New Tactical Satellite: On-orbit Checkout Underway

Tactical Satellite-3’s liftoff took place on May 19th from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, NASA Wallops Island Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Virginia.

Boosting the satellite into Earth orbit was a Minotaur 1 rocket, integrated by Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC). The Minotaur 1 is a four-stage vehicle, two stages being refurbished Minuteman II stages and the two stages being OSC developed.

The year-long mission of the 880-pound TacSat-3 is to evaluate a suite of payloads that includes:

-- The Advanced Responsive Tactically Effective Military Imaging Spectrometer (ARTEMIS), a hyperspectral imager
-- The Office of Naval Research’s Satellite Communications Package
-- The Space Avionics Experiment, an Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) - led experiment featuring the first space-based employment of plug-and-play technology.

This trio of instruments will offer real-time imagery (within 10 minutes of collection), sea-based information transmitted from ocean buoys and plug-and-play avionics to assist the warfighter on the ground.

Program management for TacSat-3 is the AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.

By Leonard David