Session

Technical Session X: Delivery Systems

Abstract

Small satellites are used throughout the United States to satisfy many experimental and, ever increasingly, operational mission requirements. Unfortunately, the costs of expendable launch vehicles, coupled with insufficient secondary launch opportunities, reduce the cost-effectiveness of delivering small satellites to space. Further, all US government payloads must be launched using US launch vehicles, which limits the affordable launch opportunities available for Department of Defense (DoD), NASA, and other government agency use. However, the DoD Space Test Program (STP) and the Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate (AFRL/VS) have joined forces and developed a low-cost method of providing small satellites a new secondary payload capability. Intended for use on both the Boeing and Lockheed-Martin Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle-Medium (EELV-M) boosters, the EELV Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA) will provide increased access to cost-effective launch opportunities for 180-kg (or smaller) class satellites. Over the last year, the ESPA design has matured from a composite ring into a stiffness-driven aluminum ring, capable of carrying six secondary payloads along with a 15,000-lb primary payload into space. ESPA has also been manifested on its very first mission, as it will fly on STP’s EELV-M mission (the MLV-05 mission) scheduled to launch in the first quarter of FY05.

Share

COinS
 
Aug 16th, 9:30 AM

Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Secondary Payload Adapter - A New Delivery System for Small Satellites

Small satellites are used throughout the United States to satisfy many experimental and, ever increasingly, operational mission requirements. Unfortunately, the costs of expendable launch vehicles, coupled with insufficient secondary launch opportunities, reduce the cost-effectiveness of delivering small satellites to space. Further, all US government payloads must be launched using US launch vehicles, which limits the affordable launch opportunities available for Department of Defense (DoD), NASA, and other government agency use. However, the DoD Space Test Program (STP) and the Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate (AFRL/VS) have joined forces and developed a low-cost method of providing small satellites a new secondary payload capability. Intended for use on both the Boeing and Lockheed-Martin Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle-Medium (EELV-M) boosters, the EELV Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA) will provide increased access to cost-effective launch opportunities for 180-kg (or smaller) class satellites. Over the last year, the ESPA design has matured from a composite ring into a stiffness-driven aluminum ring, capable of carrying six secondary payloads along with a 15,000-lb primary payload into space. ESPA has also been manifested on its very first mission, as it will fly on STP’s EELV-M mission (the MLV-05 mission) scheduled to launch in the first quarter of FY05.