mission data from the satellite to its operators, while a second station was located at Santa Clara University, whose Robotic Systems Laboratory was responsible for operating the satellite.

After establishing contact the satellite was commanded to initiate its experiment, which lasted 96 hours. Once the experiment began, PharmaSat relayed data in near real-time for up to six months. PharmaSat also carried an amateur radio beacon, with a frequency of 437.465 megahertz, which broadcast spacecraft telemetry. Amateur radio operators were asked to collect data from the spacecraft and provide it to the operators via the Mission Dashboard website.

PharmaSat decayed from orbit and reentered the atmosphere on 14 August 2012.

References

"Minotaur launch delayed again".
"Launch Log". Jonathan's Space Report.
"Satellite Catalog". Jonathan's Space Report.
(1 April 2009). "PharmaSat Nanosatellite".
"Robotics Systems Lab - School of Engineering - Santa Clara University".
"PharmaSat Mission Dashboard".

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

spacecraft-launched-in-2009 cubesats spacecraft-launched-by-minotaur-rockets spacecraft-which-reentered-in-2012

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