OPAL: Smaller, Simpler, and Just Plain Luckier

On January 26, 2000 at 7:03PM PST, Stanford University’s first student built satellite, OPAL – the Orbiting Picosatellite Automated Launcher, roared into space on a modified Minuteman II missile. Students from the Space Systems Development Laboratory spent four years designing, fabricating, and testing the OPAL satellite in preparation for the launch. OPAL’s primary mission objectives were to explore a new mothership/daughtership mission architecture for distributed sensing, to characterize an off-the-shelf magnetometer, and to characterize a suite of off-the-shelf accelerometers. Six DARPA sponsored daughterships, also known as picosatellites, were deployed from OPAL. They were built by The Aerospace Corporation, Santa Clara University, and a team of amateur radio operators. The OPAL satellite completely achieved its mission goals and is now in extended mission operations. Long-term characterization of the satellite bus, magnetometer, and accelerometers are underway. OPAL has demonstrated that low cost, albeit high risk, university satellites offer an excellent platform for experimental space testbeds. AMSAT assigned OPAL an amateur satellite number of OO-38. OPAL will soon be accessible to non-Stanford users for educational and research purposes