Mayflower

Mayflower is a "pico-sat" of the three unit CubeSat type with a deployable solar array and cold gas delta-V thruster. A pico-sat has a volume of approximately 0.001 cubic meter (a cube 0.1 meter each edge). A nano-sat has a volume of approximately 0.1 meter (cube about half a meter in size).

I managed the integration and test (I&T) portion of this project. Mayflower was successfully launched on a Falcon 9 launcher and completed its orbital mission. I prepared this page to assist the University of Hawaii Ho'o Ponopono picosat project.

Images on this page are copyright by the Northrop Grumman Corporation. Fair use for educational purposes.


This is a CAD rendering of Mayflower that we used for planning purposes before hardware was available.


These are the components of Mayflower on a cleanroom table.


This is Mayflower fully assembled. The solar arrays are held in place (stowed) with rubber bands.
The thermal vacuum (TV) test fixture is also used as a general holding and transportatioon fixture.


Mayflower in ambient system test with depolyed solar arrays.


Mayflower instrumented for TV testing.


Mayflower is nearly ready for installation into the TV chamber.


Mayflower in the TV chamber before the thermal enclosure is installed.


The thermal enclosure has been installed.


Mayflower is in TV test.


We borrowed a poly-picosat orbital deployer (PPOD) for vibration testing.


Mayflower going into the PPOD.


Mayflower in vibration testing. Notice the command and telemetry hookup for testing between runs.

Richard dot J dot Wagner at gmail dot com

index.html, this hand crafted HTML file was created July 24, 2011.
Last updated July 26, 2011 by Rick Wagner. Copyright © 2011, all rights reserved.