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Lewis (SSTI 1)

Lewis [TRW]

Lewis was one of two missions selected under NASA's SSTI (Small Spacecraft Technology Initiative) program to demonstrate advanced spacecraft technologies (11 July 1994).

Lewis' payload consisted of:

  • Earth imaging Hyperspectral Imager (HSI) with 384 bands (0.4 - 2.5 µm, 30 m pixels, 7.7 km swath, panchromatic: 0.45 - 0.75 µm, 5 m pixels, 13 km swath),
  • Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA), from NASA GSFC (1.0 - 2.5 µm, 256 channels, 300 m pixels, 77 km swath). and
  • Ultraviolet Cosmic Background (UCB), from UC Berkely (35 - 85 nm).

After reaching orbit, the satellite spun out of control and was losing power just days after launch because an attitude-control thruster remained in the on position longer than planned, so that Lewis could not manouver to its operational orbit and decayed soon after.

Nation: USA
Type / Application: Earth observation
Operator: NASA
Contractors: TRW
Equipment: HSI, LEISA, UCB
Configuration: T200B
Propulsion:
Power: 2 deployable solar arrays, batteries
Lifetime: 3 years (required 1 year), 5 years (goal)
Mass: 386 kg
Orbit: 523 km × 523 km, 97.5°, (planned); 124 km × 134 km, 97.5°
Satellite COSPAR Date LS Launch Vehicle Remarks
Lewis (SSTI 1) 1997-044A 23.08.1997 Va SLC-6 LMLV-1 (Athena-1)

References:

Further SSTI missions:

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