Updated Launch Information

On March 4,2011, the Taurus XL launch vehicle carrying the Hermes CubeSat, two other university nanosatellites, and NASA's Glory satellite, failed to reach orbit due to a malfunction in the payload fairing separation system. Despite the physical loss of Hermes, a vast amount of knowledge and experience was gained over the course of its development. This site aims to preserve the key details of the Hermes project, including an overview of Hermes' subsystems and a description of its mission objectives, along with the motivation behind them.

Welcome to the Colorado Space Grant Consortium (COSGC) Hermes CubeSat webpage. Hermes was the first CubeSat under construction at the COSGC headquarters at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The COSGC CubeSat program, also known as CO³ (Colorado Cubed), hopes to use Hermes as the starting point for an extended program of CubeSats. The Hermes CubeSat was built in accordance with the specifications set forth by the California Polytechnic State University (CalPoly) CubeSat Foundation. Work on Hermes was completed in late summer of 2010 and the CubeSat was delivered to CalPoly in October 2010.

Hermes was selected in the summer of 2007 to be a part of the Educational Launch of Nanosatellite (ELaNa) mission, which is the first in a planned series of missions by NASA to launch small university-built satellites. It was one of three satellites selected for the inaugural ELaNa mission, the other two being E1P from Montana State and KySat-1 from Kentucky Space. The satellites were manifested as an auxiliary payload on the Taurus XL launch vehicle for NASA's Glory mission. The launch occurred on March 4, 2011 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, but due to a failure in the payload fairing separation, none of the onboard satellites were able to reach orbit (see Updated Launch Information). Even though Hermes' mission was sadly cut short, it was an invaluable experience for all of the students involved in its development.   

Hermes Mission Objectives:

1. Create modular and extensible subsystems.
2. Utilize S-Band frequencies to communicate at higher data rates than those obtainable with Ultra-High Frequencies (UHF).
3. Characterize Hermes' orbital environment and satellite status to validate models and design.
4. Provide a unique hands-on opportunity for college students in the design, build, test and operations of a CubeSat
   

For more information, please select one of the following:

Mission Objectives - Click here for a detailed description of Hermes's mission objectives.

CubeSat Subsystems - Information on the systems that make up the Hermes CubeSat.

Team -The students who have worked to put Hermes together.

For more information on the Cal Poly CubeSat program, please click here. 

For see the article based on the launch, please click here.

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