Astro 200AS

Comtech AeroAstro’s Astro 200AS bus is an enhanced-performance version of our Astro 200, providing outstanding performance in the area of attitude knowledge/control, jitter, added X-band downlink capability, improved timing accuracy, and longer mission life. This bus supports high-precision pointing missions previously only in the domain of much larger, more expensive vehicles, with accuracies in the 15 arcsecond range.

The Astro 200AS remains compatible with a wide variety of launchers including Minotaurs I and IV, Pegasus, Falcons 1 and 1E, and the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA). Many of the standard payload interface features are also maintained, thereby reducing technical risk and accelerating integration timelines.

The Astro 200AS was initially developed for the US Navy’s Joint Milli-arcsecond Pathfinder Survey (JMAPS) mission to perform an extensive and highly accurate update of current star position catalogs. The bus design builds on activities conducted since 2005 under a series of Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contracts with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the US Navy. The result is a microsatellite capability that integrates customized COTS components into a highly efficient volumetric package and provides pointing, agility, and stability performance unmatched in this class of vehicle.