Spacetrack Directory Name | SNAP 1 |
Orbit launches | 2000-06-28 |
Country/organisation of origin | Anglia (UK) |
Starting point | PLMSC (Plesetsk Missile and Space Complex, Russia) |
WWW | Here |
Perigee | 658 km |
Apogee | 673 km |
SNAP-1 (Surrey Nanosatellite Applications Platform) was designed and built as a research mission by a joint academic-commercial team at the Surrey Space Centre and SSTL - funded entirely by SSTL.
The objective of SNAP-1 is to demonstrate in orbit the capabilities of advanced, highly integrated nanosatellites and their use as autonomous robots for observing orbiting space vehicles.
In addition to the machine vision payload, SNAP-1 carries a miniature propulsion system, the size of a pencil, using butane. This is currently being used to manoeuvre the nanosatellite to rendezvous with the Chinese Tsinghua 1 microsatellite.
Also on-board this tiny spacecraft are other miniature systems: a momentum wheel and magnetorquers for 3-axis attitude control; a GPS receiver for autonomous orbit determination; a 220 MHz ''StrongARM'' 1100 on-board computer for housekeeping and high level vision functions; and an S-band communications system.
SNAP-1 imaging capabilities:
Three wide-angle CMOS cameras, each with a 350 x 288 pixel detector, and each with a 90 degree field of view to cover an arc of 270 degrees.
A single narrow-angle camera (350 x 288 pixels) co-aligned with the centre wide-angle camera providing the capability of finer feature inspection.
SNAP-1 mission achievements:
The first fully 3-axis attitude stablised nanosatellite.
The first nanosatellite with on-board propulsion demonstrating orbit control.
The first in-orbit images of another spacecraft from a nanosatellite.
The first successful use of GPS on-board a nanosatellite - used for orbit manoeuvring.
First use of propulsion on a nanosatellite and first use of butane as a space propellant.