NUSAT 1: The first ejectable getaway special

Abstract

Four hours, fourteen minutes and forty-two seconds after the space shuttle, Challenger, was launched on mission 51B, a small satellite was ejected into independent orbit from a Getaway Special canister. This event was an exciting milestone in a project conceived over seven years ago. It is hoped that the story of NUSAT (Northern Utah SATellite) will be an inspiration for other experimentors to exploit this new service of the Getaway Special program. This paper describe the purpose and history of the project, the NUSAT spacecraft, the ground station and its operation, and some future directions envisioned by the participants.