NASA's New Millennium Space Technology 5 (ST5) project

In August 1999, NASA selected Nanosat Constellation Trailblazer (NCT) as the New Millennium ST5 project. NCT will validate technologies needed for future NASA science missions. NCT will reduce the technology risk of producing and operating constellations of small (/spl sim/10 kg, 10 W total power) satellites. This technology mission will develop, deploy and operate 3 full function 20-Kg class spacecraft. NCT will provide approximately an order of magnitude reduction in spacecraft mass and power. Key issues are the ability to reliably build small spacecraft, deployment, suitability for obtaining research quality measurements, coordination, and control of large numbers of low power satellites, and minimization of cost for both launch and operations. This project is capped at $29M with launch in 2003. This paper summarizes the formal technical study conducted by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. It describes the mission and technologies, and assesses ST5's impact on future NASA science missions.