Kodiak Star – The Mission, the Challenges, the Success: A Look at Lesson’s Learned from the First Orbital Flight from Alaska

Kodiak Star – The Mission, the Challenges, the Success: A Look at Lesson’s Learned from the First Orbital Flight from Alaska

The Kodiak Star was a fast paced mission utilizing a number of first flight items including a payload upper deck, a light band separation system, and a method of deploying multiple payloads from the launch vehicle. The total integration time for this mission was 10-months from a novel remote launch complex. The mission configuration consisted of three Air force Payloads (PICOSat, PCSat, Sapphire) and one NASA sponsored payload, Starshine 3. On September 29, 2001, at 6.40p.m. ADT the Kodiak Star mission successfully lifted off from the Kodiak Launch Complex and 2-hours and 40 minutes later, the complete complement of spacecraft successfully separated. The success of this mission is attributed to teamwork amongst multinational groups, early identification and resolution to problems, and focus on a goal of launching the Kodiak Star in a minimum time frame, 10 months.