KySat Closer to Orbit: Flight model bakeout completed

The Kentucky Space Consortium has passed another big milestone towards the completion of the KySat-1 Cubesat.

After some very long days (and nights) these past few weeks, the  "bake-out" of all the circuit boards that will make up the flight model for KySat-1 has been completed. The bake-out procedure, which is high heat (70+ C) applied under extreme vacuum (less than one millionth of the atmosphere at sea level), removes impurities on the surfaces and interior of the boards in preparation for the conformal coating process. The conformal coating is a thin epoxy like layer on the surface of the boards that provides additional mechanical strength and  environmental protection for the circuit boards and the components on them. Creation Technologies is graciously providing the coatings, infrastructure, and expertise required to handle the materials and is applying the coatings at their facility in Lexington.

The coating process is scheduled to take about two weeks, after which the assembly of the flight model of the KySat-1 picosatellite will begin. We expect the flight model to be assembled as early as January 2009 and ready to begin a series of qualification testing with a target delivery date to NASA in March 2009.

If all goes well, we hope to fly in June, 2009.

While there is still much work to do for the ongoing testing of the engineering model of KySat-1 (an identical copy of the flight model used for more rigorous qualification testing, and to which the conformal coating has already been applied) and the subsequent testing of the flight model, this is a big milestone for the program and a very exciting time for the consortium and those involved.

Daniel Erb
Graduate student
Kentucky Space consortium