Formosat-3/cosmic – Orbital FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC User Manual

Page 2

Orbital Sciences Corporation

45101 Warp Drive

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Dulles, Virginia 20166

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www.orbital.com

FS003_04_2998

FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC

Specifications

Spacecraft

Launch Mass:

416 kg (917 lb.) for all six spacecraft

Redundancy:

Single String

Power:

46 W continuous

Mission Life:

2 years (5 year expendables)

Orbit:

>700 km (800 km goal) circular, raised from
475 km, 72

inclination, 6 planes of 1

spacecraft spaced 24

apart

Attitude Control:

±5

roll & yaw, ±-2

pitch (1

σ)

Communications: S-band Uplink, S-band Downlink
Status: Operational

Payload

GPS Occultation Experiment
Tri-band Beacon
Tiny Ionospheric Photometer

Launch

Launch Vehicle:

Minotaur I (all six spacecraft)

Site:

Vandenberg Air Force Base, California

Date:

April 15, 2006

Orbital’s Minotaur I Space Launch Vehicle

Developed for the U.S. Air Force’s Orbital/Suborbital
Program (OSP), the Minotaur I Space Launch Vehicle
(SLV) is a low-cost, four-stage rocket using a combination
of U.S. Government-supplied Minuteman II motors and
proven Orbital space launch technologies.

Minotaur I made its inaugural flight in January 2000,
successfully delivering a number of small military and
university satellites into orbit. Less than six months later,
Minotaur I conducted a second successful mission with
the launch of a technology demonstration satellite for
the Air Force Research Laboratory. To date, Minotaur I
has conducted 11 launches with 100 percent success
launching 62 satellites into orbit.

Minotaur I is capable of launching from a government pad
at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB), California, as well
as from commercial spaceports at VAFB; Wallops Island,
Virginia; Cape Canaveral, Florida; and Kodiak Island,
Alaska.

Mission Partners

Orbital Sciences Corporation

Constellation design and analysis, spacecraft bus
development, payload instrument development, launch
operations, and Minotaur launch vehicle

National Space Organization (Hsinchu City, Taiwan)

Mission management, spacecraft integration and test,
launch/mission operations