As student projects go, the YES2, or Young Engineers Satellite 2 currently drifting Earthwards, is about as cool as they get.
As we wrote earlier, the student-run experiment is testing a new kind of deployment technique on the Russian-launched Foton-M3 mission, trying to see whether a payload can be reeled out on a long line and released into orbit, instead of using expensive rockets and attitude adjusters.
The students’ critical moment came today, and so far it’s a qualified success. The payload, a small capsule dubbed “Fotino” was intended to be let out on a 18.6 mile, fishing line-thin tether before being released. But the process went more slowly than projected, and the little test capsule was cut loose by a preprogrammed command after just 5.2 miles.
European Space Agency scientists are currently tracking the little device to figure out where and how its parachute will bring it back to earth.
The mishaps may mean that the students’ tether system won’t find its way immediately into adoption for critical satellite or other launches. But the test gives space programs around the world new data on an innovative and potentially money-saving technique for orbital deployments.
Unfortunately, no pictures yet of the actual deployment. But ESA has a nifty animation on its site of what should have happened. Pictured above is the Fotino capsule before launch.
Foton M3 is already showing other experimental payoffs too. A separate experiment, testing a theory that small fluctuations in fluids would become larger in a weightless environment, has already been confirmed,
ESA researchers said.
YES2 student payload released from Foton-M3 [ESA press release]
Fluid theory confirmed by Foton space experiment[ESA press release]
(Photo: The Fotino capsule before launch. Credit: ESA)
