The Living Plume Shield or LIPS were a set of three satellites launched on Atlas rockets as secondary payloads, the primary payload consisting of NOSS Satellites.
Each of the satellites was designed and tested in less than a year by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory Spacecraft Engineering Department at their Payload Processing Facility in Washington, D.C. <br/> As their name suggests, all three satellites were built by utilizing the plume shield that was used to deflect the exhaust of the upper-stage motor away from the primary payload and mounting experiments on the protected anterior surfaces.