Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Harmony
2007-050
Node 2
Built by Alenia/Torino. The Boeing Node pressure test article would have been Node 2, prior to a replanning decision in 1997. Alenia is under contract to ASI, which is under contract to ESA, which is providing Node 2 and 3 to NASA in exchange for the launch of COF. The nodes will be delivered directly to NASA from ASI.
Node 2 is 7.19m long 4.48m dia. Mass will be 14200 kg (as of Apr 2001) Mass is 13405 kg (Aug 2006).
Node 2 will attach to the +Vbar, with PMA-2 leading, Columbus and JEM on port and stbd, and ELM-PS, then CAM, at zenith. Nadir will be used for MPLM and HTV.
On STS-120, Node 2 gets added to Unity nadir; then PMA-2 is removed from Destiny and attached to Node 2. Node 2 is then removed from Unity nadir and reattached to Destiny.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Nimiq 1
1999-027A
Nimiq is Inuit for `binding', either a literal rope fastening or a symbolic binding force. Nimiq is a Telesat Canada direct broadcast satellite. A2100AX to have 32 transponders. Launch mass is 3600 kg. The payload was built at LMCPC/Newtown, Pennsylvania and the satellite at LMCSC/Sunnyvale.
| Nimiq 1 | |||
| Date | Time | Event | Orbit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 May 20 | 2230:00 | Launch by ILS Proton | |
| T+2:02 St 2 burn | |||
| T+5:34 St 2 MECO | |||
| T+5:35 St 2 sep | |||
| T+5:40 St 3 burn | |||
| T+9:38 St 3 MECO | |||
| 2239:48 | T+9:48 St 3 VECO | ||
| 2239:48 | T+9:48 St 3 sep | 170? x 170? x 51.6 | |
| 2343:49 | T+1:13:49 DM burn 1 | ||
| 2350:31 | T+1:20:31 DM burn 1 MECO | 214 x 35733 x 48.6 | |
| 1999 May 21 | |||
| 0449:52 | T+6:19:52 DM burn 2 | ||
| 0451:39 | T+6:21:39 DM MECO-2 | ||
| 0512:00 | T+6:42:00 DM sep | ||
| 1999 May 21 | 768.76 7050 x 35790 x 15.9 | ||
| 1999 May 23 | 2130? | LAM-1 | |
| 1999 May 24 | 881.23 12375 x 35763 x 9.9 | ||
| 1999 May 25 | 0230? | LAM-2 | |
| 1999 May 25 | 1149.43 24168 x 35771 x 3.2 | ||
| 1999 May 26 | 1700? | LAM-3 | |
| 1999 May 30 | 1700? | LAM-4 | |
| 1999 Jun 2 | 1436.05 35776 x 35794 x 0.1 GEO 91.1W | ||
| 1999 Nov 4 | 1436.18 35781 x 35795 x 0.1 GEO 91.2W | ||
| 2006 Aug 3 | 1436.08 35776 x 35796 x 0.0 GEO 91.2W | ||
Kosmos 192
1967-116A
The third Tsiklon was launched in Nov 1967 as Kosmos-192. It was described in the Oct 2007 Reshetnev newsletter as the first Soviet navigation satellite.
| Kosmos-192 | |||
| Date | Time | Event | Orbit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1967 Nov 23 | 1500:00 | Launch by 11K65M | PL |
| 1502? | Stage 2 burn | ||
| 1508? | Stage 2 coast | ||
| 1558? | Stage 2 burn 2 | ||
| 1558? | Stage 2 sep | 99.9 747 x 761 x 74.0 (RAE) | |
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Hubble Space Telescope
1990-037B
The idea of an orbiting space telescope had been proposed by Lyman Spitzer as early as the 1940s. NASA's 3-m aperture Large Space Telescope project was begun in 1972, for a planned launch in 1983. The project was downsized to simple Space Telescope, a 2.4m telescope, and delayed many times. A special institute, the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) was opened to run the science aspects of the mission, and it became a well established player on the astronomy research scene even before ST's launch. The telescope was renamed the Edwin P. Hubble Space Telescope Observatory in honor of the astronomer (1889-1953) who discovered the expansion of the Universe. The HST project became a joint mission with the European Space Agency.
HST was built by Lockheed Corp. The spacecraft consisted of the OTA (Optical Telescope Assembly), twin solar arrays which could be adjusted to face the sun, and an instrument bay at the Cassegrain focus. There were four instrument locations at the rear of the telescope, and one bay accessed from the side. The initial set of instruments consisted of the Wide Field/Planetary Camera (WF/PC), which took optical images; the Faint Object Camera (FOC), an ESA instrument which took deep ultraviolet images; the Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS), which took high sensitivity, moderate resolution ultraviolet spectra; the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS), which took very high resolution ultraviolet spectra; and the High Speed Photometer (HSP), which could measure the brightness of stars accurately and with high time resolution. HST also carried three Fine Guidance Sensors which were used to accurately point the telescope, but could also be used for scientific purposes as astrometric instruments.
HST finally got its ride to orbit at 1233:51 on 1990 Apr 24 when Discovery lifted off pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-31R. Main engine cutoff was at 1242 and the orbit was circularized by the OMS 2 burn somewhat later. An RCS thruster burn adjusted Discovery's orbit to 613 x 615 km at 1945. Meanwhile, at 1721 on Apr 24, HST was commanded on. The instruments were activated at 2000, and at 1106 on Apr 25 the RMS arm grappled the HST satellite. It was unberthed at 1245 and held above the payload bay. The solar array masts were deployed at 1432, the High Gain Antenna at 1530, and the port solar array at 1630. The starboard array would not deploy on the first attempt at 1750, but at 1903 it was successfully completed. Hubble Space Telescope was released from the RMS at 1938 and floated free. Its first TDRS contact was at 1837 on Apr 26, and the aperture door was opened at 1348, being fully open by 1403. By the end of the day HST was in software sunpoint mode and ready to begin testing.
It was not long before STScI scientists realized that something was dreadfully wrong. No adequate focus could be found for the telescope. It was later discovered that an incorrect test measurement on the ground had caused mirror manufacturers Perkin-Elmer to grind the mirror to the wrong shape, inducing a spherical aberration. While a small amount of the light from a star was contained within 0.1 arcseconds of its true position, most of it was scattered over a much larger area of the detector. This meant that although HST could be used to do excellent science on isolated point sources just by increasing exposure times, and could do ultraviolet spectroscopy better than any other previous satellite, it could not produce the sharp imaging it was designed to do, and many of the key programs such as measuring the extragalactic distance scale were compromised. Another problem surfaced - the European built solar arrays were flapping as the satellite passed from night into day, causing errors in the pointing accuracy. Nevertheless, observations were begun in late 1990 and soon results were pouring in.
The plan developed to recover from the mirror error was to install a special device called COSTAR in one of the axial bays. Since the HSP was the least used instument, it would be removed to make room for COSTAR. COSTAR would deploy a set of mirrors on booms which would be placed in front of the apertures of the FOS, FOC and GHRS instruments - effectively giving them spectacles. The new mirrors would precisely correct the wavefront and refocus the light. This solution would not work for the radial bay, so development of the second generation WF/PC was accelerated and a corrective lens was added to its design.
The first servicing mission, STS-61 in Dec 1993, removed WF/PC and HSP and installed WF/PC 2 and COSTAR. The astronauts also replaced the solar arrays, repaired the GHRS power supply, and added a computer coprocessor. The first new images from the refurbished HST were made public in Jan 1994 and showed a dramatic improvement in the data.
The second servicing mission added two new instruments: STIS (the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph) and NICMOS (the Near Infrared Camera/Multi-Object Spectrograph). One of the NICMOS cameras was compromised when problems with the nitrogen dewar made it run hot.
HST needs three gyros for routine operations, and in 1999 all redundancy was lost. The planned third servicing mission was split into two parts, with SM3A accelerated as an emergency gyro repair mission.
| Launch | SM1 | SM2 | SM3A | SM3B | SM4 | |
| STS-31 | STS-61 | STS-82 | STS-103 | STS-109 | ||
| Radial +V2 | FGS-1 | FGS-1R | ||||
| Radial +V3 | FGS-2 | FGS-2R | FGS-2RR | |||
| Radial -V2 | FGS-3 | |||||
| Radial -V3 | WFPC | WFPC-2 | WFC3 | |||
| Axial +V3/+V2 | FOC | ACS | ||||
| Axial +V2/-V3 | HSP | COSTAR | COS | |||
| Axial -V3/-V2 | GHRS | STIS | ||||
| Axial -V2/+V3 | FOS | NICMOS | (NCS) |
| HST ORUs Name | Mass | Size | Manuf. | Loc |
| Radial Units | ||||
| WFPC | ||||
| WFPC2 | 281 | 1.0 x 1.3 x 0.5, 2.2 | JPL | |
| WFC3 | 404 | 1.0 x 1.3 x 0.5, 2.2 | Ball/STScI | |
| FGS-1 | 220 | 1.0 x 1.6 x 0.5 | Perkin-Elmer | |
| FGS-2 | ||||
| FGS-3 | ||||
| FGS-1R S/N2001 | 220 | |||
| FGS-2R S/N2002 | 220 | |||
| FGS-2RR | 210 | |||
| Axial Units | ||||
| FOC | 318 | 0.9 x 0.9 x 2.2 | ESA/Dornier | |
| HSP | 273 | |||
| GHRS | ||||
| FOS | 326? | Martin Marietta/Denver, UCSD | ||
| COSTAR | 290 | 0.9 x 0.9 x 2.2 | Ball | |
| STIS | 374 | 0.9 x 0.9 x 2.2 | Ball | |
| NICMOS | 391 | 0.9 x 0.9 x 2.2 | Ball | |
| ACS | 397 | 0.9 x 0.9 x 2.2 | Ball | |
| COS | 386 | 0.9 x 0.9 x 2.2 | Ball | |
| Solar Arrays | ||||
| SA I | 160? | |||
| SA II Flex | 154 | 12.1 x 3.3m | ||
| SA-3 Rigid(SM3B) | 290 | 7.1 x 2.6m | ||
| Other components | ||||
| DF-224 Computer | 50 | 0.4 x 0.4 x 0.3m | SSM ES Bay 1 | |
| Adv 486 Computer | 32 | 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.3m | (SM3A) | Bay 1 |
| DMU | 38 | 0.6 x 0.7 x 0.2m | SSM ES Bay 1 | |
| DIU (4) | 16 | 0.2 x 0.4 x 0.4m | Bay 3,7,10;OTA ES | |
| ESTR tape rec.(2) | 9 | 0.2 x 0.2 x 0.3m | Bay 5,8 | |
| SSR (2) (SM2,3A) | 9 | 0.2 x 0.2 x 0.3m | Bay 5, 8 | |
| RWA (4) | 45 | Ellipsoid 0.6dia 0.3?l | Bay 6 and 9 | |
| Oscillator (2) | 1 | Cyl 0.2l 0.1d | Bay 2 | |
| Mag.torquers | 45 | Cyl 2.5l 0.08d | Ext SSM FS | |
| BMA NiH2 Battery Mod (2) | 218 | 0.9 x 0.9 x 0.3m | Bay 2,3 | |
| PCU power control | 55 | 1.1 x 0.3 x 0.2m | Bay 4 | |
| PDU (4) | 11 | 0.3 x 0.1 x 0.5m | Bay 4 | |
| RGA gyro RSU (3) | 11 | 0.3 x 0.3 x 0.2 | SSM | |
| RGA gyro ECU (6) | Bay 10 | |||
| Primary Mirror | 818 | 2.4 dia | OTA | |
| OTA Main Ring | 546 | 2.9 dia 0.4l | OTA | |
| NCS | ||||
| SADE drive elec | ||||
| OTA reaction plate | ||||
| Focal Plane FPSA | 546 | 2.1 x 3.1m truss | OTA | |
| SI C&DH; | 61 | 0.55 x 0.82 x 0.24 | ||
| Soft Capture Mech | 1.83l 0.61h | |||
| NOBL | 4.4 | 1.6 x 1.4 | ||
| HST | |||
| Date | Time | Event | Orbit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 Apr 24 | 1233:51 | Launch from LC39B | |
| 1721 | HST commanded on | ||
| 2000 | HST instruments activated | ||
| 1990 Apr 25 | 1106 | RMS grapple HST | |
| 1237 | HST on internal power | ||
| 1245 | HST unberthed | ||
| 1432 | Solar array masts deployed | ||
| 1530 | HGA deployed | ||
| 1630 | Port solar array deploy | ||
| 1750 | Stbd solar array deploy | ||
| 1937:51 | HST released | ||
| 1990 Apr 27 | 1101 | Begin Aperture Door Open sequence | |
| 1229?s | Telescope door open | ||
| 1997 Feb 11 | COSTAR retracted | ||
| 1997 Feb 13 | OV-103 captures HST | ||
| 1999 May 20 | Gyro 3 failed; 1 gyro from safemode | ||
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Galaxy 8i
1997-078A
Panamsat's Galaxy 8i is dedicated to Galaxy Latin America (San Jose, Costa Rica) for DirecTV service to Latin America. Launch was by Atlas IIAS in 1997 into a supersynchronous transfer orbit. Mass of the HS-601HP was 3558 kg. Galaxy 8i is the first satellite to use the XIPS Xe ion propulsion system for all attitude control and stationkeeping; earlier flights used it for E/W stationkeeping only. Galaxy 8i carried less fuel than usual, increasing the dry payload mass. It was colocated with Galaxy 3-R at 95E. In Apr 1998 the DirecTV service was transferred from 3-R to 8-i.
In Sep 2000 the XIPS system seized up from contamination and the backup AOCS system was used. 8i was retired from primary service but used as an orbital spare for several years,even occasionally being loaned to NASA.
| Galaxy 8i | |||
| Date | Time | Event | Orbit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 Dec 8 | 2352 | Launch by Atlas 2AS AC-149 | CC LC36B |
| T+0:54 SRB-3,4 burn | |||
| T+1:09 SRB-1,2 sep | |||
| T+1:57 SRB-3,4 sep | |||
| T+2:44 BECO | |||
| T+2:47 Booster sep | |||
| T+3:30 Fairing sep | |||
| T+4:50 SECO | |||
| T+4:52 Atlas sep | |||
| T+5:09 MES 1 | |||
| 1997 Dec 9 | |||
| 0001 | T+9:42 Centaur MECO-1 | 160? x 200? x 28.5? | |
| 0016 | T+24:36 MES 2 | ||
| 0018 | T+26:15 Centaur MECO-2 | 157? x 50484 x 27.0 | |
| 0021 | T+29:01 Centaur sep | ||
| 1997 Dec 11 | 938.90 333 x 50434 x 26.70 | ||
| 1997 Dec 13 | 2130? | LAM-1 | |
| 1997 Dec 14 | 1372.30 18703 x 50353 x 5.4 | ||
| 1997 Dec 16 | 1820? | LAM-2 | |
| 1997 Dec 16 | 1698.78 31218 x 50347 x 1.8 | ||
| 1997 Dec 18? | LAM-3 | ||
| 1997 Dec 21? | LAM-4 | ||
| 1997 Dec 21 | 1520.72 35773 x 39081 x 0.2 | ||
| 1997 Dec 22 | 1400? | LAM-5 | |
| 1997 Dec 24 | 1437.58 35789 x 35842 x 0.1 GEO 79.0W+0.3W | ||
| 1997 Dec 29 | 1436.16 35779 x 35796 x 0.0 GEO 79.1W | ||
| 1998 Jan 27 | 1436.25 35787 x 35792 x 0.2 GEO 80.1W | ||
| 1998 Feb 1 | move out | 1439.15 35786 x 35905 x 0.2 GEO 83.9W+0.7W | |
| 1998 Feb 28 | 1436.16 35781 x 35793 x 0.1 GEO 95.0W | ||
| 1998 Apr | GLA DirecTV transferred from G3R | ||
| 1999 Oct 14 | 1436.12 35782 x 35791 x 0.0 GEO 94.9W | ||
| 2002 Sep 17 | 1436.10 35774 x 35798 x 0.0 GEO 95.0W | ||
| 2003 Jul 6 | 1436.12 35775 x 35797 x 0.7 GEO 95.0W | ||
| 2004 Jan 14 | 1436.12 35767 x 35806 x 1.2 GEO 94.9W | ||