GeneSat-1 is a

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

fully automated,

CubeSat A CubeSat is a class of miniaturized satellite based around a form factor consisting of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for their electronics and structure. CubeSats ...

spaceflight system that provides life support for

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among ...

E. Coli K-12 ''Escherichia coli'' (; commonly abbreviated ''E. coli'') is a Gram-negative gammaproteobacterium commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded organisms (endotherms). The descendants of two isolates, K-12 and B strain, are used routine ...

. The system was launched into orbit on 16 December 2006, from Wallops Flight Facility. GeneSat-1 began to transmit data on its first pass over the mission's

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

ground station. The

nanosatellite A small satellite, miniaturized satellite, or smallsat is a satellite of low mass and size, usually under . While all such satellites can be referred to as "small", different classifications are used to categorize them based on mass. Satellites ca ...

contains onboard micro-laboratory systems such as sensors and optical systems that can detect proteins that are the products of specific genetic activity. Knowledge gained from GeneSat-1 is intended to aid scientific understanding of how spaceflight affects the human body. Weighing 4.6 kilograms, the miniature laboratory was a secondary payload on an Air Force four-stage Minotaur 1 launch vehicle that delivered the Air Force

TacSat-2 TacSat-2 is the first in a series of U.S. military experimental technology and communication satellites.TacSat-2 (also known as JWS-D1 ((Joint Warfighting Space-Demonstrator 1) or RoadRunner) was an experimental satellite built by the USAF's A ...

satellite to orbit. In the development of the GeneSat satellite class (at a fraction of what it normally costs to conduct a mission in space),

Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laborat ...

(Small Spacecraft Office) collaborated with organisations in industry and also universities local to the center. It is NASA's first fully automated, self-contained biological spaceflight experiment on a satellite of its size.

References

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External links

A list from the NASA database
retrieved 08:55(UTC) 24 October 2011
GeneSat-1 mission dashboard ''Santa Clara University Robotics Systems Laboratory''
retrieved 08:19 24.10.2011 Biosatellites Spacecraft launched in 2006 CubeSats Spacecraft which reentered in 2010 NASA satellites