Saturday, January 22, 2005

Space Flyer Unit

 1995-011A


The Space Flyer Unit was a free flying platform deployed by the expendable H-II launch vehicle and to be retrieved by the Shuttle. It was a precursor to NASDA's involvement in the ISSA project, and was a collaborative project with ISAS, MITI and NASA. 

The H-II was launched on 1995 Mar 11 and delivered SFU to orbit. SFU maneuvered to the 486 km mission orbit at 0549 UT on Mar 23. It was planned to be retrieved after 6 months but the Shuttle retrieval was delayed. It was recovered by Space Shuttle Endeavour in Jan 1996.

The SFU satellite was an octagonal bus, 4.7m in diameter and 2.8m high. Its mass at launch was 3486 kg including a fuel load of 759 kg hydrazine. After orbit insertion, two 2.4m wide solar arrays are deployed from the bus for a total span of 24.4m. The monopropellant hydrazine RCS and orbit change thruster system had twelve 23-N thrusters and twelve 3-N thrusters.

Capacity was 100 kg RCS and 650 kg for the OCT system.

One of the main experiments on SFU is the EFFU, which was a test flight of equipment for the JEM Exposed Facility on the Space Station.

The IRTS was an ISAS/NASA experiment in infrared astronomy. The 2D experiment used the miura-ori folding technique to compress a tension stabilized membrane for launch and then deploy it on orbit, creating a roughly 10m diamond shaped array. During retrieval, the solar arrays would not retract correctly and had to be jettisoned.


SFU 
 

DateTimeEventOrbit  

1995 Mar 18  0801  Launch by H-II  TNSC 
  T+1:16 SSB burnout 25 km 1.3 km/s 
  T+1:30 SSB sep 36 km 1.6 km/s 
  T+1:34 SRB burnout 
  T+1:37 SRB sep 42 km 1.6 km/s 
  T+3:39 Upper fairing sep 128 km 2.8 km/s 
  T+5:47 MECO 
  T+5:56 Stage 1 sep 222 km 5.3 km/s 
  T+6:02 Stage 2 SES-1  -4400 x 250 ? 
 0813  T+12:20 SECO-1 
 0814  T+13:16 SFU separation 
 0817  T+16:11 Lower fairing sep 
 0826  T+25:03 SES-2 
 0828  T+27:02 SECO-2 
 0828  T+27:52 Stage 2 sep from GMS 
   91.05 311 x 340 x 28.5 
1995 Mar 19    91.23 320 x 349 x 28.5 
1995 Mar 20    92.09 358 x 395 x 28.5 
1995 Mar 21    92.15 365 x 394 x 28.5 
1995 Mar 23   Operational orbit 
1995 Mar 23    94.24 466 x 496 x 28.5 
1995 Mar 29    94.24 467 x 494 x 28.5 
  Begin Mission Operation Phase 
1995 Mar 29   EPEX first burn 
 1800  IRTS FPI on 
 1815  IRTS sun shield extended 
1995 Mar 29  2359  IRTS cover ejected 
  IRTS survey begins 
1995 Apr 24   IRTS survey ends 
1995 Apr 24  0855  He tank venting 
1995 Apr 26   Helium tank discharged 
1995 Apr 26  0758 IRTS sun shield ejected 
1995 May 26   2DHV deploy test 
1995 Jul 4    94.21 466 x 493 x 28.5 
1995 Jul 20   Residual EPEX hydrazine dumped 
1995 Aug 3   2DHV locked 
1995 Aug 23   EPEX hydrazine valves closed 
1995 Sep   Post Mission Phase 
1995 Oct 17   Begin OCT tests 94.18 464 x 492 x 28.5 
  Orbit lower apogee 
1995 Oct 19    94.02 461 x 480 x 28.5 
1995 Dec 6    94.00 465 x 474 x 28.5 
  Raise orbit 
1995 Dec 7  0920   94.15 472 x 483 x 28.5 
1995 Dec 18    94.15 471 x 483 x 28.5 
  Raise orbit 
1995 Dec 21  2052   94.33 481 x 491 x 28.5 
  Lower orbit 
1995 Dec 22  1102   94.08 470 x 478 x 28.4 
1996 Jan 12    94.08 469 x 478 x 28.5 
1996 Jan 13  0935  SFU panel 1 ejected 
 0947  SFU panel 2 ejected 
 1057  OV-105 RMS grapple SFU 
 1139  RMS berth SFU 
 1150? RMS ungrapple SFU 
1996 Jan 18  1530   94.08 469 x 478 x 28.5 
1996 Jan 20  0742  Landed aboard OV-105 

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