LSAClassOf2000

December 8th, 2013 at 5:58 PM ^

"M-Cubed-2 is a replacement for the original M-Cubed satellite – launched as part of ELaNa III in October 2011 – which failed to return useful data after becoming magnetically attached to another satellite – the Montana State University’s Explorer-1 [Prime] Unit 2."

I think this calls for scheduling a home-and-home with Montana State to see if we can get our proverbial pound of flesh for this catastrophe.

In all seriousness though, this is pretty cool news. Thanks for sharing!

Joined: 01/07/2011

MGoPoints: 130610

Monocle Smile

December 8th, 2013 at 6:12 PM ^

Successful decoding of telemetry beacons happened as early as 6:52am the following morning. Odd how not being hooked to a second craft with another radio makes this so much easier.

Joined: 09/17/2009

MGoPoints: 23051

AdAstra

December 8th, 2013 at 6:18 PM ^

M-Cubed vs. RAX vs. CAT? S3FL vs. MXL? It's great to see U-M expanding away from such an Aero focus towards more Space, but I'm having trouble keeping everyone straight!

GoBluePlasma: We have a while until the next HTTV kickstarter, so please help support Michigan's CubeSat Ambipolar Thruster (CAT)! 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/longmier/cat-launch-a-water-propelled-satellite-into-deep-s

Joined: 01/27/2012

MGoPoints: 51

Wolverine In Exile

December 8th, 2013 at 7:16 PM ^

Mxl is primarily run by Prof Jamie Cutler (Aero Dept, who's up for tenure this year!) and focuses on cubesat payloads primarily out of Aero. Its about 5-6 yrs old. S3FL is mostly run out of AOSS with a focus on smallsat missions investigating electric propulsion systems and related technologies. S3FL gets advocacy from Prof's Brian Gilchrist (EECS & AOSS) and Alec Gallimore (Aero & AOSS & CoE Deans Office). S3FL officially has been around since the mid to late 90s, but hasn't flown as many missions as MXL, because they were focusing on non-cubesat missions. Lots of cross talk between faculty involved, students eh, not so much. S3FL got hurt a little by not going into cubesats right away and hitching to SPRL facilities and staff, which more and more have been shifted towards the climate change mafia in control of AOSS now. Right now big decision is whether to transition S3FL with SPRL to a research cooperative that can take on classified research like Texas A&M, USC are doing, and leave MXL to Cutler's non-classified research.

Joined: 11/08/2008

MGoPoints: 10790