PANSAT

PANSAT
Mission typeAmateur radio satellite
OperatorUSAF
COSPAR ID1998-064B Edit this at Wikidata
SATCAT no.25520
Spacecraft properties
Launch mass57 kg (126 lb)
Dimensions50 cm (20 in)
Start of mission
Launch date30 October 1998, 17:20 UTC
RocketSpace Shuttle Discovery STS-95
Launch siteKennedy LC-39B
ContractorNASA
End of mission
Last contact2003
Orbital parameters
Reference systemGeocentric
RegimeLow Earth
Eccentricity0.00072
Perigee altitude551 km (342 mi)
Apogee altitude561 km (349 mi)
Inclination28.5°
Period95.8 minutes
Epoch30 October 1998[1]

PANSAT (Petite Amateur Navy Satellite, also known as OSCAR 34) was an amateur radio satellite. It was launched by Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-95 mission as part of the third International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker (IEH-3) mission, on 30 October 1998 from Kennedy Space Center, Florida.[2][3]

PANSAT satellite deployment from STS-95 Discovery's payload bay

The satellite was built by students from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. It offered the possibility of packet radio transmission in BPSK or Direct-Sequence Spread Spectrum in the 70 cm band. The satellite was configured in a sphere-like shape, featuring 26 sides used for solar cell and antenna placement.[4] The spacecraft supplied direct-sequence, spread-spectrum modulation with an operating center frequency of 436.5 MHz, a bit rate of 9600 bit/s and 9 MB of message storage.

References

  1. ^ NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. "PANSAT". NSSDCA MAster Catalog. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
  2. ^ EOPortal.org. "PANSAT". Retrieved 11 February 2020.
  3. ^ Dirk Krebs, Gunter. "PANSAT (S97-D, PO 34, PANSAT-OSCAR 34)". Gunter's Space Page. Retrieved 13 Feb 2020.
  4. ^ Martin, Donald H. (2000). Communication Satellites. AIAA. ISBN 978-1-884989-09-4.
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