Miscellaneous Launches and Payloads (updates)

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Actually, it was a contained fire, enclosure, attached inside the Cygnus.

 

SAFFIRE Assembly in Flight Configuration – Image: NASA

http://spaceflight101.com/saffire-i-combustion-experiment/

 

The craft is in orbit for a few more days  (1 week), and depending on the orbit and communication data rate, will take time,

 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Here is a better image....

 

The Saffire-1 hardware is shown strapped into the pressurized cargo module of Orbital ATK's robotic Cygnus spacecraft.
Credit: NASA/Orbital ATK
 

Record-Breaking Fire Experiment Blazes on Private Cargo Spaceship 

http://www.space.com/33173-nasa-fire-in-space-experiment-saffire.html

 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Ariane 5 rolls to French Guiana Launch Pad for Dual-Payload Delivery Friday

 

Photo: Arianespace/ESA/CNES/Optique Video du CSG

 

Quote

Europe’s Ariane 5 workhorse was moved to its French Guiana launch pad on Thursday to set the stage for liftoff during a 70-minute launch window opening at 20:30 UTC on Friday.

 

Hidden under Ariane’s payload fairing is a pair of communications satellites built by Space Systems Loral, setting a new record for the heaviest payload delivered to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit by Ariane 5. EchoStar 18, a heavy commercial communications satellite, and BRIsat, the word’s first dedicated banking satellite, have a combined mass of 10,730 Kilograms (including their payload adapters holding them in position atop the two-stage rocket.)

 

The previous record for Ariane 5 was set in February 2013 when the launcher lifted 10,500 Kilograms to a highly elliptical transfer orbit.

The VA230 mission had to be postponed from a June 8 target due to a problem that occurred ahead of the planned rollout of the 55-meter tall rocket. The anomaly was associated with a fluid connector between the cryogenic upper stage and the launch table – a condition similar to a problem encountered during the VA222 campaign in April 2015 which also pushed the launch back eight days to facilitate a replacement of the faulty component.

more at the link...

http://spaceflight101.com/ariane-5-rolls-to-french-guiana-launch-pad-for-dual-payload-delivery/

 

 

VA230 Launch Readiness Review (RAL)

http://www.arianespace.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/VA230-RAL-GB-2.pdf

 

Launch Kit

http://www.arianespace.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Dossier-de-presse-VS15-GB-3.pdf

 

Launch Schedule

Quote

June 17

Ariane 5 • EchoStar 18 & BRIsat
Launch window: 2030-2140 GMT (4:30-5:40 p.m. EDT)
Launch site: ELA-3, Kourou, French Guiana
Arianespace will use an Ariane 5 ECA rocket, designated VA230, to launch the EchoStar 18 and BRIsat communications satellites. EchoStar 18 will provide direct-to-home television broadcast services over North America for EchoStar and Dish Network. BRIsat will support banking services provided by BRI, a large Indonesian bank. Delayed from May, June 7, June 8 and June 16. [June 15]

June 20

PSLV • Cartosat 2C
Launch time: Approx. 0400 GMT (12 a.m. EDT)
Launch site: Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota, India
India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), flying on the PSLV-C34 mission in the PSLV-XL configuration, will launch the Cartosat 2C high-resolution Earth observation satellite and a collection of smaller secondary payloads from international customers. Delayed from May and June 10. [June 6]

http://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/

 

The Ariane 5 rocket emerges from the final assembly building in Kourou, French Guiana, for Thursday’s rollout. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Photo Optique Video du CSG – P. Baudon

 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Intense Upper Level Winds cause Ariane 5 Launch Scrub – New Attempt Saturday

 

Quote

Arianespace had to scrub Friday’s planned Ariane 5 launch with a pair of heavy communications satellites due to unfavorable Upper Level Winds. Pending progression of winds aloft, Ariane 5 will try again on Saturday during a 70-minute window opening at 20:30 UTC.

 

The VA230 so far had a bumpy path to liftoff with two-technical launch delays and this latest weather-related issue not permitting the launch of the EchoStar 18 and BRIsat satellites.

 

Liftoff had been scheduled for June 8 but had to be postponed the day before when a fluid umbilical between the Mobile Launch Table and the rocket’s second stage was found in a faulty condition. This component was replaced and teams were hoping to roll the vehicle to the launch pad on Wednesday, however, another umbilical issue again required a component replacement, leading to a further 24-hour delay.

http://spaceflight101.com/intense-upper-level-winds-cause-ariane-5-launch-scrub-new-attempt-saturday/

 

Quote

The Ariane 5 launch has been rescheduled for Saturday at 2030 GMT (4:30 p.m. EDT), the opening of a 70-minute launch window, according to Stephane Israel, Arianespace's CEO.

 

Unfavorable upper level winds this evening kept the Ariane 5 grounded at the Guiana Space Center.

 

"The altitude winds are not compatible with a launch tonight, and it's perfectly normal that the first priority is to take care of the safety here in Guyane," Israel said in remarks a few minutes ago.

 

All systems with the EchoStar 18 and BRIsat satellites, and the Ariane 5 launcher, were go for liftoff Friday, Israel said.

 

"The weather is maybe the only thing we do not master, but we have to live with it," Israel said.

http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/06/17/va230-mission-status-center/

 

[Jim K Global Moderator]

New launch time of 1645 ET

 

Livestream at Draggendrop's link above ^

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Countdown resumed.  Less than 7 minutes ... on target for a 1645 ET launch.  Weather is go, vehicle is go. 

[Blue-Vision]

Good grief, another hold.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Quote

HOLD. The Ariane 5 countdown has stopped at Minus-2 minutes, 24 seconds. It will be recycled to the Minus-7 minute point as engineers try to resolve the problem that caused this hold.

Waiting for updated time for launch.  Weather is still go.

 

Edit:  ninja'd by Unobscured Vision  

[Blue-Vision]

Apparently it's an Engineering issue this time.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

11 minutes ago, Unobscured Vision said:

Apparently it's an Engineering issue this time.

Issue with the launch pad infrastructure.  Hopefully...that just means someone left their lunch box on the pad and someone can go out and retrieve it ... not something more critical.

 

Launch window is out to 1740 ET ... so have about 50 minutes to work the issue.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Gone green for launch.  Less than 7 minutes.  Looks like it will launch at around 1738 ET

 

One more hold and they'll probably have to scrub until another day (launch window closes at 1740 ET)

[Jim K Global Moderator]

....and lift off.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Ariane 5 streaks into Orbit with heavy Communications Satellite Pair

 

Photo: Arianespace Webcast

 

Quote

Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket jumped off its French Guiana Launch Pad on Saturday, under the loud-thunder of its cryogenic main engine and twin solid rocket boosters to lift a pair of U.S.-made communications satellites into orbit to deliver TV and banking services to America and Indonesia.

 

The 55-meter tall Ariane 5 lit its liquid-fueled Vulcain 2 engine at 21:38:32 UTC and lifted off upon ignition of its powerful boosters seven seconds later, rising with a thrust equivalent to ten Airbus 380 aircraft at full throttle. With the collective power of its boosters and main stage, Ariane 5 swung onto a due easterly flight path for a 20-minute overflight of the Atlantic Ocean.

 

Quote

Ariane 5 had to wait over a week for the VA230 mission due to repeated ground support equipment issues pushing the launch from a June 8 target and again from Thursday as technicians worked to replace faulty umbilical connections between the rocket and Mobile Launch Table. A launch attempt on Friday had to be scrubbed after loading the Ariane 5 with 176 metric tons of cryogenics due to strong Upper Level Winds.

 

Saturday’s countdown was not without issue either as ground systems readiness first pushed the launch 14 minutes into its window followed by an abort of the Synchronized Sequence at T-2 minutes and 24 seconds due to an balky valve on the launcher’s cryogenic core stage.

 

Engineers quickly diagnosed and resolved the issue to permit a liftoff under two minutes before the day’s window expired, moving the thundering departure of Ariane 5 close to local sunset, making for some nice views of the ascending rocket as it headed towards darkness over the Atlantic Ocean.

 

Although the run-up to launch was not as smooth as expected, the flight itself made up for the minor speed bump as Ariane 5 achieved its 72nd consecutive success.

more at the link...

http://spaceflight101.com/ariane-5-va230-launch-success/

 

That was a frustrating delay...but I did get to watch the live stream.

 

------------------

 

Don't forget about the Blue Origin launch tomorrow, livestream...

 

Quote

Watch the fourth flight of the same New Shepard hardware this Sunday. Liftoff is planned for approximately 10:15 am ET and the live webcast starts half an hour earlier at 9:45 am ET at www.blueorigin.com.
 
On this flight, we’ll intentionally fail one string of parachutes on the capsule. There are three strings of chutes and two of the three should still deploy nominally and, along with our retrothrust system, safely land the capsule. Works on paper, and this test is designed to validate that. We’ll also use this flight to continue pushing the envelope on the booster.
 
As always, this is a development test flight and anything can happen.
 
Watching a rocket launch (and rocket landing!) might add a little extra fun with the kids on Father’s Day — enjoy.
 
Gradatim Ferociter!
Jeff Bezos

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2016/06/17/blue-origin-webcast-shepard-flight-sunday-morning/

 

Blue Origin stream

 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

oooops....my bad, forgot the Ariane video.....

 

Launch of Heaviest Ariane 5 with Echostar 18 & BRISAT To Date (VA-230)

video is 10:06 min.

 

 

 

 

[Blue-Vision]

Yeah, it sure didn't look heavy. I think they're understating the lifting capacity of Ariane 5. By a lot. On purpose. The way it was flying, I bet they could easily tote another 5,000kg uphill and still have safety margins.

 

Oh wait, that doesn't fit into their schemes for Ariane 6, or whatevertheheck they're calling it nowadays. ArianeSpace is capable but by golly the bureaucracy and red tape would make the old USSR proud.

[Draggendrop Veteran]

China prepares assembly of its space station, invites collaboration through U.N. 

 

The China Manned Space Agency plans to make major strides on its space station in the coming months with the inauguration of a new spaceport with the launch of the first Long March 7 rocket, shown in production here. A precursor laboratory will launch in September, followed by a two-member crew in October. China said it would welcome international participation in many forms. Credit: China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. 

 

Quote

PARIS—The Chinese government has agreed to help finance non-Chinese payloads and experiments to be operated from China’s future space station through the United Nations as part of its attempt to internationalize the program, a senior Chinese space official told the U.N.

The official said China is on track to inaugurate its fourth spaceport, the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island, in the coming weeks with the launch of the first Long March 7 rocket. Wenchang is located at 9 degrees north latitude, which is the southernmost point on Chinese territory.

Under the current schedule, a TianGong-2 orbiting laboratory module would be launched in September aboard a Long March 5B rocket to test technologies that will be needed for the space station. A manned ShenZhou-11 capsule is set to launch in October, carrying two astronauts, to rendezvous and dock with the TianGong-2 space station precursor facility in low Earth orbit.

 

Quote

Addressing the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space plenary conference June 14 in Vienna, Austria, Wu Ping, deputy director of the China Manned Space Agency, stressed China’s openness to having non-Chinese experiments, payloads, astronauts and even complete space station modules become part of the Chinese facility.

Wu said her office’s director-general, Wang Zhaoyao, signed two agreements with the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs (OOSA) Director Simonetta Di Pippo on space station collaboration and that China would use these to solicit, evaluate, select and finance future experiments from foreign nationals. A selection of experiments would need to be accompanied by a bilateral cooperation agreement between China and the nation proposing the experiments.

“This is an exciting opportunity to further build the space capacity of developing countries and increase understanding of the benefits space can bring to humankind, including for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. My office and I are looking forward to working with CMSA on these initiatives,” Di Pippo said in a June 16 statement. The agreements are dated March 31 but apparently were not announced until Wu’s speech to COPUOS.

Wu pointed to existing agreements with the 22-nation European Space Agency and with Russia’s Roscosmos space agency on space station cooperation. ESA officials have said they are preparing their future astronauts for visits to the Chinese facility, although no specific agreements have been concluded.

more at the link...

http://spacenews.com/china-prepares-assembly-of-its-space-station-invites-collaboration-through-u-n/

 

IMHO, this will be great for nations starting/advancing  a young space program. There will be detractors, but science, in the end, wins.

 

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Why in the world are they pixelating their engines in your image?  I figured it would be the Japanese pixelating their space porn.   

[DocM]

So the engine IP holders don't realize they've been hacked & ripped off?

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Tonight (EDT)

 

Quote

June 21/22 PSLV • Cartosat 2C
Launch time: 0355 GMT on 22nd (11:55 p.m. EDT on 21st)
Launch site: Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota, India
India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), flying on the PSLV-C34 mission in the PSLV-XL configuration, will launch the Cartosat 2C high-resolution Earth observation satellite and a collection of smaller secondary payloads from international customers. Delayed from May, June 10 and June 20. [June 17]

http://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/

 

 

India’s PSLV set to launch record 20 satellites on Wednesday

 

Quote

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is about to send a record number of 20 satellites in a single mission. The country’s flagship Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) will take to the skies on Wednesday, June 22, from the Second Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, to orbit a panoply of spacecraft for various customers around the world. Liftoff is scheduled to take place at 9:26 a.m. local time (03:56 GMT).

If successful, Wednesday’s launch will surpass India’s previous record of the most satellites put into space during one flight, set by the PLSV on April 28, 2008. Back then, the PSLV-C9 mission sent ten spacecraft aloft.

However, according to ISRO, the PSLV-C34 flight will not end when all the spacecraft are fully deployed into space. The mission controllers plan to re-ignite the rocket’s fourth stage engine, 50 minutes after the separation of the last satellite. The engine will burn for just about five seconds. Afterward, it will be shut down for 50 minutes and then re-ignited for another five seconds. These maneuvers are necessary for ISRO to check the ability of the fourth stage to place multiple satellites into different orbits using just a single rocket on future missions.

more at....

http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/organizations/isro/india-pslv-launch-record-20-satellites-wednesday/

 

Integration of strap-on motors with the PSLV-C34 core stage. Photo Credit: ISRO
 

 

PSLV-C34 rollout to Second Launch Pad. Photo Credit: ISRO
 

 

 

PSLV -C34 / Cartosat-2 Series Mission Launch - Live Telecast

http://www.isro.gov.in/pslv-c34/pslv-c34-cartosat-2-series-mission-launch-live-telecast

 

PSLV- C34 Gallery   (image gallery)

http://www.isro.gov.in/pslv-c34/pslv-c34-gallery

 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

ooops, forgot this as well, part of the ISRO payload...

 

12 DOVES LAUNCHING TO 500KM SSO

 

Quote

Twelve Dove satellites, collectively known as “Flock 2p”, will be launching on a Polar Satellite Launch vehicle (PSLV) rocket on June 22 at 03:55 GMT (June 21 at 20:55 PDT) to a 500 km altitude Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India.

 

This is our first launch to a Sun Synchronous Orbit this year. SSO’s 97-degree orbital inclination helps us collect a truly global imagery dataset. On top of that, SSO’s regular mid-morning pass times provide consistent lighting conditions (sun angle and shadows) that make it easier for humans (and algorithms) to detect changes in our imagery from day to day.

 

The primary payload for the launch is CartoSat-2c, an Indian space agency (ISRO) Earth Observation mission. This is the first time the Doves will be launching on a PSLV, which will bring the total number of launch vehicle families utilized by Planet to 7, and 14 launches in total. The versatility in launch opportunities utilized by Planet speaks to the robustness of the Dove satellite design, and the benefits of Cubesat standardization. Our little Doves can fit in the nooks and crannies of just about any launch vehicle out there.

 

At Planet San Francisco, we will be watching the launch with our traditional pancakes. Wishing good luck (and delicious breakfast fare) to the PSLV, CartoSat-2c, the Flock 2p satellites, and all the other secondaries sharing the launch with us!

https://www.planet.com/pulse/12-doves-launching-to-500km-sso/

 

The above, is the new "branding" of Planet Labs Inc., now called Planet. They are the ones responsible for the great earth images that they place in an updating gallery for us to see at no cost...

 

https://www.planet.com/gallery/

 

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Live stream of the Indian rocket.

 

Taking off soon

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Thanx for the link...other one not working...

 

@jjkusaf

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Good launch. That thing meant business on launch. I guess the whole first stage is solid?

[Draggendrop Veteran]

That thing jumped big time....