NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

O/OREOS Reaches Orbit, Begins Astrobiology Experiments

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. – The Organism/Organic Exposure to Orbital Stresses, or O/OREOS, nanosatellite managed by NASA's Ames Research Center, successfully launched at 5:25 p.m. PST on Friday, Nov. 19, 2010, from Alaska Aerospace Corporation’s Kodiak Launch Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska.

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A computer-generated image of the O/OREOS nanosatellite.
Image Credit: NASA Ames. Click image for full-resolution.

Introduction
NASA’s Organism/Organic Exposure to Orbital Stresses, or O/OREOS, nanosatellite is about the size of a loaf of bread, weighs approximately 12 pounds and has two experiments that will activate once it reaches low Earth orbit, more than 400 miles above Earth. The O/OREOS nanosatellite is a secondary payload on a multi-spacecraft mission that will launch into orbit on a United States Air Force Minotaur IV rocket from the Alaska Aerospace Corporation’s Kodiak Launch Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska. The mission is named STP-S26, after the twenty-sixth small launch vehicle mission of the Department of Defense Space Test Program managed by the Space Development and Test Wing, a unit of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, that is operated out of Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.

The Small Spacecraft Division at Ames manages the O/OREOS payload and will provide mission operations from the mission control center at Ames with the professional support of staff and students from Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, Calif.

Mission Overview
The overall goal of the O/OREOS mission is to demonstrate capability to conduct low-cost science experiments on autonomous nanosatellites in space in support of the Astrobiology Small Payloads program under the Planetary Science Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA’s Headquarters. Scientists will apply the knowledge they gain from O/OREOS to plan future experiments in the space environment to study how exposure to space changes organic molecules and biology. These experiments will help answer Astrobiology’s fundamental questions on the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe.