Lab's ALEXIS satellite completes its mission

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Diane Roussel-Dupre, seated, talks with left to right, Robert Dingler and Keri Ramsey of ISR-3 and Paul G. Weber of the Threat Reduction (ADTR) Directorate, at the ALEXIS satellite operations center.   enlarge image
Credit: LeRoy N. Sanchez, Public Affairs

Diane Roussel-Dupre of Space Data Systems (ISR-3) sets up the ground station for the last contact with ALEXIS last Friday afternoon at the ALEXIS satellite operations center at Technical Area 3. The Array of Low-Energy X-Ray Imaging Sensors, or ALEXIS, satellite, launched April 25, 1993. The $17 million Department of Energy-funded satellite has lasted well beyond its nominal one-year mission to demonstrate its telescope and radio-receiver technology for nonproliferation applications and past a three-year lifetime engineering estimates gave it. ALEXIS made its last ground station contact with the Laboratory last Friday. Over the years, ALEXIS has been a training ground for Los Alamos staff in operating -- and rescuing -- a satellite and a proving ground for techniques and technologies used in or proposed for subsequent space missions. A radio experiment aboard ALEXIS has captured radio signals that led to discovery papers on mysterious atmospheric discharges and allowed a host of students to cut their teeth on a scientific project. For more information about ALEXIS, click here.