<h2>AAS  96-192</h2><h2>THE DATA-CHASER HITCHHIKER PROJECT AS A DEMONSTRATION OF DISTRIBUTED OPERATIONS FOR SMALL PAYLOADS</h2><h4>J. Willis and R. Sheppard, University of Colorado</h4><h2> Abstract </h2>Graduate and undergraduate students of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium are designing and building the DATA-CHASER (Distribution and Automation Technology Advancement for the Colorado Hitchhiker And Student Experiment of solar Radiation) payload.  DATA-CHASER will be demonstrating many new mission operations technologies--one of which is the distributed operation of a small payload.  All too often the home institutions of the small payload engineers and scientists are located far away from the mission operations center.  Currently, they have two choices: 1)either pack up and move to where the payload is being operated or, 2) train the operators at the mission operations center, who are less familiar with the payload, to operate the payload and send data back.  DATA-CHASER will demonstrate a third choice of direct operation and control of the payload by the scientists and engineers themselves from their home institution. <br><br>