VesselSat-1 (Orbcomm FM42, V1) was a
miniaturized satellite
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 ...
built and owned by
LuxSpace, which was operated by
Orbcomm
''ORBCOMM'' is an American company that offers industrial Internet of things (IoT) and machine to machine (M2M) communications hardware, software and services designed to track, monitor, and control fixed and mobile assets in markets including ...
under lease. VesselSat-1 and its sister satellite,
VesselSat-2 were used by Orbcomm to compensate the functionality of the malfunctioning
Orbcomm-QL satellites.
Launch
It was launched from the
ISRO's
Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) at
Sriharikota in October 2011 atop a
PSLV-CA rocket
A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely fr ...
, flight C18. The launch was a multi-payload mission along with
Megha-Tropiques
Megha-Tropiques was a satellite mission to study the water cycle in the tropical atmosphere in the context of climate change. A collaborative effort between Indian Space Research Organisation ( ISRO) and French Centre National d’Etudes Spatial ...
,
SRMSAT and
Jugnu.
Spacecraft
Vesselsat was the first satellite to be built in
Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
. It had a mass of and had the form of a cube along each side. Its mission was the tracking of shipping by receiving broadcasts from their
Automatic Identification System (AIS).
See also
*
2011 in spaceflight
References
External links
Space.skyrocket.deIsro.orgMenafn.com
Spacecraft launched in 2011
{{Luxembourg-spacecraft-stub