Clark satellite

American earth atmosphere satellite. Cancelled in 1998 when overruns had reached 20% of original price and no end to development was in sight.

Clark was selected in the NASA SSTI (Small Spacecraft Technology Initiative) program, along with Lewis, to demonstrate advanced spacecraft technologies. Contract start was July 11, 1994. Contract was cancelled by NASA in March 1998 when overruns had reached 20% of original contract price and no end to development was in sight.

NASA took possession of the hardware and instruments built which perhaps could be flown on a later satellite. The graphite composite structure spacecraft was 3-axis stabilized, zero momentum biased control system with 0.05 deg control and 0.03 deg knowledge. Two solar arrays generated 289W orbit average power and recharged two 15-Ahr NiH2 CPV batteries. The hydrazine propulsion system had 12.5 kg propellant. 2 Gbit solid state storage was provided, and UHF command and telemetry links and a 25 Mbps X-band image data downlink. The payload included Worldview Imaging Corp's panchromatic 3-m resolution, 15-m multispectral resolution camera with cloud editing capability; the Micro-Measuring Air Pollution from Satellites (µMAPS) instrument; X-Ray Spectrometers (soft and gamma); and the Atmospheric Tomography (3D pollution mapping) instrument.

Electric System: 0.289 average kW.