Artist concept of the Galaxy 15 satellite in orbit. Credit: Orbital Sciences.
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A geostationary satellite that become a “zombie” earlier this year and stopped communicating with ground controllers has now finally been reset and is under control. The Galaxy 15 communications satellite had its “brains fried” by a solar flare and went rogue in early May. Although it was still functional, its navigation and communications systems would not accept commands, and the satellite drifted out of its orbit. On December 23, 2010, engineers at the company Intelsat were finally able to command the unit to reset after a battery drained. Shortly thereafter Galaxy 15 began accepting commands, and then was put into safe mode. “We are pleased to report it no longer poses any threat of satellite interference to either neighboring satellites or customer services,” IntelSat said on their website.
While there was little chance that Galaxy 15 would crash into another satellite, it caused some problems when it entered an orbital space occupied by other satellites and “stole” their signal, thereby interrupting other vendor’s services to customers on Earth.
Engineers will now do some diagnostic tests and load updated commanding software to the satellite.
“We expect to relocate the satellite to an Intelsat orbital location where engineers at our Satellite Operations Control Center will initiate extensive in-orbit testing to determine the functionality of every aspect of the spacecraft,” Intelsat said.
The satellite is currently pointed towards the Sun, allowing the spacecraft’s batteries to become fully charged and the satellite thermally balanced.
Once initial diagnostic testing has been completed, IntelSat will attempt to stop the drift of the satellite. This phase could take as long as two weeks to complete.
Intelsat is hoping full functionality of Galaxy 15 can be regained and they hope to relocate the satellite to an orbital location where we they can assess the viability of the payload, and conduct extensive in-orbit testing to determine the functionality of every aspect of the spacecraft.
On Monday, Dec. 27 at 1731 UTC (12:31 p.m. EST) the GOES-13 satellite captured this visible image of the powerful low pressure system that brought snows from Georgia to Maine along the US east coast. Some of the snowfall can be seen over South and North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and southeastern New York. The clouds of the low obscure New England in the image. Credit: NOAA/NASA GOES Project
The Christmas Blizzard of 2010 dumped up to 30 inches of snow in the northeast United States, with winds gusts up to 60 mph. An Earth-orbiting satellite, GOES-13 captured a series of visible images of the storm, showing its progression. News reports from New York City say this is the sixth largest snowstorm in the city’s history and it buried the streets in four-foot drifts, bringing transit to a halt with cars and buses stranded in the streets.
Snowfall ranged from 1.5 inches in Atlanta, Georgia to more than two feet in various areas of New Jersey, New York and the New England states.
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Some of those snows are visible in the above GOES-13 satellite image. Snowfall on the ground can be seen in the image over South and North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and southeastern New York. The clouds of the low obscure New England in the image.
Photographer Michael Black took an amazing timelapse of the blizzard, with a Canon DLSR on tripod with remote timer taking a photo once every five minutes (approximately 20 hours in 40 seconds.) — and obviously having to go outside and readjust the clock and markers.
Artist concept of an InterOrbital Tubesat in space. Credit: InterOrbital.
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For a space geek, the ultimate do-it-yourself project would be building a satellite in your basement. Astronomer and writer Sandy Antunes is doing just that, but there’s an artsy side to this project, as well. His satellite, called Project Calliope, will collect data from the ionosphere and send it back to Earth in sound-based MIDI files, allowing music to be created from space. “It’ll be an ionospheric detector transmitting sonifiable data back to Earth,” said Antunes. “Conceptually, it’s a musical instrument in space, played by space rather than just after-the-fact sonified.”
Antunes decided to embark on this project after the commercial space company InterOrbital began offering small DIY, soda-can-sized picosatellites for the reasonable price of $8,000 – which includes the launch.
One of the major reasons for doing the project is to prove that anyone can build a satellite in their basement – although Antunes admits it is also a fairly cheap midlife crisis expenditure, especially when his boss at the Science 2.0 blog, Hank Campbell, decided to pitch in half of the price.
The skeleton of the Antunes' satellite, assembled. Cat is for scale. Credit: Sandy Antunes.
“When people ask, ‘where did you get your idea?’ that misses the mark,” Antunes told Universe Today. “The question should be, ‘What idea do you have?’ We’re at the point now where a single hobbyist can send something into orbit to do something useful. I think this is a new space age way of thinking. I’d like to see if this inspires people to do something cooler than me. To me that is what science is all about.”
Antunes is documenting his experiences on his blog, The Sky By Day. “I’m making mistakes so that other people won’t have to make them,” he said. “Hopefully I can make the path will be easier for others.”
Plus, Antunes hopes to answer the big question of what space sounds like. The sun interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field in the ionosphere, creating all sorts of activity; there are also changes in temperature and light.
“People don’t know what space sounds like,” he said. “You walk to ocean and close your eyes and you can hear the roar of the waves, the rushing of water, the moments of quiet; and you can get a good idea of what activity is going on. But we don’t know have an idea of the activity of space, or the ionosphere, where this satellite is going. Sonifying the ionosphere will give people an idea of the ebb and flow of it – how there are constant events going on, sometimes catastrophic-type events but there is also a quiescent stage.”
When the data comes back to Earth, Antunes will give musicians free rein. “Musicians can take it and rework it, much like how musicians have ambient noise, nature sounds, or whale songs in a piece,” Antunes said, “but in this case they can take sounds from the ionosphere. We are making it royalty free so anyone can use it.”
The packaged components for InterOrbital's $8,000 DIY satellite. Credit: Sandy Antunes.
Antunes said working with the pre-packaged TubeSat Personal Satellite Kit is different than what he initially imagined. The Hubble Space Telescope, it is not.
“It has a power system that’s basically two lithium AA batteries hooked together, a little stick of gum computer chip, and some very fragile solar cells,” Antunes said. “I thought it would be hard science and tricky engineering and unsolved problems, but everything I’m getting is off the shelf. The sensors are plug-ins, so the primary work is integrating things. So there are very different problems from what I thought, but this tells me that you don’t have to have a PhD to put up a satellite.”
The current liftoff date for the first InterOrbital Tubesat launch is March or April of 2011. The company has built the rocket engines and they are now doing testing and test firings.
Antunes knows that testing a rocket has a lot of ambiguity, and he anticipates some delays, as even when he has been part of a NASA project, he has never had a launch go on time. This being the first launch of InterOrbital’s commercial satellite venture, if it blows up, Antunes will get a chance to refly his satellite.
Project Calliope will go into a short-term polar orbit, and last about 6-12 weeks, so it is a short term experience, Antunes said.
But he will be tweaking his satellite right up until delivery.
“I wanted to do something that NASA cannot, and that a University wouldn’t, combining art and science,” Antunes said. “I like the idea of flying something in space whose purpose is to make music until it dies– music from science.”
The mid-section of the US got a dose of winter weather, as seen in this satellite image from NASA's Terra spacecraft, taken on Dec. 7, 2010. Credit: NASA
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OK, let’s duke it out. Who had it worse this past week as far as wintery weather: the entire United Kingdom, or the middle part of the United States? We’ll the the satellite images tell story.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired the image above on December 7, two days after the weekend snow storm. A swath of white defines the path of the storm from Minnesota to Kentucky in the image. Weather predictions look there is more on the way this weekend.
And for the UK:
The UK covered in snow, as seen on Dec. 8, 2010. Credit: NASA's Aqua satellite.
Snow and clouds present an almost uniform white to this satellite image. Snow extends from Northern Ireland southward past Dublin, and from Scotland southward into England. Snow cover stops short of London; the white expanses in that area are clouds. Snow and clouds present an almost uniform white to the satellite sensor, but clouds can be distinguished from the underlying snow by their billowy shapes and indistinct margins.
The United Kingdom Met Office forecast that the cold weather would gradually loosen its grip on the region. For December 9 and 10, 2010, the Met Office forecast rain, but also warned of widespread icy roads.
Artist concept of Nanosail-D in Earth orbit. Credit: NASA
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Despite being an idea rattling around inside the head of engineers and space enthusiasts for over 40 years, solar sails have never really gained much traction in the way of actual deployment. Today, NASA has taken an important step towards testing solar sail technology for use in future spacecraft.
The Nanosail-D spacecraft was launched Friday, Nov. 19 at 8:25 p.m. EST from Kodiak Island, Alaska, and was piggybacking on another satellite, both aboard a Minotaur IV rocket. It has successfully been ejected from the launch vehicle as of today, and is on its own. Though the sails have yet to deploy, this is already an achievement that bodes well for the future of both solar sail and small satellite technology.
The Nanosail-D satellite – commonly described as “loaf of bread” sized – was ejected from the Fast, Affordable, Science and Technology Satellite (FASTSAT) at 1:31 a.m. EST December 6th. Not only is this NASA’s first attempt at deploying a solar sail in space, but this also marks the first time a nanosatellite has been ejected from another satellite, proving that this is a reliable way to get multiple satellites into orbit at the same time.
Nanosail-D is a nanosatellite – or cubesat – designed to test the potential for solar sails in atmospheric braking. Such sails – made from a an ultra-thin and light material, in this case the polymer CP1 – could potentially be used to propel a spacecraft outside of our Solar System. The Nanosail-D sail will be deployed in low-Earth orbit, about 650 km (400 miles) up. The sail will be used to show how such technology could slow down satellites when they need to de-orbit.
Currently, de-orbiting satellites involves maneuvering them into a lower and lower orbit using the engines of the satellite, which necessitates more propellant aboard the spacecraft simply to dispose of it properly. Nanosail-D will deploy a solar sail and orbit for 70-120 days, eventually spiraling into the Earth’s atmosphere to burn up.
Since it will be orbiting so close to the Earth, its potential for testing solar sails as propulsion is not the focus of the mission; however, the deployment of a solar sail is itself a huge engineering challenge. Nanosail-D will be the perfect experiment to test out whether the method NASA will be using to unfurl the sail is workable in space.
Immediately after the ejection earlier today, a timer started a three-day countdown. Once it reaches zero, it will go boom – that is, four booms will spring out from the small satellite, and within five seconds the sail will be fully extended to its 100 square foot (10 square meter) sail-span. The first Nanosail-D, unfurled in the lab with the mission team. Image Credit: NASA
Dean Alhorn, NanoSail-D principal investigator and aerospace engineer at the Marshall Space Flight Center explains on the mission page, “The deployment works in the exact opposite way of carpenter’s measuring tape. With a measuring tape, you pull it out, which winds up a spring, and when you let it go it is quickly pulled back in. With NanoSail-D, we wind up the booms around the center spindle. Those wound-up booms act like the spring. Approximately seven days after launch, it deploys the sail off the center spindle.”
There have been other attempts at launching and deploying solar sails before, but once deployed, Nanosail D will be the longest-running solar sail experiment yet attempted. Both JAXA and the Russian space agency have deployed successful solar sail experiments.
JAXA launched a clover-shaped sail aboard a sounding rocket in 2004, and the experiment lasted about 400 seconds. They also launched the IKAROS spacecraft in May, 2010, which is currently en-route to Venus, and will fly to the opposite side of Sun from Earth. The Russians deployed a 20-meter diameter mirror successfully aboard the Progress M-15 resupply mission to Mir in 1993. Named Znamya 2, the mirror cast a 5km (3 mile)-wide bright spot on the ground that swept across southern France to western Russia, and orbited for several hours before burning up.
The Planetary Society is probably the most vocal and enthusiastic organization in support of solar sail technology. They are currently developing a solar sail similar to that of Nanosail-D, called Lightsail-1. The society attempted a launch of a solar sail called Cosmos 1 in 2005, but the rocket carrying the satellite did not fire during its second stage, and the craft was lost.
Nanosail-D is in its second iteration. The first spacecraft was commissioned in early 2008, and the team – astrophysicists and engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center and the Ames Research Center – had four months to put together a workable satellite. It launched aboard a Falcon 1 rocket in August of 2008, but the rocket burned up in the atmosphere. If engineers are good at one thing, it’s redundancy – the team had constructed a second Nanosail-D, and had ample time to work out some of the bugs and develop the technology even more. Doug Huie, a research technician at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, prepares the spacecraft for launch testing. The spacecraft measures 4 inches wide, 4 inches deep and 13 inches long, and weighs 9 pounds. (10cm X 10cm X 33 cm, 4kg) Image Credit: NASA
The Planetary Society almost had a chance to launch Nanosail-D, according to Louis Friedman, executive director of the The Planetary Society, they were contacted by the team developing Nanosail-D after the failed initial launch attempt, and asked if they would like to help launch the second Nanosail-D spacecraft. The Planetary Society agreed, but the team then found space aboard the FASTSAT launch. Consequently, Lightsail-D was borne out of this brief collaboration.
The timer is silently counting down what promises to be an exciting mission, and potential milestone in the future of spaceflight. Watch this space for further developments on the mission.
An artist's impression of a transiting exoplanet. Credit: ESA C Carreau
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It was only a little over a year ago that the 400th extrasolar planet was confirmed, but time flies when you’re discovering exoplanets. The 19th of November 2010 marked the date that over 500 exoplanets had been confirmed on The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia.
Though it’s an arbitrary number to celebrate, the fact that we’ve confirmed the existence over 500 exoplanets since their initial discovery 20 years ago is deserving of merriment. Discovery of exoplanets has really ramped up over the last few years, thanks in part to the ESA’s COROT satellite, the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, the Keck Interferometer, and the improvement of observational techniques to discover and confirm exoplanets. NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has over 700 candidates for exoplanets. Only 7 planets have been confirmed after being discovered by the Kepler spacecraft so far, though.
Jean Schneider, an astrobiologist at the Paris-Meudon Observatory, keeps up a database of the confirmed exoplanetary discoveries at The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia. He posted a warning about how muddle the declaration of “the discovery of the 500th exoplanet” could be. He wrote in the warning:
“The number of exoplanets, recored for instance at http://exoplanet.eu is necessarily subject to some uncertainty for several reasons:
– the mass limit below which a substellar object is called a planet
is somewhat arbitrary
– the mass measurement is always affected by some instrumental inaccuracy
– whatever this mass limit is, the true mass for most planets is subject
to some uncertainty, intrinsic to the detection method (unkown
inclination of the orbit, modelisation of planet atmosphere)
– some planet detections, even published in refereed papers, are sometimes
retracted afterwards
For all these reasons
1/ The boundary between “confirmed”/”unconfirmed” planets is somewhat fuzzy
2/ The number of planet candidates at http://exoplanet.eu ;(collected
in the survey of professional litterature, conferences or websites)
is affected by an uncertainty of a few units.”
In essence, to say that there is a “500th exoplanet” is really not possible, given that there needs to be confirmation of the planet. Even after that confirmation, there could be the possible retraction of the planet from the database. 5 confirmations were posted on the 19th, all of them published in refereed papers and discovered in 2010. This kicked the total over 500. But then another was announced the next day, and it was discovered in 2007 but only recently confirmed. So, putting a number on the 500th extrasolar planet to be confirmed is pretty much impossible, arbitrary at best.
Schneider was interviewed by Scientific American on just why he is the keeper of the encyclopedia, and some of his thoughts on the discoveries made so far and the future of the field. The text of the interview is available here.
Complicating matters even further, there is another running tally of extrasolar planets maintained by the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at PlanetQuest. Their count on the 22nd of November was only 497, and today rests at 500. The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia now stands at 504.
PlanetQuest has this video that succinctly describes the history of extrasolar planet discovery, for those interested:
Even if it’s arbitrary, you can still have that “500th exoplanet” party if you’d like, complete with Kepler satellite-shaped hats. Nobody will likely stop you; if they do, there will likely be another few dozen planets discovered – or a few retracted – by then anyways, making their point rather moot.
Trackable objects in Low Earth Orbit. Image Credit: ESA
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Russia is looking to build a $2 billion orbital “pod” that would sweep up satellite debris from space around the Earth. According to a post on the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos’ Facebook site, (which seems to confirm an earlier article by the Interfax news agency) the cleaning satellite would work on nuclear power and be operational for about 15 years. The Russian rocket company, Energia proposes that they would complete the cleaning satellite assembly by 2020 and test the device no later than in 2023.
“The corporation promises to clean up the space in 10 years by collecting about 600 defunct satellites on the same geosynchronous orbit and sinking them into the oceans subsequently,” Victor Sinyavsky from the company was quoted as saying.
Sinyavsky said Energia was also in the process of designing a space interceptor that would to destroy dangerous space objects heading towards the Earth.
No word on exactly how the space debris cleaner would work, of how it would push dead satellites and other debris into a decaying orbit so that objects would burn up in the atmosphere, or if it might somehow gather up or “vacuum” debris. But at least someone is thinking about space debris and asteroid deflection and putting more than just a few rubles (60 billion of ’em) towards these concepts.
As the X-37B ends its first mission and the X-34 program looks at a potential new start - are we at the dawn of a new age of 'X'? Photo Credit: NASA
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They are at the very edge of current U.S. technological capabilities; one is a supposedly mothballed technology test-bed, the other a super-secret space plane that is currently on orbit – but set to land soon. They are the X-planes, experimental spacecraft that are proving out concepts and capabilities whose beginnings can be traced to the dawn of the space age.
It would appear from amateur observers on the ground that the secretive U.S. Air Force X-37B space plane – will be landing soon. This prediction is based off the fact that the craft is dropping in altitude and the more basic fact that it is nearing the limit of its orbital capabilities and has to return to terra firma. According to the U.S. Air Force, the X-37B can remain on orbit for around nine months or 270 days at maximum, this means that the craft should be landing sometime in the middle of January.
The X-37B or Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Apr. 22, atop an Atlas V rocket. Not much is known after launch due to a media blackout imposed by the U.S. Air Force.
The Air Force remains mum about the details surrounding the landing and recovery of the X-37B. It is known that the spacecraft will land at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
In this image, the X-37B is being encapsulated in its fairing atop an Atlas V rocket. Photo Credit: USAF
In many ways the craft resembles the shuttle with stubby wings, landing gear and a powerful engine that allows the craft to alter its orbit (much to the dismay of many observers on the ground). When the X-37B does touch down, it will do so at a 15,000 foot-long runway that was originally built to support the shuttle program.
The X-37B is one-quarter the size of the space shuttle. It is about 30 feet long and roughly 10 feet tall, with a 15-foot wingspan. It has a payload bay much like its larger, manned cousin – but naturally whatever that payload was for this mission – it was classified. The space plane was constructed by the Boeing Phantom Works. It is operated out of Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado. Another launch of the craft may take place as early as this March.
The two X-34s were moved from their hangars at Dryden to the National Test Pilot School in California. Photo Credit: NASA
Meanwhile, as the X-37B is ready to head to the hangar, another X-craft appears to be given a new lease on life. Two of the X-34 spacecraft, built by Orbital Sciences Corporation (Orbital), were moved from their hangars at Dryden Flight Research Center to the National Test Pilot School located in the Mojave Desert in California. These technology test-bed demonstrator craft will be inspected by the NASA contractor with the idea of flying them once again.
The roughly 60 foot-long spacecraft were put into mothballs back in 2001. If their flight status is renewed they would add to the growing fleet of robotic spacecraft that the United States appears to be building.
The ‘X’ craft have a long and storied history in American aviation and space exploration. One of the most famous of the “X’ planes – was the legendary X-15. None other than the first man to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong, flew in this program which tested out concepts that would be later employed in the space shuttle. As the X-37B prepares to end its first mission and the X-34 may be at the verge of a rebirth – could we be at the dawn of a new ‘X’-era? Only time will tell.
The X-37 can be seen to the left of this image with the X-34 at the right. Photo Credit: NASA
A Delta IV heavy lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 5:58 p.m. EDT carrying a secret NRO payload. Photo Credit: Universe Today/Alan Walters - awaltersphoto.com
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CAPE CANAVERAL — United Launch Alliance (ULA) successfully launched a Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, sending a classified surveillance satellite to space. Liftoff occurred on Nov. 21 at 5:58 p.m. EDT. The enormous rocket thundered to life, and as almost to underscore the secretive nature of the mission, the fiery exhaust was only visible for a short while before disappearing into thick clouds. However, long after the rocket was out of view, it made its journey known through its roar. The vibration was so visceral that vehicles and windows of buildings in the immediate area began to rattle with the raw power that was unleashed.
The massive Delta IV makes its presence known - even from a distance of several miles. Photo Credit: Universe Today/Alan Walters - awaltersphoto.com
U.S. Air Force’ meteorologists predicted a 90 percent chance of acceptable weather for the launch, with only a tiny chance that winds could exceed the 20-knot limit. Winds were not an issue however and by all accounts the vehicle performed flawlessly.
The first launch attempt of the classified National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) satellite was scrubbed Friday during fueling of the Delta IV. Technicians determined that the reason for the scrub on Nov. 19 was a faulty sensor. The sensor gave incorrect temperature readings that were detected in the rocket’s three first-stage boosters. Technicians believed (correctly so) that they had resolved the issue.
Sunday's launch is the third successful flight for the Delta IV Heavy. Photo Credit: Universe Today/Alan Walters - awaltersphoto.com
The launch team rolled back the 330-foot mobile service tower earlier in the day and pumped approximately 450,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen into the twin boosters.
Tonight’s launch marked the third operational flight of the massive Delta IV Heavy since its first demonstration flight back in December of 2004.
“This mission helps to ensure that vital NRO resources will continue to bolster our national defense,” said Brig. Gen. Ed Wilson, 45th Space Wing commander. “The spectacular evening launch showcases how the 45th assures access to the high frontier and supports global operations.”
NASA successfully launched its first 'FASTSAT' on Nov. 17, 2010. Image Credit: NASA
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While the U.S. Air Force unsuccessfully tried to get a Delta IV off the ground in Florida – things worked out far better for NASA at the Kodiak Launch Complex located in Kodiak, Alaska. Friday’s Minotaur 4 rocket launch successfully accomplished its mission of placing not one – but six satellites into orbit some 400 miles above the Earth.
The mission took off just before sunset from Launch Pad 1. After launch the $170 million flight turned southeast from its launch site going out over the Pacific Ocean. The launch took place under a clear sky with the moon lighting its way.
The payload for this flight was a rather mixed bag of NASA, military and university experiments. All six of the launch vehicle’s payloads were released right on time about 30 minutes after launch. The so-called ‘FASTSAT’ for Fast, Affordable, Science and Technology Satellite automatically switched itself on upon deployment. The project is a demonstration of ways to deploy experiments and other payloads cheaply and effectively to orbit.
Four of the satellites that were onboard the STP-S26 mission included the “ESPA-class:” STPSat-2, FalconSAT-5, FASTSAT-HSV01 and FASTRAC.
The FASTSAT program is NASA’s first microsatellite designed to provide multiple customers with access to orbit – at a lower cost. The main goal of the FASTSAT flight is to prove the viability of this capability to various government, academic and industry customers. The intent is to show that you do not have to invest millions of dollars into a single, large-scale satellite to conduct experiments on orbit.
The launch vehicle itself is also rather cheap as it is comprised of spare Peacekeeper missile tech. The STP-S26 mission was powered to orbit by a Minotaur IV launch vehicle, which was provided by the Rocket Systems Launch Program. The Minotaur IV is produced by Orbital Sciences Corporation.
One of the ‘firsts’ on this flight was the utilization of the Hydrazine Auxiliary Propulsion System (HAPS) to allow for dual-orbit capabilities. It is hoped, that in future flights this could be used to allow satellites to other orbits to give them far greater flexibility.
Another first employed on this mission was the first to use the Multi-Mission Satellite Operations Center Ground System Architecture. This center is capable of operating various satellites at the same time at a minimal cost. Indeed, the overriding theme of this launch would appear to be providing access to orbit – for less.
