SpaceDev announced today that CHIPSat has passed the final
full system vibration and environmental testing conducted at the Air Force
Research Laboratory Aerospace Engineering Facility (AEF) at Kirtland Air Force
base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and will soon begin launch integration for a
scheduled mid-December launch.

“At AEF, CHIPSat was operated in a realistic test environment to perform a
‘dress rehearsal’ for its orbital flight,” said Jeff Janicik, director of
flight systems of SpaceDev. “The testing included vibration testing of all
three axes, shock test, fit test, thermal vacuum, solar array, and magnetic
calibration.”

On October 14, CHIPSat arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) in
California where it will be readied for a scheduled launch on December 19.
CHIPSat will be the secondary payload on a Boeing Delta II; its primary
payload will be NASA’s ICESat to be launched into a 94 degree inclination,
590 km circular orbit.

CHIPSat is a sophisticated, high-performance 40 kg microsatellite bus
designed and built by SpaceDev for the University of California, Berkeley
under a NASA-funded $6.8 million fixed-price contract. SpaceDev has overall
responsibility for the design of the mission, the design, assembly,
integration and testing of the microsatellite, and mission control and
operations from SpaceDev’s Mission Control Center.

CHIPSat will be the first NASA mission to use end-to-end satellite
operations over the Internet with TCP/IP and FTP. This concept was analyzed
and demonstrated by the NASA OMNI team via UoSat-12; however, SpaceDev will be
the first to implement the concept as the only means of satellite
communication.

About SpaceDev

SpaceDev creates and sells affordable and
innovative space products and solutions to government and commercial
enterprises. SpaceDev products and solutions include the design, manufacture,
marketing and operation of sophisticated micro and nano satellites, hybrid
rocket-based orbital Maneuvering and orbital Transfer Vehicles (MTVs) as well
as safe sub-orbital and orbital hybrid rocket-based propulsion systems.
SpaceDev has been awarded contracts from NASA, National Reconnaissance
Organization (NRO), Boeing, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California
Space Authority (CSA) Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) and several commercial
customers. SpaceDev is also developing commercial hybrid rocket motors and
small high performance space vehicles and subsystems. For more information,
visit www.spacedev.com .

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