Astrid-1 and Astrid-2 were two

microsatellites A microsatellite is a tract of repetitive DNA in which certain DNA motifs (ranging in length from one to six or more base pairs) are repeated, typically 5–50 times. Microsatellites occur at thousands of locations within an organism's genome. ...

designed and developed by

Swedish Space Corporation The Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) provides space subsystems, space and satellite operations, rocket and balloon systems including experiment equipment, launch services, aerospace engineering services as well as airborne maritime surveillance s ...

on behalf of the

Swedish National Space Board The Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA, sv, Rymdstyrelsen) is a Government agency in Sweden operating under the Swedish Ministry of Education and Science. SNSA operates as a key component of the Swedish space programme, which is mostly carri ...

. They were piggyback launched on a

Cosmos-3M The Kosmos-3M (russian: Космос-3М meaning "''Cosmos''", GRAU index 11K65M) was a Russian space launch vehicle, member of the Kosmos rocket family. It was a liquid-fueled two-stage launch vehicle, first launched in 1967 and with over 420 ...

launch vehicle from

Plesetsk Plesetsk (russian: Плесе́цк) is an urban locality (a work settlement) and the administrative center of Plesetsky District, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, situated about northeast of Moscow and south of Arkhangelsk. Municipally, it is t ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. Astrid 1 on January 24, 1995, and Astrid 2 on December 10, 1998.

Astrid-1

Sweden's first microsatellite was piggybacked with the launch of

Tsikada Tsikada (russian: Цикада meaning ''cicada''), was a Soviet satellite navigation system including ten Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. It transmits the same two carrier frequencies as the U.S. TRANSIT satellite system.Bernhard Hofmann-Wellen ...

, a Russian

navigation satellite A satellite navigation or satnav system is a system that uses satellites to provide autonomous geo-spatial positioning. It allows satellite navigation devices to determine their location (longitude, latitude, and altitude/elevation) to high pr ...

and FAISAT, a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

communications satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth. C ...

. It carried an

Energetic Neutral Atom Energetic Neutral Atom (ENA) imaging, often described as "seeing with atoms", is a technology used to create global images of otherwise invisible phenomena in the magnetospheres of planets and throughout the heliosphere. The solar wind is com ...

imager called PIPPI (Prelude in Planetary Particle Imaging), an

Electron The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no kn ...

Spectrometer A spectrometer () is a scientific instrument used to separate and measure spectral components of a physical phenomenon. Spectrometer is a broad term often used to describe instruments that measure a continuous variable of a phenomenon where the ...

called EMIL (Electron Measurements - In-situ and Lightweight) and two UV

imager An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of curr ...

s called MIO (Miniature Imaging Optics), one for imaging the Earth's

aurora An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of bri ...

and one for observing

Lyman alpha The Lyman-alpha line, typically denoted by Ly-α, is a spectral line of hydrogen (or, more generally, of any one-electron atom) in the Lyman series. It is emitted when the atomic electron transitions from an ''n'' = 2 orbital to the gro ...

-emission from the Earth's

geocorona The geocorona is the luminous part of the outermost region of the Earth's atmosphere, the exosphere. It is seen primarily via far-ultraviolet light (Lyman-alpha) from the Sun that is scattered from neutral hydrogen. It extends to at minimum 15.5 ...

. This payload, named after characters in

Astrid Lindgren Astrid Anna Emilia Lindgren (; ; 14 November 1907 – 28 January 2002) was a Swedish writer of fiction and screenplays. She is best known for several children's book series, featuring Pippi Longstocking, Emil of Lönneberga, Karlsson-on- ...

's books (the idea came from a

n scientist ), was developed by the

Swedish Institute of Space Physics The Swedish Institute of Space Physics ( sv, Institutet för rymdfysik, IRF) is a Swedish government agency. The institute's primary task is to carry out basic research, education and associated observatory activities in space physics, space tech ...

Kiruna (; se, Giron ; fi, Kiiruna ) is the northernmost Stad (Sweden), city in Sweden, situated in the province of Lapland, Sweden, Lapland. It had 17,002 inhabitants in 2016 and is the seat of Kiruna Municipality (population: 23,167 in 2016) in Norr ...

. On March 1, a

DC to DC converter A DC-to-DC converter is an electronic circuit or electromechanical device that converts a source of direct current (DC) from one voltage level to another. It is a type of electric power converter. Power levels range from very low (small batteries) ...

for the scientific instruments failed, possibly due to a

short circuit A short circuit (sometimes abbreviated to short or s/c) is an electrical circuit that allows a current to travel along an unintended path with no or very low electrical impedance. This results in an excessive current flowing through the circuit ...

, ending its scientific mission. However, the satellite was operated until September 27, serving as a testbed for various software algorithms and

store-and-forward Store and forward is a telecommunications technique in which information is sent to an intermediate station where it is kept and sent at a later time to the final destination or to another intermediate station. The intermediate station, or node in ...

communications. The entire satellite was built in a year and the cost, including launch, was 1.4 million

U.S. dollars The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

Astrid-2

Astrid-2 was Sweden's second microsatellite and it was piggybacked with

Nadezhda 5 Nadezhda may refer to: *Nadezhda (given name), people with the given name ''Nadezhda'' *Nadezhda (satellite), a series of Russian navigation satellites, of which one was launched in 1998 *2071 Nadezhda, an asteroid *Nadezhda (cockroach), the first ...

, a Russian

on December 10, 1998, on a Kosmos-3M rocket from Plesetsk in Russia. Its payload, built by the

and

Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inha ...

and the

Royal Institute of Technology The KTH Royal Institute of Technology ( sv, Kungliga Tekniska högskolan, lit=Royal Institute of Technology), abbreviated KTH, is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH conducts research and education in engineering and technolo ...

(Alfven Laboratory) in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

, was EMMA (Electrical and Magnetic field Monitoring of the Aurora), LINDA (Langmuir INterferometer and Density experiment for Astrid-2), MEDUSA (Miniaturized Electrostatic DUal-tophat Spherical Analyzer) and PIA (Photometers for Imaging the Aurora). It was used to explore the

electric Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...

and

magnetic field A magnetic field is a vector field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular to its own velocity and to ...

s in the upper

ionosphere The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays an ...

and to measure

neutral Neutral or neutrality may refer to: Mathematics and natural science Biology * Neutral organisms, in ecology, those that obey the unified neutral theory of biodiversity Chemistry and physics * Neutralization (chemistry), a chemical reaction in ...

and charged particles and

electron The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no kn ...

density. On July 24, 1999, the contact with the satellite was lost. During its 7 and a half months in space, Astrid-2 delivered a large amount of information to researchers.

References

{{reflist

External links

Astrid-1 at Swedish Space Corporation

Astrid-2 at Swedish Space Corporation

from NASA's

Mission and Spacecraft Library Mission and Spacecraft Library (MSL) is a reference web site, maintained by NASA, containing information about satellites. It contains a catalog of several hundreds of satellites from different countries. The site was founded by Jet Propulsion L ...

Astrid-2 Quicklook
from NASA's

Astrid-1 at Astronautix

Satellites orbiting Earth Space programme of Sweden Science and technology in Sweden Microsatellites Geospace monitoring satellites

Astrid-1

Astrid-2

See also

References

External links