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Satellite Celebrates 20 Years Working in Orbit
lloydwood writes "The UoSAT-2/UO-11 small satellite was launched into low Earth orbit on 1 March 1984 from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Twenty years later, it's still in orbit and operational -- and we recently found launch footage. To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of starting in orbit, the original video celebrating the UoSAT-2 launch is available (in windows media and mpeg). Thrill to the computers, the clothes, and the haircuts of 1984. SSTL has launched more than twenty satellites since."
Since when do we celebrate various equipment still working? Guess I better ready for my PS2's upcoming 2 year still working anniversary!
"Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
With posting a 64-meg MPEG, I think we can be sure that their server won't have nearly the uptime of the satellite.
If it was made twenty years ago, wouldnt it have to be 10,000 times larger than a modern computer and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe would own them.
Post apocalyptic gaming goodness
Actually, NASA had it's own operating system called PLEK-SLC for satelites back then.
Incidentally, that launch pad is about 3 miles from where I'm sitting. I can see it if I climb up on the antenna tower on the roof, but management got mad last time I did that to watch a launch.
Things like this should be publicized much more than the stupid mistakes NASA makes. It's hard to keep a car running 20 years even with a constant supply of oil and maintanence work. This is much cooler, and deserves more media attention than a mixing up of metric and Imperial measurements (all though the mixups are STILL important). Eh, just a quick rant.
Torren of the WMV file HERE.
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I posted a mirror of the video here.
I must post this anonymously.
I was a junior engineer on the UoSAT-2/UO-11 project. Early into the project a group of military people visited us. We were asked various odd questions. This exchange in particular remains strong in my memory:
Military Man: Can we mount a laser into this satellite?
My Boss: No way, that'd require a lot of reenforcement of the tube chamber (back then we didn't have solid state).
Military Man: You could compensate with more fuel for launch. I'll approve it myself.
My Boss: But.. a laser? What size are you talking about and for what?
Military Man: [leans to assistant, whispers back and forth] We can tell you but your juniors [myself and 2 co-workers] will have to leave. [we did]
my boss left the project immediately and worked on a secret payload project overseen by the military. Whatever that bird has in it, it's looking down at us.
Although we can be reasonably well-assured that the computers were state-of-the-art at the time, the clothes and haircuts are another matter. Please remember that these are professional geeks we're talking about, and are therefore not exactly cutting edge when it comes to fashion. To all appearances it was closer to 1978 than 1984.
I know this because I was in college in 1984, and we all looked great, but these guys look like dorks.
And the brethren went away edified.
Considering that batteries die with age, solar panels degrade with exposure, and radiation of all sorts bombard the spacecraft. Also you have to have fuel to station keep, and it is only recently that ion thrusters have become available that dont require a lot of reaction mass to operate.
20 years of operation in the harsh environment of space gets my applause.
Duke Nukem: Forever was only 3 years into development.
I, too, must post this anonymously.
I was that Military Man. The project to which you refer was the 'Alan Parsons Project'. We were going to put a jumbo 'laser' on the moon as part of a world domination plan. Didn't work out for some reason, I think a British agent foiled the plan or something.
What about the amazing story of the Amateur Radio satallite Ostcar 7 that was launched in 1974, operated for six years, then died due to a shorted battery, only to re-awaken from the dead in 2002 after 21 years of silence.
So we have satellites that work after having been dead longer than your satellites have been alive.
Nyeah.
G.
UoSat is not a NASA satellite. It was built and is controlled by the University of Surrey (england to the geographically challenged). It carries ham radio gear and a store-and-forward repeater for NGOs in third world nations.
UoSAT-2 was not a Nasa mission. It was built by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd in Guildford, a University town just west of London. We've grown quite a bit since then. We specialize in building small satellites (think 100 kgs, not 1000's of kgs). It's a different way of doing things to the way NASA and ESA usually does, but it's catching on.