Mission type Bioscience COSPAR ID 2006-058C Mission duration 21 days Launch date 16 December 2006 Launch mass 6.8 kg Rocket Minotaur | Operator NASA SATCAT no. 29655 Spacecraft type CubeSat (3U) Period 1.5 hours Launch mass 6.8 kg | |
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Manufacturers Ames Research Center, Stanford University Similar PharmaSat, O/OREOS, TacSat‑2, NanoSail‑D2, CUTE‑17 + APD | ||
The genesat 1 journey
GeneSat-1 is a fully automated, CubeSat spaceflight system that provides life support for bacteria. The system was launched into orbit on December 16, 2006, from Wallops Flight Facility. GeneSat-1 began to transmit data on its first pass over the mission's California ground station.
The nanosatellite 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 5 kilograms, the miniature laboratory was a secondary payload on an Air Force four-stage Minotaur 1 rocket that delivered the Air Force TacSat 2 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 (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.