Three Hosted Payloads to Fly on Ball Aerospace GPIM Satellite

The Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM) will fly three Defense Department experimental hosted payloads when it launches in 2016. Photo: Ball Aerospace

[Via Satellite 10-16-2014] The Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM), a collaborative demonstration project between NASA, the U.S. Air Force, Ball Aerospace and Aerojet Rocketdyne, will now carry three military hosted payloads. The Department of Defense (DOD) Space Experiments Review Board (SERB) chose payloads they anticipate have a strong chance of improving or creating new capabilities for warfighters.

The Space Object Self-tracker (SOS) and the Integrated Miniaturized Electrostatic Analyzer Reflight (iMESA-R) are Air Force payloads, while the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) built the Small Wind and Temperature Spectrometer (SWATS). Two of the three hosted payloads flew on the third Space Test Program satellite, STPSat 3 in 2013.

The primary objective of the GPIM mission is to test a hydrazine alternative Hydroxyl Ammonium Nitrate propellant blend known as AF-M315E. Due to the inclusion of the hosted payloads, the mission duration has been extended from two months to a full year. Ball Aerospace received a $3.4 million contract to integrate the payloads.