Category: Satellites

A Zenit-3SL vehicle blasted off Tuesday morning from the Sea Launch facility, carrying a Koreasat 5 telecommunications satellite into orbit. The launch occurred at 0327 GMT (11:27pm EDT, Aug 21), and the spacecraft was placed successfully into a geosynchronous transfer orbit about an hour later. The satellite will operate at 113 degrees east, and provide both commercial and military communications services.
Continue reading “Sea Launch Lofts Koreasat 5”

A Proton Breeze M rocket blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Friday night, carrying the Eutelsat Hot Bird 8 broadcast satellite. The rocked lifted off at 2148 GMT (5:48 pm EDT), and released its satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit about 9 hours later. Hot Bird 8 will provide broadcast television to customers in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.
Continue reading “Proton Launches Eutelsat Satellite”

A Boeing Delta IV rocket blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Wednesday, carrying a surveillance satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office. This is the first time that a Delta IV has been launched from the military’s California facility; normally they launch from Florida. The satellite has been identified as NROL-22, but no other details about its function or capabilities were announced.
Continue reading “First West Coast Delta IV Launch is Successful”

A Boeing Delta II rocket blasted off on Wednesday carrying an experimental satellite for the US Military. The rocket lifted off at 2315 GMT (6:15 pm EDT) from Launch Complex 17A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, and the satellite payload separated 30 minutes later. The payload is the Micro-Satellite Technology Experiment (MiTEx), which is designed to test how well off-the-shelf equipment will perform in space. If successful, it should help reduce the cost and development time for future satellites.
Continue reading “Delta II Launches Micro-Satellite Technology Experiment”

A Zenit-3SL rocket blasted off from Sea Launch today, carrying PanAmSat’s Galaxy 16 communications satellite. The rocket lifted off from the Odyssey Launch Platform at 0750 GMT (3:50am EDT), and reached geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) nearly an hour later. The spacecraft will eventually be positioned at 99-degrees West Longitude, and provide HDTV television and data services throughout North America. This is the third launch for Sea Launch this year; three more are still planned.
Continue reading “Galaxy 16 HDTV Satellite Launched”

Chilbolton Observatory. Image credit: ESA Click to enlarge
After a successful launch on 28 December 2005, GIOVE A began transmitting navigation signals on 12 January 2006. Work is currently being performed to check the quality of these signals.

In space, the success of a mission relies on the achievement of a series of milestones. This is especially true for a pioneering mission such as GIOVE A, the first Galileo satellite, launched late last year under the European Space Agency’s responsibility.

Manufacture, launch, reaching final orbit and transmission of first signals: all these key steps were met by the satellite, which is now going to achieve its first goal, the filing for the frequencies allocated to Galileo by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

After launch and platform commissioning, GIOVE A started signal transmission on 12 January and the quality of these signals is now being checked. This checking process is employing several facilities, including the Navigation Laboratory at ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), in the Netherlands, the ESA ground station at Redu, in Belgium, and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) Chilbolton Observatory in the United Kingdom.

Chilbolton’s 25 metre antenna makes it possible to acquire the signals from GIOVE A and verify they conform to the Galileo system’s design specification. Each time the satellite is visible from Chilbolton, the large antenna is activated and tracks the satellite. GIOVE A orbits at an altitude of 23 260 kilometres, making a complete journey around the Earth in 14 hours and 22 minutes.

Every orbital pass provides an opportunity to analyse the signals from the satellite. The quality of the signals transmitted by GIOVE A will have an important influence on the accuracy of the positioning information that will be provided by the user receivers on the ground, so a detailed check-out of the signal properties is mandatory. The signal quality can be affected by the environment of the satellite in its orbit and by the propagation path of the signals travelling from space to ground. Additionally, the satellite signals must not create interference with services operating in adjacent frequency bands, and this is also being checked.

The engineers at Chilbolton have means to observe and record in real time the spectrum of the signals transmitted by GIOVE A. Several measurements are performed relating to transmitted signal power, centre frequency and bandwidth, as well as the format of the navigation messages generated on-board. This allows the analysis of the satellite transmissions in the three frequency bands which are reserved for it and confirmation that GIOVE A is transmitting that which is expected of it.

The GIOVE A mission also represents an opportunity for the testing of a key element of the future Galileo system, the user receivers. The first Galileo experimental receivers, manufactured by Septentrio of Belgium, were installed at the Redu and Chilbolton In Orbit Test Stations and at the Guildford, United Kingdom, premises of Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), the manufacturer of the satellite and now in charge of its control in orbit.

A meticulous task, sometimes tedious, but essential for the progress of the project, ensuring that Galileo, the joint civilian navigation initiative from the European Space Agency and the European Commission, can offer the value added services which will fundamentally depend on the quality of the transmitted signals.

Original Source: ESA Portal

FUSE lift off in 1999. Image credit: NASA/KSC Click to enlarge
NASA’s Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer astronomy satellite is back in full operation, its aging onboard software control system rejuvenated and its mission extended by enterprising scientists and engineers after a near-death experience in December 2004.

Observations with the orbiting telescope resumed Nov. 1, 2005, about ten months after the third of four onboard reaction wheels, used to precisely point the spacecraft and hold it steady, stopped spinning. After two months of experience tweaking the new control system in November and December, FUSE operations returned in January to a level of efficiency comparable to earlier in the mission, mission managers said.

“It’s really a level of performance that we never thought we would see again,” said William Blair (pictured at right), a research professor in physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins and FUSE’s chief of observatory operations. “The old satellite still has some spunk.”

FUSE was launched in June 1999. Late in 2001, two of the reaction wheels failed in quick succession, leaving the satellite temporarily unusable. That time, science operations were successfully resumed within about two months through a modification of flight control software and development of a creative new technique to establish fine pointing control.

“The project aggressively pursued a similar track this time, but it was even harder with just one operational reaction wheel,” said George Sonneborn, FUSE project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “Some people would say what we’re doing is nearly impossible.”

Initially, at least three reaction wheels were required for the spacecraft to conduct its scientific mission. The revised control mode developed in 2001 utilized the two remaining reaction wheels and drafted the satellite’s magnetic torquer bars into the effort to provide control in all three axes. The MTBs (essentially, controllable electromagnets) apply forces on the satellite by interacting with Earth’s magnetic field. Now, the FUSE control system has been modified again to use magnetic control on two axes, which provides a tenuous but acceptable level of control in place of the missing reaction wheels.

“It’s like we had three strong muscles originally, and could point FUSE wherever we wanted to,” Blair said. “Now we have to control the pointing with one strong muscle and two weak muscles. The revised control software is like a good physical therapist, teaching the satellite to compensate.”

Since its launch, FUSE has obtained more than 52 million seconds of science data on everything from planets and comets in our solar system to distant quasars and active galaxies, and every major class of object in between. This information, compiled in the form of spectrographs rather than visual images, provides astronomers with details about the physical properties and characteristics of objects, from temperatures and densities to chemical makeup.

Observations from the satellite have been used to discover an extended, tenuous halo of very hot gas surrounding our Milky Way galaxy, and have found evidence of similar hot gas haloes around other galaxies. FUSE has also detected molecular hydrogen in the atmosphere of the planet Mars for the first time. This has implications for the water history of our frozen neighbor. In addition, FUSE observations first detected molecular nitrogen in dense interstellar gas and dust clouds, but at levels well below what astronomers had expected, requiring a return to the drawing board for theories of interstellar chemistry.

NASA has twice extended what originally was planned as FUSE’s three-year mission to carry out a broad range of science programs for hundreds of astronomers from around the world. To date, more than 350 publications based on FUSE observations have been published in the professional astronomy literature and many more are on the way. A new set of planned observations for the coming year was accepted in December 2005 by NASA, and the first of these has already been obtained.

“The recovery of FUSE operations is a tremendous testament to the dedication and ingenuity of the scientists and engineers at Johns Hopkins and at the Orbital Sciences Corp.,” said Warren Moos, professor of physics and astronomy and principal investigator for FUSE. “There are a large number of astronomers in line waiting for FUSE observations that are now being undertaken once again.”

The Johns Hopkins University has primary responsibility for all aspects of FUSE, including both the development and operational phases of the mission. The FUSE science and satellite control center is on the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus in Baltimore. FUSE partners include Honeywell Technical Services Inc., the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, the Canadian Space Agency, the French Space Agency, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the University of California, Berkeley, in addition to Orbital Sciences Corporation.

FUSE is a NASA Explorer mission. Goddard Space Flight Center manages the Explorers Program for NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

For more on the FUSE mission and future status updates, visit the FUSE website at fuse.pha.jhu.edu.

Original Source: JHU News Release

ISS astronaut Mike Finke spacewalks in a Russian Orlon spacesuit in 2004. Image credit: NASA Click to enlarge
One of the strangest satellites in the history of the space age is about to go into orbit. Launch date: Feb. 3rd. That’s when astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) will hurl an empty spacesuit overboard.

The spacesuit is the satellite — “SuitSat” for short.

“SuitSat is a Russian brainstorm,” explains Frank Bauer of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Some of our Russian partners in the ISS program, mainly a group led by Sergey Samburov, had an idea: Maybe we can turn old spacesuits into useful satellites.” SuitSat is a first test of that idea.

“We’ve equipped a Russian Orlon spacesuit with three batteries, a radio transmitter, and internal sensors to measure temperature and battery power,” says Bauer. “As SuitSat circles Earth, it will transmit its condition to the ground.”

Unlike a normal spacewalk, with a human inside the suit, SuitSat’s temperature controls will be turned off to conserve power. The suit, arms and legs akimbo, possibly spinning, will be exposed to the fierce rays of the sun with no way to regulate its internal temperature.

“Will the suit overheat? How long will the batteries last? Can we get a clear transmission if the suit tumbles?” wonders Bauer. These are some of the questions SuitSat will answer, laying the groundwork for SuitSats of the future.

SuitSat can be heard by anyone on the ground. “All you need is an antenna (the bigger the better) and a radio receiver that you can tune to 145.990 MHz FM,” says Bauer. “A police band scanner or a hand-talkie ham radio would work just fine.” He encourages students, scouts, teachers and ham radio operators to tune in.

For years, Bauer and colleagues at Goddard have been connecting kids on Earth with astronauts on the ISS through the ARISS program (Amateur Radio on International Space Station). “There’s a ham rig on the ISS, and the astronauts love talking to students when they pass over schools,” Bauer explains. ARISS is co-sponsoring SuitSat along with the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the Russian Space Agency and NASA.

When will SuitSat orbit over your home town?

Use Science@NASA’s J-Pass utility to find out. The online program will ask for your zip code?that’s all. Then it will tell you when the ISS is going to orbit over your area. (Be sure to click the “options” button and select “all passes.”) Because the ISS and SuitSat share similar orbits, predictions for one will serve for the other. Observers in the United States will find that SuitSat passes overhead once or twice a day?usually between midnight and 4 o’clock in the morning. At that time of day, SuitSat and the ISS will be in Earth’s shadow and, thus, too dark to see with the naked eye. You’ll need a radio to detect them.

“Point your antenna to the sky during the 5-to-10 minute flyby,” advises Bauer, and this is what you’ll hear:

SuitSat transmits for 30 seconds, pauses for 30 seconds, and then repeats. “This is SuitSat-1, RS0RS,” the transmission begins, followed by a prerecorded greeting in five languages. The greeting contains “special words” in English, French, Japanese, Russian, German and Spanish for students to record and decipher. (Awards will be given to students who do this. Scroll to the “more information” area at the end of this story for details.)

Next comes telemetry: temperature, battery power, mission elapsed time. “The telemetry is stated in plain language?in English,” says Bauer. Everyone will be privy to SuitSat’s condition. Bauer adds, “Suitsat ‘talks’ using a voice synthesizer. It’s pretty amazing.”

The transmission ends with a Slow Scan TV picture. Of what? “We’re not telling,” laughs Bauer. “It’s a mystery picture.” (More awards will be given to students who figure out what it is.)

Students and teachers who want to try this, but have no clue how to begin, should contact their local ham radio club. There are thousands of them around the country. Click here to find a club near you. “Hams are notoriously outgoing; most would be delighted to help students tune in to SuitSat,” believes Bauer.

Bauer expects SuitSat’s batteries to last 2 to 4 days. “Although longer is possible,” he allows. After that, SuitSat will begin a slow silent spiral into Earth’s atmosphere. Weeks or months later, no one knows exactly when, it will become a brilliant fireball over some part of Earth?a fitting end for a trailblazer.

Visit SuitSat.org for launch updates and sighting reports.

Original Source: NASA News Release