<title>Development status of FSAT: a standard spacecraft bus</title>

Abstract

A standard spacecraft bus for launch on medium expendable launch vehicles under development at Lockheed has recently achieved a major development milestone. The company-funded bus, known as F-Sat (for Frugal Satellite), has demonstrated the integration of flight electronics with all major attitude determination and control system sensors and actuators.F-Sat is a standard spacecraft bus which will support future LMSC programs, both commercial and government. The F-Sat bus has been designed with the adaptability to satisfy many applications with medium-weight payloads.To date, Lockheed has developed and tested the bus structure, completed the design, assembly, and testing of critical electronic components, written major elements of the flight software, and negotiated agreements with key suppliers. This paper discusses F-Sat's design and a recently completed test which demonstrated the integration of flight electronics with attitude determination and control system sensors and actuators. With the successful completion of this demonstration, F-Sat has taken one more step toward realizing the goal of low-cost access to space.