AggieSat2, a picosatellite designed and built by Texas A&M students of the AggieSat Lab, is slated for launch on the space shuttle Endeavour at 7:39 p.m. EDT on July 11.

Endeavour will lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla.

Launch countdown operations are on schedule with no issues to report, according to launch officials at the space center.

Endeavour’s launch to the International Space Station was scheduled for June 17 but had to be postponed because of a leak detected in the venting system used to carry hydrogen safely away from the launch pad.

Dr. Helen Reed, who set up Texas A&M’s AggieSat Lab in 2005, and a group of students who worked on AggieSat2 will be going to the Kennedy Space Center to watch the launch. Reed is a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering.

AggieSat2 is one of two satellites that will launch on Endeavour. The other satellite, Bevo-1, was built by students from the University of Texas.

AggieSat2 and Bevo-1 will be joined at launch and released from Endeavor 15 days after the shuttle visits the space station. The satellites will then separate, go into orbit, and beam information about their positions using the on-board GPS called DRAGON, which was developed by NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The GPS is being tested for accuracy.

This mission is the first of four missions planned by Johnson Space Center to demonstrate autonomous rendezvous and docking — a process in which spacecraft that are apart in space meet and join to form a single unit without human control.

The AggieSat Lab is sponsored by Johnson Space Center, Lockheed Martin, MEI Technologies, Oceaneering Space Systems, PM&AM Research, Department of Defense Space Test Program and Spreadsheet World.

The AggieSat Lab will be tracking, communicating with, commanding and collecting data from AggieSat2 through the Riverside ground station. For more information on the latest launch and updates on mission operations, visit http://aggiesat.org.

Marissa Doshi, marissadoshi@tees.tamus.edu

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