GOES-S - Atlas V 541 (AV-079) - Canaveral SLC-41 - 02.03.2018

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ULA‏Подлинная учетная запись @ulalaunch 25 мин. назад

Rolling to the launch pad! ULA's #AtlasV rocket will launch the #GOESS mission for @NASA_LSP and @NOAASatellites! #GOES17

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https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/02/28/av-077-mission-status-center/

Live coverage: Atlas 5 rocket rolls to launch pad at Cape Canaveral
February 28, 2018 | Stephen Clark

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of an Atlas 5 rocket with NOAA's GOES-S weather satellite. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

NASA TV's live video coverage of the Atlas 5 launch will begin at 4:30 p.m. EST (2130 GMT) on March 1.

Updated: 02/28/2018 18:52 Stephen Clark

The Atlas 5 rocket has arrived at Complex 41 after a trip from the Vertical Integration Facility. The Atlas 5's mobile platform followed rail tracks leading to the pad as two "trackmobile" vehicles pushed the stack.

Autocouplers will engage to connect the rocket to ground power supplies and other ground systems. Other duties planned by the Atlas 5 team this afternoon include customary post-rollout checks and filling of the first stage with RP-1 kerosene fuel.

Спойлер

Liquid oxygen will be loaded in the first stage during the countdown tomorrow afternoon, along with liquid hydrogen and liquid hydrogen for the Atlas 5's Centaur upper stage.

The latest forecast issued this morning indicates an 80 percent chance of favorable weather conditions during tomorrow's two-hour launch window, which opens at 5:02 p.m. EST (2202 GMT).

The primary weather concerns tomorrow will be with cumulus clouds and ground winds.

"On launch day, the next frontal boundary pushes into the Florida panhandle during the count," meteorologists from the 45th Weather Squadron wrote in a forecast summary this morning. "Relatively dry conditions persist over Central Florida on launch day in advance of the front with a slight threat of an isolated shower with late day diurnal heating. No thunderstorms are expected.

"The pressure gradient tightens and winds begin trending up from the southwest through the day with peaks in the upper teens (230 ft) early in the count and continuing to trend up to the low 20s at the beginning of the window and mid-20s in the window."

Forecasters predict a chance of isolated rain showers, partly cloudy skies, good visibility, and winds from the west-southwest at 22 to 26 knots. The temperature during the launch window will be between 77 degrees and 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

In the event of a 24-hour delay, similar conditions are expected behind the front. Friday's forecast also calls for an 80 percent chance of acceptable weather for launch.

The Atlas 5 will haul NOAA's GOES-S weather satellite into orbit, beginning a 15-year mission monitoring storms, fog, wildfires and volcanic eruptions in the western United States, the Pacific Ocean, Mexico and Central America.

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ULA‏Подлинная учетная запись @ulalaunch 12 мин. назад

The #AtlasV with #GOESS is in the 541 configuration: 5-meter-diameter payload fairing, 4 solid rocket boosters and a single engine on the Centaur upper stage. It will generate approx 2.25 million pounds of thrust off the pad. #GOESSocial

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ULA AtlasV 541 Rollout of GOES-S

 Brett Stevens

Опубликовано: 28 февр. 2018 г.

(4:44)

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NASA TV GOES-S prelaunch briefing Coverage Set for Weather Satellite Science Briefing.

 space googlevesaire

Трансляция началась 23 часа назад

(1:31:37)

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GOES-S Countdown to T-Zero, Episode 3: Rocket Science

 NASAKennedy

Опубликовано: 27 февр. 2018 г.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket reaches another major milestone on the road to T-Zero, as NOAA's GOES-S spacecraft prepares for launch. Stacking the rocket begins with the booster - the largest component - and continues with the addition of four solid rocket motors and the Centaur upper stage. GOES-S, the next in a series of advanced weather satellites, is slated to launch aboard the Atlas V from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

(3:17)

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Одна из неофициальных трансляций пуска

OLHZN Space Balloons‏ @OLHZN 1 ч. назад

Join us #live tomorrow at 4:30pm EST (21:30 UTC) for the launch of @torybruno @ulalaunch #AtlasV carrying the #GOESS #GOES17 satellite for @NOAA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgt67GhVlQA ...

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GOES R An Animated Tour of a Weather Satellite

 News Alternative Energy World

Опубликовано: 28 февр. 2018 г.

A series of four NOAA GOES-R / S / T / U satellites is the next generation of a meteorological orbital constellation providing comprehensive operational climate analysis over the North and South American continents as well as adjacent ocean areas

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The Franklin Institute‏Подлинная учетная запись @TheFranklin 43 мин. назад

Here's @ulalaunch's Atlas V Spaceflight Operations Center that will manage the launch of the #GOESS satellite tomorrow. http://bit.ly/2CfIymG  #NASASocial – Atlas Spaceflight Operations Center (ASOC)

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Сообщение 45-го КК

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Объявлена

Airspace Closure Area

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Опубликована

Launch Hazard Area

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NASA EDGE: GOES S Live Rollout Show

 NASA EDGE

Опубликовано: 28 февр. 2018 г.

NASA EDGE takes a closer look at the GOES-S satellite during rollout to Space Launch Complex 41 on the Atlas V rocket. With guests from NASA and NOAA, NASA EDGE discusses the unique technology and data sets being used by the GOES-R series of Satellites ahead of the launch scheduled for March 1, 2018.

(27:58 )

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https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/02/28/atlas-5-goes-s-launch-timeline/

Atlas 5/GOES-S launch timeline
February 28, 2018 Stephen Clark

This is the launch timeline to be followed by the Atlas 5 rocket's ascent into orbit from Cape Canaveral with the GOES-S weather satellite. Launch is scheduled for Thursday during a two-hour window opening at 5:02 p.m. EST (2202 GMT).

The 197-foot-tall rocket will arc to the east from Florida's Space Coast on its second flight of the year. It will be the 76th Atlas 5 launch overall since United Launch Alliance's workhorse rocket debuted in August 2002.

The timeline below ends with the conclusion of the primary mission, the deployment of the GOES-S satellite into an elliptical geostationary transfer orbit.

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Follow live coverage of the countdown and launch in our Mission Status Center.

A video overview of the Atlas 5 launch sequence also describes the major milestones on the GOES-S mission.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=3Auwwc9BLXE

T+0:00:01.1: Liftoff


With the RD-180 main engine running, the Atlas 5 vehicle lifts off and begins a vertical rise away from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

T+0:00:35.2: Mach 1


Riding 2.1 million pounds of thrust from its RD-180 main engine and four solid rocket boosters, the Atlas 5 exceeds the speed of sound.

T+0:00:47.1: Max-Q


The Atlas 5 rocket passes through the region of maximum dynamic pressure during ascent through the lower atmosphere.

T+0:01:50.3: Jettison SRBs


Having burned out of propellant approximately 20 seconds earlier, the four spent Aerojet Rocketdyne-built solid rocket boosters are jettisoned once dynamic pressure conditions are satisfied.

T+0:03:29.9: Nose Cone Jettison


The Atlas 5 rocket's payload fairing, made in Switzerland by Ruag Space, is jettisoned in a clamshell-like fashion once external heating levels drop below predetermined limits after climbing through the dense lower atmosphere. The Forward Load Reactor deck that connected the payload fairing's structure to the Centaur upper stage is released five seconds after the shroud's jettison.

T+0:04:21.9: Main Engine Cutoff


The RD-180 main engine completes its firing after consuming its kerosene and liquid oxygen fuel supply in the Atlas first stage.

T+0:04:27.9: Stage Separation


The Common Core Booster first stage of the Atlas 5 rocket separates from the Centaur upper stage. Over the next few seconds, the Centaur engine liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen systems are readied for ignition.

T+0:04:37.9: Centaur Ignition 1


The Centaur RL10C-1 engine ignites for the first of three upper stage firings. This burn will inject the Centaur stage and GOES-S spacecraft into an initial parking orbit.

T+0:12:11.1: Centaur Cutoff 1


The Centaur engine shuts down after arriving in a planned low-Earth parking orbit. The vehicle enters a 10-minute coast period before arriving at the required location in space for the second burn.

T+0:22:38.4:  Centaur Ignition 2


The Centaur re-ignites to accelerate the payload into a highly elliptical transfer orbit from the parking altitude achieved earlier in the launch sequence. This burn lasts five-and-a-half minutes.

T+0:28:09.3: Centaur Cutoff 2


The second Centaur firing places the GOES-S satellite into an elliptical transfer orbit stretching more than 20,000 miles above Earth, beginning a three-hour coast period for the mission's final orbital adjustment maneuver.

T+3:28:07.9: Centaur Ignition 3


After a three-hour coast, the Centaur's RL10 engine reignites for a roughly 95-second firing to raise the GOES-S satellite's perigee, or orbital low point, and reduce its inclination closer to the equator.

T+3:29:42.3: Centaur Cutoff 3


The powered phase of flight is concluded as the Centaur reaches the planned geosynchronous transfer orbit with a perigee, or low point, of 5,104 miles (8,215 kilometers), an apogee, or high point, of 21,926 miles (35,286 kilometers), and an inclination of 9.52 degrees.

T+3:32:31.3: GOES-S Separation


The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-S, GOES-S, spacecraft deploys from the Centaur upper stage to begin its 15-year weather monitoring mission.

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https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/02/28/second-of-noaas-high-definition-weather-satellites-ready-for-launch/

Second of NOAA's "high-definition" weather satellites ready for launch
February 28, 2018 Stephen Clark


Artist's concept of the GOES-S satellite in orbit. Credit: Lockheed Martin

The second satellite in a quartet of new NOAA weather observatories is awaiting liftoff Thursday aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, heading for a position 22,000 miles fr om Earth to scan the western United States and Pacific Ocean for typhoons, wildfires and fog.

The GOES-S weather satellite, to be renamed GOES-17 once in orbit, is bolted on top of a 197-foot-tall (60-meter) Atlas 5 rocket set for launch fr om Cape Canaveral at 5:02 p.m. EST (2202 GMT) Thursday.

The launch window extends for two hours, and the official weather outlook calls for an 80 percent probability of favorable conditions.

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Ground crews at Cape Canaveral transferred the Atlas 5 launcher, with four solid rocket boosters made by Aerojet Rocketdyne, fr om ULA's Vertical Integration Facility to the Complex 41 launch pad Wednesday morning.

Once at the pad, the launch team planned to load the Atlas 5's first stage with RP-1 kerosene fuel. The launcher's RD-180 main engine will consume the kerosene in combination with super-cold liquid oxygen, which will be pumped aboard the Atlas 5 during Thursday's countdown, scheduled to formally commence at 10:12 a.m. EST (1512 GMT).

Engineers will power up the Atlas 5 rocket, then load liquid oxygen into the launcher's main stage and Centaur upper stage, plus cryogenic liquid hydrogen into the second stage to fuel the Centaur's Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10 main engine.

A final pre-launch poll is scheduled during a planned hold in the countdown at T-minus 4 minutes, and an automated launch sequencer will control the final minutes before liftoff.


The Atlas 5 rocket with the GOES-S satellite rolled out to its launch pad at Cape Canaveral on Wednesday morning. Credit: United Launch Alliance

Built by Lockheed Martin, the GOES-S spacecraft is poised to join a sister satellite, named GOES-16, which flew into orbit in November 2016 on a previous Atlas 5 rocket. Like GOES-16, GOES-S carries six instrument packages to survey weather conditions on Earth and in space.

The GOES satellites, launched in series since 1975, are the "backbone of weather and climate forecasts," said Stephen Volz, director of NOAA's satellite and information services.

Imagery fr om the GOES satellites are featured in weather broadcasts and used as a primary forecasting tool by meteorologists across the Western Hemisphere, helping track tropical cyclones and tornado-spawning severe storms, plus monitoring for snow and ice cover, wildfires and fog that threaten transportation and property.

The newest family of GOES satellites, beginning with GOES-16 launched in 2016, offer a "quantum leap" in capability over NOAA's earlier generations of geostationary weather observatories, Volz said in a briefing with reporters Tuesday.

The Advanced Baseline Imager on the latest four GOES satellites can return scans of an entire hemisphere once every 15 minutes, half the time needed by one of NOAA's earlier geostationary spacecraft. The imager can scan the continental United States once every 5 minutes.

The new ABI-equipped satellites can return pictures of hotspots like hurricanes at a cadence of once every 30 seconds, an improvement from the five-minute rapid scans available today.

The imager, built by Harris Corp. in Fort Wayne, Indiana, can simultaneously scan the broader hemisphere in its field-of-view and capture close-up views of individual storm systems, giving forecasters refreshed views of hurricanes and tornado outbreaks.

The ABI can see in 16 visible and infrared channels, yielding deeper insights into moisture levels and cloud types unavailable with previous weather satellite images. Earlier GOES satellites had imagers sensitive to five different parts of the light spectrum.

The upgrade allows meteorologists to distinguish between snow, fog, clouds, volcanic ash, and other particles suspended in the atmosphere.

Data from the GOES-16 satellite, which now provides real-time imagery over the eastern United States, the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean and Latin America, has astounded forecasters in its first year of observations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=H0FZs2v5T_8

"GOES-16, even beyond its spectacular imagery, is already proving to be a game changer with much more refined, higher quality data for faster and more accurate weather forecasts and warnings," said Ajay Mehta, acting deputy assistant administrator for systems at NOAA's satellite and information service. "This means more lives are saved and better environment intelligence for state and local officials, who, for example, may need to make decisions about when to call for evacuations ahead of life-threatening wildfires."

Before officials declared it operational, GOES-16 recorded detailed views of powerful hurricanes last year churning in the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.

GOES-16 tracked movements of Hurricane Harvey as it approached the Texas coast and dropped inundating rainfall over Houston, then watched as Hurricane Irma struck Florida and Hurricane Maria made a devastating landfall in Puerto Rico.

NOAA made GOES-16 operational in the so-called "GOES-East" position at the equator over 75 degrees west longitude in December. GOES-S, soon to be named GOES-17, will take a position in the "GOES-West" location at 137 degrees west longitude.

"When it launches March 1 and becomes operational later this year, GOES-S will see the west in true high-definition, and along with the remaining satellites in our GOES-R series, will extend the life of NOAA's geostationary satellite constellation through 2036," said Tim Walsh, acting director of NOAA's GOES-R program.

"These satellites are giving us the ability to look at storms as often as every 30 seconds, allowing forecasters to see storms as they're developing instead of as they've already happened," Walsh said.

NOAA's new space-based weather observing capabilities should result more accurate, and timely, forecasts for the West Coast, Alaska, Hawaii and much of Mexico and Central America.

"The West Coast states, as we've seen recently over the last few months, can be especially impacted by wildfires, dense fog and very strong storms that can produce deadly floods and mudslides," Walsh said.


An illustration of the GOES-West and GOES-East satellite positions in geostationary orbit. Credit: NOAA

The sharp-eyed imager aboard GOES-S will also help spot smoke plumes from wildfires and map volcanic discharges that threaten aviation and air quality.

"Airports have to shut down because of heavy fog at times," Volz said. "With the lower resolution of the existing satellites, there might be a pixel which is 10 kilometers in size, which covers an airport and all around it, whereas with the higher-resolution of GOES-R, wh ere you have 1 or 2 kilometers or better, you can pinpoint wh ere there's fog and wh ere there isn't."

An experiment during heavy fog at San Francisco International Airport last year using GOES-16 — before it was repositioned over the Atlantic Ocean — demonstrated the satellite's upgraded imager could see fog burn off sooner than possible with earlier weather observatories, Volz said.

That allowed the airport to reopen earlier than expected, helping travelers safely get to their destinations sooner and saving airlines around $100,000 in unnecessary costs, he said.

GOES-S will also get a better look at ice flows and other seasonal weather patterns in Alaska, officials said, allowing forecasters there to use more GOES satellite data in their daily outlooks. In the past, forecasters in Alaska could not count on the highest-quality imagery from GOES satellites because of their oblique viewing angle from equatorial orbit.

Like its predecessor already in space, GOES-S carries a detector to locate in-cloud, cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning strikes day or night, giving weather forecasters an inventory of the location, frequency and intensity of lightning activity that could help warn the public of severe storms.

Other instruments on GOES-S will look at the sun and chart solar radiation output and solar flares, which affect conditions in Earth's upper atmosphere and generate geomagnetic storms, leading to possible disruptions in communications, navigation and electrical infrastructure.

An ultraviolet solar camera fitted to a telescope on GOES-S will take full disk images of the sun.

A magnetometer and space environment sensor will measure particles and electric fields in space, providing data on charging conditions that could damage other satellites.

GOES-S also hosts a transponder to receive faint distress beacons anywhere on Earth that is visible to the spacecraft. The signals will be relayed to search-and-rescue forces on the ground.

With two modernized satellites in geostationary orbit, NOAA officials said forecasters from New Zealand to West Africa, and from Canada to Patagonia, will have a critical new tool at their fingertips. A pair of Japanese Himawari satellite launched in 2014 and 2016 carry the same type of advanced imager as the new GOES craft, extending the improved coverage into the Asia-Pacific region.

Two more satellites in the GOES-R program — GOES-T and GOES-U — are in assembly at Lockheed Martin's factory in Denver for launches in 2020 and 2024.

NOAA has budgeted $11 billion for the program, a figure that includes the four spacecraft, weather instruments, launch services and ground systems.

Tim Gasparrini, vice president for the GOES-R program at Lockheed Martin, said in an interview Wednesday that the GOES-S spacecraft is powered up and ready for Thursday's launch.

"It's not often that you get to build something that touches hundreds of millions of people," Gasparrini said. "In the same facility, we build planetary spacecraft and those go out and do phenomenal science, but this one actually touches the lives and protects the property of hundreds of millions of people."


The GOES-S satellite inside a clean room at the Astrotech processing facility in Titusville, Florida. Credit: Michael Starobin, NOAA/NASA

Weighing in at 11,488 pounds (5,211 kilograms), GOES-S will ride ULA's Atlas 5 rocket to orbit on a three-and-a-half hour flight Thursday.

After dropping four 67-foot-tall (20-meter), 50-ton (46-metric ton) strap-on boosters and its Swiss-made payload shroud, the Atlas 5's core stage will fire its Russian-made RD-180 engine until T+plus 4 minutes, 21 seconds.

Six seconds later, the Atlas booster will jettison from the Centaur upper stage, and an RL10 engine will ignite for the first three firings to place GOES-S into its targeted orbit.

The first RL10 engine burn will end shortly after T+plus 12 minutes, followed 10 minutes later by a second maneuver lasting five-and-a-half minutes. Three hours later, third and final Centaur burn, expected to last around 95 seconds, will send GOES-S into an elliptical transfer orbit ranging in altitude between 5,104 miles (8,215 kilometers) and 21,926 miles (35,286 kilometers).

The third Centaur firing will move GOES-S's orbit closer its final equatorial operating post, and the upper stage will release the spacecraft at T+plus 3 hours, 32 minutes, on a track inclined 9.5 degrees to the equator.

GOES-S will use its own propellant supply for the final journey toward its perch in a circular geostationary orbit nearly 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) over the equator, wh ere its speed will match that of Earth's rotation, giving its weather instruments a constant view of the same part of the planet.

The Atlas 5's flight sequence will mostly mimic the launch of the GOES-16 — then known as GOES-R — satellite in November 2016, but the final Centaur firing will inject the spacecraft into an orbit one degree closer in latitude to the equator.

That will translate into nearly a year's worth of extra fuel life for GOES-S, which is designed for a 15-year mission but has enough propellant to last 20 years in space.

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