Space Micro’s RF X-Band Power Amplifier Launched on Navy TacSat-4 Satellite by ORS
Successful Flight of Space Micro’s RF electronics
October 10, 2011-San Diego, CA. – Space Micro Inc, one of the world's leading space products companies, announced today that its X-band power amplifier is aboard the Tacsat-4 satellite. On September 27, 2011 Orbital’s Minotaur IV space launch vehicle was successfully launched for the U.S. Air Force, placing the U.S. Navy's Tactical Satellite-4 (TacSat-4) into a precise orbit of the Earth. The Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) Office is the launch sponsor of the TacSat-4 program, which is demonstrating the use of standard interfaces to shorten development timelines and delivering tactical capabilities to the foot soldier.
“This launch is the culmination of countless hours of effort by our RF design and production team in developing, manufacturing, qualifying and shipping a space qualified, radiation hard linearized power amplifier to meet Naval Research Labs and Orbital Sciences needs”, said David J. Strobel, Space Micro’s CEO.
The mission originated from the Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska on September 27, 2011. The rocket's first stage ignited at 11:49 a.m. (EDT), beginning its flight into low-Earth orbit. Approximately 28 minutes later, the Orbital Sciences booster deployed the TacSat-4 satellite into its targeted highly elliptical orbit of approximately 7,415 miles (11,865 kilometers) by 115 miles (185 kilometers) above the Earth's surface.
"The successful TacSat 4 flight continues our well-established record of mission success for Space Micro. We are proud to support the U.S. Navy NRL with the X-band solid state power amplifier (SSPA) for the operationally responsive TacSat program," said Mr. David R. Czajkowski, Space Micro’s President and COO. "This flight represents more heritage for our space product line of radiation hard avionics and communications electronics."
TacSat-4 is a Navy-led joint mission that provides 10 Ultra High Frequency (UHF) channels and allows forward deployed troops to communicate from obscured regions using existing hand-held radios without the need to stop and point an antenna towards the satellite.
About Space Micro
Space Micro Inc specializes in payload and communications equipment for satellites. Space Micro is the leader in technologies that enable Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) electronic devices to be deployed in space. Radiation in space is damaging to electronics. Space Micro has patents for mitigating radiation effects on state-of-art commercial electronics. Space Micro offers space-qualified radiation hardened microelectronics, from radiation hardened by design (RHBD) technologies to space rated single board computers (RH SBC) and radios. Space Micro offers the world’s fastest space radiation hardened line of Proton™ Series RH computers to include the Proton200k™ DSP-based, Proton300k™ FPGA and Proton400k‑L™ Multi-Core PowerPC-based processors. In addition to satellite computers, Space Micro offers satellite communications equipments to include compact µSDR™ radiation hardened software defined radio, µSGLS™ Space-Ground Link System, µSTDN ™, µX-Band ™ and µKa-Band ™ transmitters, transponders and Solid State Power Amplifiers (RH SSPA). Other Space Micro products include ProtonX-Box™ Avionics Suite, IPC5000™ Image Processing System, SEMS™ Space Weather Sensor Suite and Divert Attitude Control System (RH DACS). Other Space Micro developed technologies include TTMR™ & Patented (Time Triple Modular Redundancy) and H-CORE™ & Patented “Watch Dog” circuitry for Single Events Functional Interrupt (SEFI) space radiation mitigation. Technologies currently under development include DDR2 SDRAM and Monolithic RH Flash memories for advanced space processors. Space Micro is an employee-owned company based in San Diego, Calif., USA. For more information, visit http://www.spacemicro.com
Figure 1 Satellite as it appears in space Figure 2 Space Micro's X-Band LPA
Figure 3 TacSat 4: In high bay Figure 4 TacSat 4: Space bound
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