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Kodiak Star - Kodiak Island Video Feeds
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Athena-I with Kodiak Star launched 10:40 p.m. EDT September 29, 2001 (2:40 GMT /9-30-01) from
Kodiak Island
Video of Kodiak Star/Athena I Launch (G2 320x240)
![[Kodiak Star Prelaunch Pad Shot]](kodiakstar-2-large.jpg)
![[KodiakStar Launch]](kodiakstar-4-large.jpg)
Views of Kodiak Star at the Alaska Kodiak Island Launch
Complex located approximately 41 miles south of the city of Kodiak.
Kodiak Star launched 9/29/01 at 10:40pm EDT (2:40 GMT 9/30/01)
aboard a 3 stage Lockheed-Martin Athena-I rocket. The launch attempt of
9/21/01 was posponed due to weather concerns. The launch attempt of 9/22/01 was scrubbed due to a downrange tracking problem and weather at the downrange tracking sites foiled a launch attempt on 9/23/01. On 9/24/01, a solar flare sent a stream of charged particles that exceeded limits set for the Athena's guidance system. The launch was rescheduled to no earlier than 9/29/01.
Kodiak Star is the first launch from the Kodiak Launch Complex on Kodiak Island in Alaska. The mission will carry four satellites into Earth orbit, the NASA sponsored Starshine 3 and three Department of Defense Space Test Program (STP) payloads PICOSat, PCSat, and Sapphire. The STP satellites will be placed into a 497 mile (800km) orbit and Starshine-3 will be released at an altitude of 310 miles (500km) and 67-degree inclination.
Starshine-3 is built by the Rocky Mountain NASA Space Grant Consortium and the Naval Research Laboratory. It weighs 220 pounds and consists of 1500 aluminum mirrors that are one inch in diameter polished by over 40,000 students in 22 countries. Starshine-3 data will provide scientists with knowledge about how the Earth's upper atmosphere reacts to fluctuations in the sun's ultraviolet radiation during a sunspot cycle.
PICOSat is built by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. in Guildford, UK and will carry a Polymer Battery Experiment (PBEX), Ionosphere Occultation Experiment (IOX), Coherent Electromagnetic Radio Tomagraphy (CERTO) and Ultra-Quiet Platform (OPPEX).
The Prototype Communications Satellite (PCSat) is the first in an intended line of experimental satellites designed, constructed and tested by midshipmen of the US Naval Academy. PCSat is to serve as a positition status reporting and message communications satellite and will augment the existing Amateur Radio Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS) satellite.
The Sapphire satellite was built by the Space Systems Development Laboratory of Stanford University . Sapphire will carry a Beacon Monitoring Experiment, a Tunneling Horizon Detector and a voice synthesizer microchip that will speak to listerners over amateur radio frequencies.