FedSat Launch and Operations

Australia’s first satellite in more than 30 years, FedSat, was successfully launched on a Japanese rocket on the 14th December 2002. Eleven hours later it was acquired by the ground station in Adelaide on its first pass, and operations began. Within four weeks the 2.5 metre long boom, holding the sensitive magnetometer of the University of Newcastle, was deployed, and immediately started recording scientific data. The GPS instrument operated successfully from the beginning, as did the Star Camera. By the end of February the system operations were refined, and all payloads officially commissioned. Scientific operations were begun on 3 March 2003, and have continued to the present. This paper presents the story of the launch and early operations of FedSat - a significant achievement for Australian engineering