Saturday, December 26, 1992

Solar Mesosphere Explorer

 1981-100A


SME was a project operated by the University of Colorado to study the mesosphere and the ozone layer. The mission was managed by JPL. The satellite, built by Ball Aerospace, was launched at 1127 on 1981 Oct 6 by a Delta 2310 from Vandenberg and reached a 95.45min, 536 x 540 km x 97.5 deg sun-synchronous (3am/3pm local time) orbit at 1135. The Delta stage made a second burn to a higher orbit.

SME operated until around Dec-1986 and reentered on 1991 Mar 5. The satellite generated a database of nitric oxide density profiles. One reference says that instruments were switched off in Dec 1988, but available science data runs only to Dec 1986 so I suspect a typo.


SME 
 

DateTimeEventOrbit  

1981 Oct 6  1127  Launch by Delta 2310  
  T+0:38 SRM burnout 
  T+1:45 SRM sep 
  T+3:48 MECO 
  T+3:56 St 1 sep 
  T+4:03 SES-1 4:32 
 1135  T+8:35 SECO-1 
 1221  T+54:53 SES-2 4.56s 
 1221 T+54:58 SECO-2 
  Spinup 
 1226  T+59:10 SME/Delta sep  95.45 536 x 540 x 97.5 
  Retro burn  
 1228  T+1:01:25 Uosat/Delta sep 
 1257?  SES-3 depletion 
 1257?  SECO-3  554 x 2752 x 99.9 
1981 Oct 7  1200?  IR radiometer cover jettison 
1981 Dec 15   Ozone data begins
1982 Jan 6   N2O4 data begins 
1986 Dec 11   N2O4 data ends 
1986 Dec 15   Ozone data ends 
1986 Dec   Decommissioned
1991 Mar 5   Reentered 

No comments:

Post a Comment

These Are Not My Beautiful Stories

  Summary: The chapters within are outlines for both future stories I’ve got planned (in the case that I never get around to writing them) a...