Missions 2001 During August 2001, STP conducted two successful activities using the
Space Shuttle and ISS.
STS-105 delivered and successfully deployed the
Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) externally on the ISS. MISSE was a passive materials exposure experiment, was the first external experiment on ISS. In addition, STS-105 retrieved and returned MACE II (Middeck Active Control Experiment II) from the ISS. MACE II was the first internal experiment on ISS and was operated for nearly a year. On 30 September 2001, STP and
NASA launched the
Kodiak Star mission on an
Athena I launch vehicle. This was the first orbital launch out of
Kodiak Island,
Alaska. In addition to NASA's
Starshine III spacecraft, this mission included three small DoD spacecraft which tested a variety of new space technologies. STP and the
Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL) Space Vehicles Directorate developed a secondary payload adapter ring for the
Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV), which can host up to six
microsatellites. STP also worked closely with NASA and the
United States Navy on the Geosynchronous Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer / Indian Ocean Meteorology and Oceanography Imager project. In December 2001,
STS-108 hosted the Shuttle Ionospheric Modification with Pulsed Localized Exhaust (SIMPLEX) experiment. SIMPLEX observed ionospheric disturbances created by the Space Shuttle engine burns via ground radar sites and supported plume technology, plume signature, and space weather modeling.
2002 SIMPLEX flew again on
STS-110 in April 2002. STP also worked to obtain a 1-year radio frequency license extension for the Picosat experiment launched on the
Kodiak Star mission, in September 2001.
2003 On 6 January 2003, STP and the
Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) launched the
Coriolis satellite, a risk-reduction effort for
NPOESS, aboard a
Titan II launch vehicle.
2007 On 9 March 2007, six satellites were launched into
low Earth Orbit (LEO) on a shared
Atlas V launch vehicle on the
STP-1 mission. The satellites were: •
Orbital Express: ASTRO and NextSat, (
DARPA) •
MidSTAR-1, (
United States Naval Academy) •
FalconSat3, (
United States Air Force Academy) •
STPSat 1, USAF's Space Test Program •
CFESat, (
Los Alamos National Laboratory) The satellites shared the launcher through use of an
Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Secondary Payload Adapter (
ESPA).
United Launch Alliance provided a video feed of the launch.
2008 The
C/NOFS (Communications/Navigation Outage Forecasting System) satellite, which was launched on 16 April 2008, was operated by the Space Test Program.
2010 The third
Minotaur IV, known as
STP-S26, was successfully launched in November 2010. This was the 26th small launch vehicle mission in STP's 40-year history of flying DoD space experiments, STP-S26 launched at 01:45
UTC on 20 November 2010 from the
Kodiak Launch Complex. The launch facility contractor was
Alaska Aerospace Corporation (AAC). The payloads were released in a orbit, before the
Hydrazine Auxiliary Propulsion System (
HAPS) upper stage, by
Orbital Sciences Corporation, was demonstrated by deploying two ballast payloads into a orbit. The payload included the
STPSat-2 spacecraft. STPSat-2 had 3 three experimental payloads: SPEX (Space Phenomenology Experiment) consisting of two payloads to evaluate sensor compatibility for the space environment, and ODTML (Ocean Data Telemetry MicroSatLink) a two-way data relay from terrestrial (ocean or land) sensors to users.
2013 STPSat 3 is a copy of the
STPSat-2 satellite, adapted to carry six experiments, including a module designed to host various space situational awareness sensors and a pair of space environment sensors. STPSat 3 launched on 19 November 2013, on the
ORS-3 Minotaur 1 launch, along with 28 CubeSats. STPSat-3 carries five payloads, including "Integrated Miniaturized Electrostatic Analyzer Reflight (iMESA-R), Joint Component Research (J-CORE), Strip Sensor Unit (SSU), Small Wind and Temperature Spectrometer (SWATS), and TSI Calibration Transfer Experiment (TCTE)". It also carries a de-orbit module.
2019 The
STP-2 (DoD Space Test Program) payload launched aboard a
SpaceX Falcon Heavy on 25 June 2019. Included was
COSMIC-2, a cluster of six satellites, with a mass of each. The primary role of the COSMIC-2
satellite constellation is to provide
radio occultation data with an average latency of 45 minutes. The six satellites were placed on an orbit with an inclination of 24° to 28.5° with plans for them to move eventually to six separate orbital planes with 60° separation between them. The payload stack was integrated using an
ESPA ring. Two ESPA Grande rings were used to mount the six COSMIC-2 satellites beneath the upper payload adapter hosting the DSX payload and avionics modules. STP-2 also deployed a number of CubeSats as
secondary payloads,
LightSail 2 is carried by the Prox-1 nanosatellite.
GPIM, and the
Deep Space Atomic Clock. The
STPSat-4 satellite was launched on 2 November 2019 onboard the
Cygnus NG-12 mission and was subsequently deployed to orbit from the
ISS on 29 January 2020. The satellite hosted a variety of experimental technologies, including: iMESA-R, a
USAF mission to measure plasma densities and energies; MATRS, a modular solar array that partially failed to deploy; NISTEx, an inferometric star tracker; NTE, a passive retroreflector. The satellite decayed from orbit on 4 October 2022.
2021 (SpaceX had bid a
Falcon Heavy in December 2016 for this launch. It was launched on 7 December 2021 at 10:19
UTC. STP-3 includes the
STPSat-6 satellite with the Space and Atmospheric Burst Reporting System-3 (SABRS-3) for
National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA),
Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) payload for NASA, and seven secondary payloads for the
U.S. Air Force. STPSat-6 is destined for an orbit slightly above the geostationary orbit. The mission consisted of two pairs of cubesats from both British and American agencies. The CIRCE 1 and 2 cubesats were developed by the
DSTL and the
NRL using 6U platforms provided by Blue Canyon Technologies, and they would've flown in formation to study short-timescale dynamics in the ionosphere. The Prometheus 2A and 2B cubesats have been built by In-Space Missions for the
UK Ministry of Defence and the
NRO and they would've provided a test platform for monitoring radio signals. The
STP-CR2301 mission was successfully launched on a
Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket on 12 June 2023 as part of the Transporter-8 rideshare mission. The mission consisted of two Modular Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (MISR) cubesats to demonstrate two-way communications with ground devices and the XVI cubesat to test the capacity of the Link-16 network to communicate to space. == References ==