Soyuz/Fregat Galileo launches to wrong orbit


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Both an early upper stage shutdown and an attitude control issue. Outside estimates are the Galileo satellites only have 1/4 to 1/3 the deltaV needed to maneuver into the correct orbit.

ESA was still celebrating a successful launch when STRATCOM caught the orbital error.

So after the Proton-M/Briz-M failures, Soyuz/Fregat joins the party.

Peter B. de Selding @pbdes [space News]

23/08/2014 12:55

Galileo injection anomaly, 1st indications: Inclination is too far off-target (47 v. 56 deg goal) to expect much use of these two sats.

Peter B. de Selding (@pbdes)

23/08/2014 12:58

Galileo anomaly a bitter irony for Europe: It took US military data to announce location of Europe's own positioning/nav/timing sats.

http://www.arianespace.com/news-press-release/2014/8-23-2014.asp

Galileo satellites experience orbital injection anomaly on Soyuz launch: Initial report

Kourou, August 23, 2014

On August 22, 2014, at 9:27 am local time in French Guiana, a Soyuz ST rocket lifted off with the first two satellites in the Galileo constellation.

The liftoff and first part of the mission proceeded nominally, leading to release of the satellites according to the planned timetable, and reception of signals from the satellites. It was only a certain time after the separation of the satellites that the ongoing analysis of the data provided by the telemetry stations operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the French space agency CNES showed that the satellites were not in the expected orbit.

The targeted orbit was circular, inclined at 55 degrees with a semi major axis of 29,900 kilometers. The satellites are now in an elliptical orbit, with excentricity of 0.23, a semi major axis of 26,200 km and inclined at 49.8 degrees.

Both the Fregat upper stage and the two satellites are in a stable condition and position that entails absolutely no risk for people on the ground. The residual propellants on the Fregat stage have been purged and the stage was depressurized normally.

According to the initial analyses, an anomaly is thought to have occurred during the flight phase involving the Fregat upper stage, causing the satellites to be injected into a noncompliant orbit.

Studies and data analyses are continuing in Kourou, French Guiana, and at Arianespace headquarters in Evry, near Paris, under the direction of St?phane Isra?l, Chairman and CEO of Arianespace, in conjunction with the Russian partners in the Soyuz in French Guiana program (Russian space agency Roscomos and the manufacturers RKTs-Progress and NPO Lavotchkine), as well as Arianespace's customer ESA and its industrial partners, to determine the scope of the anomaly and its impact on the mission.

"Our aim is of course to fully understand this anomaly," said St?phane Isra?l, Chairman and CEO of Arianespace. "Everybody at Arianespace is totally focused on meeting this objective. Starting Monday, Arianespace, in association with ESA and the European Commission, will designate an independent inquiry board to determine the exact causes of this anomaly and to draw conclusions and develop corrective actions that will allow us to resume launches of Soyuz from the Guiana Space Center (CSG) in complete safety and as quickly as possible. The board will coordinate its work with Russian partners in the Soyuz at CSG program. Arianespace is determined to help meet the European Union's goals for the Galileo program without undue delay. We would like to thank ESA, the European Commission and CNES for the very productive discussions since becoming aware of the occurrence of the anomaly. While it is too early to determine the exact causes, we would like to offer our sincere excuses to ESA and the European Commission for this orbital injection that did not meet expectations."

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Outside estimates are that the Galileo's don't have enough onboard fuel to both change both their orbital inclination and circularize the orbit. One or the other maybe, but not both.

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They do, the Ariane 5. But it's very expensive and optimized for launching larger communications satellites two at a time. Arianespace (the European launch company) started buying Soyuz rockets to cover the medium sized satellite market.

They have a smaller European made launcher planned, Ariane 6, but the success of SpaceX in both the medium and commsat markets has caused them to redesign it for cost and begin to reorganize their bureaucracy.

This is why people call SpaceX "disruptive."

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I just think things are going backwards. If we were able to do things like land on the moon 40+ years ago, why are people still relying on this old Soviet technology and failing? You'd think a cheaper, more reliable solution would already exist by now.

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I just think things are going backwards. If we were able to do things like land on the moon 40+ years ago, why are people still relying on this old Soviet technology and failing? You'd think a cheaper, more reliable solution would already exist by now.

Ariane 5 over $250m, Atlas V about $180-250m and Delta IV Heavy over $400m. The NASA Space Launch System may cost $2-4 billion per launch.

Falcon 9 costs about $60m a launch. Falcon Heavy, the biggest launcher since Saturn V and Energiya, will cost at most $140m. Usually less than $90m. SpaceX also has a super-heavy launcher in development that'll make Saturn V, Energiya and Space Launch System look like bottle rockets. Made for setting up a Mars colony, it is.

Bigger and cheaper are here and more are coming.

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Ariane 5 over $250m, Atlas V about $180-250m and Delta IV Heavy over $400m. The NASA Space Launch System may cost $2-4 billion per launch.

Falcon 9 costs about $60m a launch. Falcon Heavy, the biggest launcher since Saturn V and Energiya, will cost at most $140m. Usually less than $90m. SpaceX also has a super-heavy launcher in development that'll make Saturn V, Energiya and Space Launch System look like bottle rockets. Made for setting up a Mars colony, it is.

Bigger and cheaper are here and more are coming.

 

What about a space shuttle?

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What about a space shuttle?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shuttle_program

 

 The incremental cost per flight of the Space Shuttle was estimated at $450 million,[3] or $18,000 per kilogram (approximately $8,000 per pound) to low Earth orbit (LEO). By comparison, Russian Proton expendable launchers, still largely based on the design that dates back to 1965, are said to cost as little as $110 million,[4] or around $5,000/kg (approximately $2,300 per pound) to LEO. When all design and maintenance costs are taken into account, the final cost of the Space Shuttle program, averaged over all missions and adjusted for inflation, was estimated to come out to $1.5 billion per launch, or $60,000/kg (approximately $27,000 per pound) to LEO

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shuttle_program

 

 The incremental cost per flight of the Space Shuttle was estimated at $450 million,[3] or $18,000 per kilogram (approximately $8,000 per pound) to low Earth orbit (LEO). By comparison, Russian Proton expendable launchers, still largely based on the design that dates back to 1965, are said to cost as little as $110 million,[4] or around $5,000/kg (approximately $2,300 per pound) to LEO. When all design and maintenance costs are taken into account, the final cost of the Space Shuttle program, averaged over all missions and adjusted for inflation, was estimated to come out to $1.5 billion per launch, or $60,000/kg (approximately $27,000 per pound) to LEO

 

I'm talking about making a new, more cost effective shuttle. Or are we still relying on the Soviets to get people into space?

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Shuttle was a boondoggle.

Doing large payloads and crew the way they did it (straddle launch) was not only much more expensive but dangerous. 14 dead astronauts prove it.

The true launch cost (program cost ? launches) was over $1.2 billion a launch.

Splitting the two and launching the crew and cargo on top is much safer, and each launch can be optimized for the purpose.

Example: a lunar mission could be mounted using 2 Falcon Heavy's ($270m), an F9 + Dragon V2 ($140m), a ~30-50 m3 Bigelow habitat with a propulsion/docking module (~$100m), and a Dragon-derived lander (~$100m.)

Less than a shuttle launch + operations and incidentals.

Also, spaceplane have their benefits but mostly at the scale of Dream Chaser - as crew and light cargo orbital taxis.

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I'm talking about making a new, more cost effective shuttle. Or are we still relying on the Soviets to get people into space?

 

Shuttles are never cost effective, no point having wings in space. Rockets were always the better solution.

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Shuttles are never cost effective, no point having wings in space. Rockets were always the better solution.

 

Oh right so in your version of things, Star Wars wouldn't have X-Wings either!

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I'm talking about making a new, more cost effective shuttle. Or are we still relying on the Soviets to get people into space?

Sometime in the next 2-3 week's NASA will announce contract winners for Commercial Crew. At least 2 awards are expected, most likely for -

Dragon V2 (SpaceX)

Space-X-Dragon-V2.jpg

DragonV2-interior3.jpg

4468240_orig.jpg

Dream Chaser (Sierra Nevada Corp.)

1029_dream-chaser.jpg

301764_317815598296770_598974469_n.jpg

snc-dc_zps55bb518b.jpg

Both seat up to 7, both are reusable, both use "pusher" launch abort rockets instead of the usual tower, but one is a winged lifting body spaceplane, and the other an advanced capsule. This provides dissimilar redundancy; we have 2 spacecraft that can fly very different missions yet back each other up.

Boeing also is competing with their CST-100 but news of their having trouble making the business case and issuing layoff noticeable cast a pall on their program.

No flight hardware pics for it, nothing but mockups and PowerPoints.

Boeing-Spacecraft.jpg

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What's interesting is that the European investigating body will only have a Russian liaison, no full members.

Also, non-govt Russian sources are giving info that indicate either, or both, programming errors and propellant leaks in the Fregat upper stage.

DLR (German Space Agency) forum post by the head of the German Aerospace Center indicates the satellites had trouble too.

http://dlr.de/blogs/de/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-5896/9578_read-761/

(Google Translate)

The launch of the Soyuz rockets of the type carried out by the European spaceport in Kourou. First of all measurement results indicated a perfect mission progress towards: the rocket lifted off on time, followed the prescribed trajectory and the staging was perfect. First problems were recognized as the solar panels do not properly deployed at two satellites on board. Then showed a more detailed analysis that the achieved orbit corresponded neither in form and amount still in the inclination with respect to the Earth equator of the default and that obviously the upper the planned rotation around the longitudinal axis (the so-called Barbeque mode to the heat balance low, even in sunlight hold) was not excited. It is still too early to make definitive statements about the causes and consequences. Returning to the quote from Elon Musk (note: Rockets are tricky) , it is important to me that now is not made like the experienced game of mutual recrimination, but to clarify the cause and which are consequent measures necessary for the next start in the foreground.

>

From Russia,

How does a launcher work properly but still inject satellites into the wrong orbit?

http://en.itar-tass.com/non-political/746603

Russian booster worked properly when deploying Galileo satellites

MOSCOW, August 25. /ITAR-TASS/. Russias Soyuz rocket and Fregat booster worked properly when deploying European Galileo satellites last week when they found to be slightly deviating from the target orbit, the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) said on Monday. The express analysis of the telemetric data shows that there are no complaints about the work of the onboard equipment of the Soyuz carrier rocket and Fregat booster, Roscosmos said.

Russias Lavochkin aerospace company confirmed on Saturday there were errors in the deployment of European Galileo satellites by its Fregat-MT booster.

There were orbiting errors, the company said, following reports that the satellites had deviated from the target orbit.

Russias Soyuz rocket with a Fregat-MT upper stage and two Galileo navigation system satellites blasted off from Kourou, French Guiana, on Friday, August 22.

Roscomos has set up an independent emergency commission to investigate the matter.

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  • 1 month later...

house-facepalm.jpg

http://www.spacenews.com/article/launch-report/42043fregat-workmanship-blamed-for-soyuz-failure-that-stranded-galileo

Fregat Workmanship Blamed for Soyuz Failure that Stranded Galileo Satellites in Wrong Orbit

TORONTO ? A Europeanized version of Russia?s Soyuz rocket placed two European navigation satellites into the wrong orbit in August because of faulty installation of helium and hydrazine fuel lines on its Fregat upper stage, European government officials said.

The failure was as simple as clamping together a cold helium line with the hydrazine fuel line, causing the hydrazine to freeze long enough to upset the Fregat stage?s orientation and cause the two satellites? release into an orbit that is both too low and in the wrong inclination, officials said.

One official said the board of inquiry into the failure discovered that one in four Fregat upper stages at prime contractor Moscow-based NPO Lavochkin had the same faulty installation.

?We have to assume that this was a practice that had gone on in perhaps a quarter of the Fregat stages produced in the past decade, but that it had not affected our launches up to now because of mission-specific aspects like coast time between burns, the number of burns and so on, which can influence the effect of the helium on the hydrazine,? this official said. ?In any case, we?d like Arianespace, which currently has almost no inspection rights on the Soyuz, to be given more say in quality assurance.?

In the stages where the installation occurred correctly, the hydrazine and helium lines were separated so that the supercold helium could not freeze the hydrazine.

>

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