Opera News: January 2012

 https://welib.org/md5/b83307e08505ef825a8620ac0ead507e

ROSAT

 1990-049A

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The ROSAT (Rontgensatellit) X-ray observatory, launched in Jun 1990, was similar to NASA's Einstein observatory but with improved spatial and spectral resolution. It carried nested X-ray mirrors which focused radiation onto a PSPC (Position Sensitive Proportional Counter, similar to the Einstein IPC) and an HRI (High Resolution Imager, supplied by the US team that built the similar instrument on Einstein). A separate but coaligned extreme ultraviolet telescope, the Wide Field Camera (WFC), was built by the UK Leicester University group. The mission was operated by MPE in Germany in collaboration with NASA and the UK. The first six months of the mission saw an all sky survey by the PSPC instrument. At the end of the survey, a power failure caused the spacecraft to lose attitude control and accidentally point at the Sun, which severely damaged the PSPC-C instrument then in the focal plane and degraded the WFC. Fortunately a backup PSPC and the HRI were available to support continued operations in the pointed phase, which was opened to astronomers across the world.

ROSAT
Date	Time	Event	Orbit
1990 Jun 1	2147:59	Launch by Delta 6920	CC LC17A
		T+0:55 SRM 1-6 burnout
		T+1:00 SRM 7-9 burn
		T+1:02 SRM 1-6 sep
		T+1:56 SRM 7-9 burnout
	2149:56	T+2:02 Final 3 Castor sep
	2152:25	T+4:24 Thor cutoff
	2152:30	T+4:32 Thor sep
		T+4:38 Delta burn
	2152	T+4:43 Fairing sep
	2159:07	T+11:09 SECO-1 299 km	200? x 580? x 53
	2226:00	T+38:02 Delta circ burn, 12s
	2226:12	T+38:14 SECO-2
	2231	T+43:00 Delta sep	577 x 584 x 53.0
	2226	T+1:39:10 SES-3 evasive
		T+1:39:15 SECO-3
	2237	T+1:50:10 SES-4 depletion
		T+1:50:31 SECO-4	454 x 557 x 52.51
1991 Jan 25		Power failure
1991 Feb 10		Pointed phase
1991 May 13		Y axis gyro failed
1991 Aug 3		Sky survey completion patch
1991 Aug 13		Completed sky survey
1994 Jul		PSPC-B retired
1998 Apr 28		Star tracker failed
1998 Sep 20		Pointed at sun, HRI damaged
1998 Oct 28		end of ops
1998 Dec 6		PSPC observations
1998 Dec 18		PSPC observations ended
1999 Feb 12		Decommissioned
2011 Oct 23	0150?	Reentered over Andaman Sea/China?

Payload:

• XRT 0.84m aperture Wolter I X-ray Telescope Zerodur/Au, 4 shells, f=2.4m

• WFC 0.58m aperture XUV Wide Field Camera, Ni-Al/Au mirrors f=0.52m 0.04-0.2 keV (60-300A)

• PSPC-C Position Sensitive Proportional Counter, 0.1-2.4 keV

• PSPC-B Position Sensitive Proportional Counter.

• HRI High Resolution Imager (SAO/Murray)

Astra 1G

 1997-076A

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HS-601HP satellite, launch by ILS Proton. It is colocated with the other Astra 1 satellites. The second HS-601HP, it features GaAs solar cells with 7 kW power. In Mar 1998 it took over digital TV broadcast traffic from Astra 1F.

Astra 1G
Date	Time	Event	Orbit
1997 Dec 2	2310	Launch by Proton 382-02/DM3 No. 2L	KB LC81
	2312	Stage 1 sep T+2:07
	2315	Stage 2 sep T+5:35
	2315	Fairing sep T+5:44
	2315	8S812 burn T+5:40
	2139	8S812 shutdown T+9:38
	2319	Stage 3 sep	180? x 200? x 51.6
	2320	T+10:44 PB (perekhodnikiy blok) sep
1997 Dec 3	0026?	DM burn 1
		MECO-1	200? x 36000? x 51.5?
	0530?	DM burn 2
		MECO-2
1997 Dec 3	0551	T+6:41 Blok-DM sep
1997 Dec 3			841.70 10316 x 35972 x 12.4
1997 Dec 5	1400?	LAM-1
1997 Dec 9			1399.32 34118 x 36008 x 0.3
1997 Dec 11	0700?	LAM-2
1997 Dec 17			1436.13 35755 x 35818 x 0.0 GEO 24.6E+0.01W
1997 Dec 30			1438.90 35014 x 36668 x 0.0 GEO 19.2E+0.7W
1998 Feb 24			1436.12 35772 x 35802 x 0.0 GEO 19.2E
1999 Oct 18			1436.02 35722 x 35848 x 0.0 GEO 19.2E
2000 Jun 13			1436.06 35755 x 35816 x 0.1 GEO 19.2E
2006 Oct 28			1436.16 35777 x 35797 x 0.1 GEO 19.2E
2009 Mar 22			1436.11 35773 x 35800 x 0.0 GEO 19.2E