SmallSats
- [Universität Heidelberg, Germany]
- Overview
Ames SmallSat mission timeline begins with the launch of Pioneer 10 and 11 launched March 1972 and April 1973, respectively. These missions were trail blazers for the later Voyager 1 & 2 missions.
Ames’ present SmallSat program has focused on lunar exploration with Lunar Prospector launched in January 1998 followed by LCROSS in June 2009 and more recently LADEE in September 2013.
The size and cost of spacecraft vary depending on the application; some you can hold in your hand while others like Hubble are as big as a school bus.
Small spacecraft (SmallSats) focus on spacecraft with a mass less than 180 kilograms and about the size of a large kitchen fridge.
Even with small spacecraft, there is a large variety of size and mass that can be differentiated.
- Minisatellite, 100-180 kilograms
- Microsatellite, 10-100 kilograms
- Nanosatellite, 1-10 kilograms
- Picosatellite, 0.01-1 kilograms
- Femtosatellite, 0.001-0.01 kilograms
[More to come ...]
