AMOS-17 is operated by Israeli firm Spacecom and will operate at 17° East as a broadcast and broadband satellite serving African customers. The Boeing-built 5500 kg commsat features flexible routing between all of its transponders and spotbeams across the C, Ku, and Ka bands.
Today’s flight was originally scheduled for 2252 UT, but this slid to 2323 a few hours before launch. Just a few minutes before launch, continued marginal weather nearly delayed the launch again, though a last-second improvement allowed the launch to proceed.
The delivery fulfills a promise made by SpaceX to take Spacecom to orbit, following the loss of AMOS-6 during a ground test on 01 Sep 2016. Though the twice-used first stage was completely expended for this flight, a useful piece of flight hardware was still recovered; SpaceX recovery ship Ms. Tree, stationed nearly 1000 km downrange from Cape Canaveral, completed its mission to fetch at least one of the halves of the launch fairing.
Arianespace delivered 2 satellites to orbit with the launch of an Ariane 5 rocket from the Centre Spatial Guyanais, 6 August 2019 1930 UTC. The Intelsat 39 and EDRS-C satellites were successfully carried to geostationary transfer orbit.
Intelsat 39 is a replacement for Intelsat 902, launched in 2001. The 6600 kg, LS1300 satellite was built by Maxar in California, and will be located at 62° East to serve 3G/4G mobile services and traditional customers across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Indian Ocean region.
EDRS-C continues Europe’s SpaceDataHighway laser communications project, which delivers additional real-time communications capacity for polar-orbiting satellites and UAVs; it also hosts and traditional geotationary transponders.
EDRS-C will operate from 31° East. The 3186 kg SmallGEO satellite was manufactured by German firm OHG. The primary lasercomm payload operates at up to 1.8 Gb/s and is a project of DLR, the German space agency, and the Tesat-Spacecom division of Airbus. EDRS-C also carries secondary payload HYLAS-3, a steerable-beam transponder unit from Avanti Communications, designed to provide Internet throughput to Africa with 8 spotbeams, all routed to a single fully steerable primary link location, such as European data centres.
EDRS-C builds on 2016’s EDRS-A mission, which still operates and is hosted on Eutelsat 9B at 9° E. The EDRS network will continue to expand with the forthcoming EDRS-D satellite, scheduled for 2020, to be placed in a far-east orbital slot to serve the Asia-Pacific region.
The launch is welcome news for Arianespace, which failed to deliver the UAE’s FalconEye surveillance satellite on its solid-fuelled Vega launcher 11 July 2019; the full cause of that mission’s interstage failure is still under investigation, but the €369 million loss has already caused reinsurance firm Swiss Re to leave the insurance market for satellite launches.
A Dragon capsule carrying cargo for the ISS launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral at 2201 UT 25 Jul 2019
The manifest includes 25 new experiments, including a new 3D printer, with the impressive goal of proving the ability to print human tissues in a remote location, as engineers work toward the goal of printing entire human organs.
This launch also marked an impressive moment for booster reuse – the booster was used just two months ago, a new record for the Falcon 9 first stage. The capsule has also been reused for its third and final flight, though it last flew a comparatively languid 18 months ago, mainly because the Dragon 1 program is soon to be obsolete.
CRS-19 and CRS-20 will burn through the remaining active stock of Dragon capsules, after which the system will be retired in favour of Cargo Dragon 2. SpaceX will also have a new refurbishment facility in Florida for Crew and Cargo Dragon 2, and a goal to accelerate turnaround times. Cargo Dragon 2 missions will start in 2021, beginning with the CRS-21 mission. On the other hand, Crew Dragon 2 might well be able to fly by the end of this year.
The Planetary Society mission control team at CalPoly San Luis Obispo confirms solar sail deployment on the LightSail2 mission (Credit: The Planetary Society/YouTube)
The Planetary Society is sailing a mission on pure solar power today, following the successful unfurling of a 32 square meter reflective sheet from the LightSail2 CubeSat.
The team confirmation came at 1850 UT 23 July 2019. Telemetry indicates the cubesat’s onboard motor controllers worked as planned. Onboard cameras took photos, which was confirmed in summary data but the larger image files are stored for later downlink, beginning with the satellite’s next orbital pass, at 2033 UT.
LightSail2 was a tertiary payload on the STP-2 mission launched on 25 June; it was itself deployed from a secondary payload, Georgia Tech’s Prox1 nanosat, a kinetic experiment platform.
Aldrin and the LM (Credit: Neil Armstrong, NASA, Apollo 11)
Human spaceflight came to a crescendo on 20 July 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Col. “Buzz” Aldrin piloted a strange, bug-like craft onto the rocky shores of an airless desert which no human had ever before touched.
They did so with the whole world watching; together with Apollo 8 before it, there was a new understanding of the Earth as a borderless sphere, a unique and fragile gem in an otherwise bleak and hostile universe.
Argentina and Brazil have celebrated the unofficial holiday “Friendship Day” on 20 July, at least in part due to the unique unifying experience of the whole world watching the moon landing together. Environmental movements were supercharged by the notion of the Earth’s biosphere as unique and irreplaceable. And the mass media would never be the same.
But as much as the moon landing was a triumph of human innovation and perseverance, it also is a wistful touchstone for human apathy. Despite its dramatic achievements, the Apollo program had been framed in a political context, with a clear finish line. And so it came to pass that Apollo program was, even in its own time, pared back from 9, to 8, to just 6 moon landings, with Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz eventually tacked on, made from the loose change and leftover hardware.
Since that time, spaceflight has focused on improving endurance. Apart from a brief though ill-fated dabble in partially reusable spaceplanes, a series of space stations have provided a vital test platform to see how astronauts endure 6 months or a full year in microgravity, honing one of many skills that will contribute to that often-discussed, rarely-funded goal of interplanetary human spaceflight. Moreover, along the way, we’ve learned a great deal about biology, physiology, physics, materials science, geology, and astronomy, among others, discoveries that have improved the quality of life for those back on Earth.
The next 50 years of exploration will only bring more knowledge. Scientists around the world are ready and willing to join the effort – asked to put a few thoughts together on the occasion of Apollo, Dr. Takashi Mikouchi, a professor who studies lunar and martian meteorites at the University of Tokyo, said “In the coming 50 years, I hope that we can obtain more samples from other solar system bodies, including Mars, to have a better understanding of the birth and evolution of our solar system.” If the state of the space industry today is any indication, those next 50 years are off to a hot start.
Even setting aside the leaps and bounds in small satellite technology that has already seen a whole new class of interplanetary probes, later this year, the United States will rejoin China and Russia on the list of nations able to send astronauts to space with its own launch systems. India’s manned space program is on track to fly astronauts in 2021. Europe and Japan are fully capable, should a proper crew capsule be bolted to the right rocket.
Immense talent and creativity of diverse ground teams around the world is at the ready for a new generation of dauntless human explorers. The time will soon come to once again break free of Earth orbit and set off for distant shores, and pioneer the promise of the space frontier.
Arianespace carried two geostationary commsats to transfer orbit with an Ariane 5 launch from the Centre Spatiale Guyanais in Kourou, 20 Jun 2019 2143 UT.
The first satellite deployed was T-16, one of the final planned satellites for the DirecTV television service, which is now owned by AT&T. The 6330 kg Airbus E3000LX commsat will reach the Clarke Belt with a traditional kick motor, with electric station-keeping once on-orbit. The satellite is capable of operating from any of DirecTV’s five main orbital slots between 99° and 119° W, providing primary coverage of the US with separate spotbeams for Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico/the Virgin Islands.
The second satellite, Eutelsat 7C, is an all electric propulsion design, a first for both Eutelsat and bird-maker Space Systems/Loral (now part of Maxar). By patiently waiting 120 days to reach its final orbit, the 1300 Class satellite avoids mass penalty of a second engine system, weighing just 3400 kg instead of the usual 5500 to 6500. Once it reaches position, 7C will supplement Eutelsat 7B, still in operation at the 7° E orbital slot.
Arianespace has scheduled the next launches for Vega on 5 Jul 2019, and Ariane 5 on 24 July.
The major launch of the week was Wednesday’s RADARSAT Constellation Mission. The successor to the venerable RADARSAT-1 and RADARSAT-2, the triplet of satellites will use C-band electronic radar to provide digital elevation data to a variety of GIS users, from farmers and foresters to climate researchers. The satellites are built and operated by MDA, for the Canadian Space Agency. The Falcon 9 launch took place on a foggy California morning, 1417 UT 12 June 2019.
RCM-1
RCM-2
RCM-3
Cloud piercing
From above
Recovery
Falcon 9 launches through the cloud deck at Vandenberg, 12 June 2019 1417 UT (Credit: SpaceX)
Outage regions for the Global Positioning System, 8 June 2019. (Credit: FAA)
Passenger airline flights were affected Saturday and Sunday 8 and 9 June 2019, due to an expected minor signal outage, plus a glitch with a particular type of GPS receiver. The affected planes were mostly Bombardier CRJ-200 and CRJ-700s, but also included CRJ-900s, as well as Boeing 737 and 767s.
Reports on Airliners.net indicate particular concerns with GPS receivers supplied by Rockwell Collins. In case the airplane’s barometer were to fail, the onboard GPS receiver must be able to track altitude accurately enough to maintain normal operations in the Class A airspace above FL180. This requires a GPS vertical accuracy within 500 feet (152 meters), and that the GPS constellation be in fairly good alignment – which, every now and then, just doesn’t happen.
That’s what occurred this weekend over a region over the Great Lakes and extending out over much of North Dakota and Manitoba, such that certain areas can expect, in theory, up to 40 minutes of signal loss on Sunday. The FAA estimated still further regions in the US could be affected by the outage. As affected planes wait for a technical fix, they are flying below 18000 feet, or simply being replaced by unaffected aircraft.
Airliners with the strictest requirements for their their GPS accuracy had to rely on alternative navigation modes when operating in the red region. (Credit: FAA)
In addition to highlighting the performance of one supplier’s GPS solution in an edge case, the incident also serves to highlight an increasing dependence on GPS for airline operations. Aviators have expressed concern about the trend of airports turning off their ILS, VOR, and NDB navigation systems. Many of these decisions assume that GPS will always be available, which may well be more than 98% correct. It’s the last 2% that may lead to unexpected problems.
A Long March 11 rocket lifts off from the Yellow Sea, 5 Jun 2019 (Credit: China Central TV, via Weibo)
China’s first sea launch delivered three satellites to orbit. The mobile sea launch platform, escorted by Chinese Coast Guard cutters, moved into position and launched a Long March 11 rocket at 0406 UT 5 Jun 2019.
The four-stage solid rocket carried two Jilin-1 earth observation satellites, as well as the CAS-6 Amateur Radio satellite, a 50 cm, 50 kg unit with one VHF narrowband transponder, AX.25 telemetry, and a CW beacon.
David Saint-Jacques is also keeping up a high pace of media appearances before he returns to Earth at the end of the month: Montréal C2, 24 May 2019 (CSA, NASA) Umiujaq Q&A, 31 May 2019 ARISS Yellowknife, 27 May 2019 Saint-Jacques also had an ARISS contact in Saskatoon on the 27th.
Space Policyand Announcements
Commercial Lunar Payload Services executives gather at Goddard Space Flight Center, 30 May 2019 (Credit: NASA TV)
NASA announced the first three awards for Commercial Lunar Payload Services, where private companies will promise to build and send landers to the moon. Each of three teams has a separate set of science partners working on payloads that will be mounted on the landers, which are each about 2 to 3.5 meters around, a bit smaller than a compact car.
