Lewis

SSTI-1

Mission Profile

Lewis (SSTI-1) was a NASA small satellite mission launched on 23 August 1997 aboard an Athena I rocket, designed to demonstrate rapid development of Earth imaging spacecraft and test advanced technologies including a hyperspectral imager for land cover classification. The spacecraft entered a safe-mode attitude control anomaly shortly after launch and began spinning uncontrollably, causing its solar panels to point away from the Sun and draining batteries before ground controllers could restore contact. NASA declared the mission lost on 28 September 1997, only 35 days after launch. The Lewis failure contributed to NASA's systematic review of faster-better-cheaper spacecraft development practices and highlighted the risks of rapid, low-cost spacecraft development with insufficient redundancy.