Mission to Test 'Space Mail' Delivery System

[Dave Monroe]

Mission to Test 'Space Mail' Delivery System
Dave Mosher
Staff Writer
SPACE.com
Thu Sep 13, 7:00 AM ET


Sending scientific payloads into space is expensive business, and
advanced rocket systems to return them to Earth don't help the price
tags.

On Friday Sept. 14, however, the Young Engineers Satellite 2 (YES2)
will test an inexpensive "space mail" delivery system using a
pendulum-like deployment to swing a lightweight payload back to Earth.

YES2, which will piggyback on a Foton-M3 capsule, is scheduled to
launch into space at 7:00 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT) aboard a Soyuz-U rocket
from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. In addition to the student-built
satellite, 40 experiments will be conducted aboard the main Foton
capsule, including one with live geckos and newts.

Space pendulum

YES2 is a spire-like payload is made of three main components: A red
ball-like payload called Fotino; a support system called MASS; and a
spring-loaded mechanism called FLOYD. Ground controllers will activate
the package during Foton's final days in orbit.

"This will be moment the YES2 team has been waiting for," said Roger
Walker, a YES2 project manager with the European Space Agency (ESA).
"We hope to achieve a number of objectives: the deployment of the
30-kilometer (18.6-mile) tether, the successful de-orbit of the
lightweight re-entry capsule using the tether rather than a rocket
engine, and the survival of the capsule all the way to the ground."

The magic moment will start when spring-loaded FLOYD ejects Fotino and
MASS on a tether made of Dyneema, the world's strongest man-made
fiber. As MASS keeps the tether taunt, gravity will swing the
two-piece package toward the Earth like a pendulum on a string.

When Fotino reaches a "zero" point, MASS will cut the tether and drop
Fotino directly towards the planet's surface. YES2's team of 450
students from across the globe hope their 12-pound (5.5 kilogram)
device, five years in the making, will safely parachute to the arid
steppes of Kazakhstan after reentry.

"If all goes well, we should have confirmation of landing," Walker
said. Should the mechanism work, it could prove to be one of the most
inexpensive systems to return an orbiting payload to the surface--a
design that may be a boon to International Space Station experiments
needing to reach eartbound scientists on a tight budget....

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/070913_foton_preview.html