Sentinel-3B – Рокот/Бриз-КМ – Плесецк 133/3 – 25.04.2018, 17:57 UTC

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ESA Operations‏Подлинная учетная запись @esaoperations 5 мин. назад

First reports from the team confirm #Sentinel3 B is in expected condition. The automatic sequence that started once the spacecraft was released from the BreezeKM upper stage was so far successful. Ready to swap to Svalbard ground station. All hands on deck!

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Chris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight 10 мин. назад

S/C Sep confirmed for Sentinel 3B! ARTICLE:

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/04/rokot-sentinel-3b-launch/ ...

[ZOOR]

Молодцы.

ЕвроКота жалко только. Много и хорошо заказывал.

[tnt22]

http://www.khrunichev.ru/main.php?id=1&nid=3579

РАКЕТА–НОСИТЕЛЬ «РОКОТ» УСПЕШНО ВЫВЕЛА НА ОРБИТУ ЕВРОПЕЙСКИЙ СПУТНИК ДЛЯ ГЛОБАЛЬНОГО МОНИТОРИНГА ОКРУЖАЮЩЕЙ СРЕДЫ
25.04.2018

Европейский спутник Sentinel-3B («Сентинель-3Б»), предназначенный для решения задач программы глобального мониторинга окружающей среды Copernicus («Коперник), успешно запущен сегодня 25 апреля с помощью российской ракеты космического назначения (РКН) «Рокот».

Запуск осуществлен в 20 час. 57 мин. мск с космодрома Плесецк (Архангельская область). Для обеспечения пусковых операций использовались силы и средства АО «ГКНПЦ им. М.В. Хруничева» и Космических войск ВКС Министерства обороны Российской Федерации.

Пуск прошел в штатном режиме,  приблизительно через полтора часа после запуска космический аппарат вышел на заданную солнечно-синхронную орбиту.
...

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ESA Operations‏Подлинная учетная запись @esaoperations 3 мин. назад

The solar array deployment on #Sentinel3 B has been confirmed SUCCESSFUL! Brilliant news. Mission is Good to Go!

[tnt22]

http://spaceflight101.com/sentinel-3b-launch-preview/

Sentinel-3B Satellite to Join Copernicus Constellation via Launch on Rockot Booster
 April 25, 2018 

Sentinel-3B during final Processing – Photo: ESA

Europe's Copernicus satellite fleet is gearing up for the arrival of its next addition on Wednesday with a Russian Rockot booster set to blast off fr om the Plesetsk Cosmodrome at 17:57 UTC carrying the Sentinel-3B multi-function satellite. Pending successful delivery into orbit, the 1,250-Kilogram satellite will fly at 140-degree separation to its twin launched in 2016 to collect a comprehensive set of ocean and land observation parameters feeding into the data record collected by the Copernicus satellite fleet.

Спойлер

>> Live Launch Coverage

Sentinel-3B was installed atop the 29-meter tall Soviet-era ballistic-missile-turned-space-launcher on Saturday in preparation for Wednesday's launch on a one-hour and 20-minute climb into an 800 Kilometer orbit. This launch will mark the beginning of the end for Rockot as the vehicle is set to fly out its 24-year career as an orbital launch vehicle this year, lifting Sentinel-3B, a pair of Russian defence ministry payloads and a trio of Gonets-M communications satellites.


Image: ESA, ATG Medialab

Sentinel-3B will be the seventh satellite launched under Copernicus, joining two Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellites, the Sentinel-2 high-resolution imaging satellites, the Sentinel-5 precursor for atmospheric monitoring and the first Sentinel-3 satellite. Operated as a joint venture by the European Commission, the European Space Agency and the European Weather Agency Eumetsat, the Copernicus/GMES program has the primary objective of collecting and making available a comprehensive set of Earth observation parameters collected by different instruments embarked on several satellite missions as well as other data sources like airborne terminals.

To accomplish its goal, Copernicus is to consist of ten different satellite types with an overall program cost of 6.7 billion Euros through 2020. Sentinel data is processed into a variety of products of relevance to the scientific community, useful for operational capabilities like weather forecasting and environmental monitoring, and employed by policy-makers to guide their decisions with respect to environmental regulation, urban planning, etc.


Image: ESA

Built by Thales Alenia, the Sentinel-3 satellites are considered the most comprehensive of the fleet since they fly with a package of several instruments for data collection on land and ocean parameters, unlike the Sentinel-1 & 2 missions that host a single, specialized instrument.

Combining an Ocean & Land Color Instrument, a Surface Temperature Radiometer and SAR Altimeter, Sentinel-3 collects high-resolution land and ocean surface color data, ocean and land temperature measurements, surface topography data over land and ocean and data for vegetation assessments, ice monitoring, atmospheric studies and fire detection, Additionally, the mission provides data continuity for heritage missions to extend multi-decade records of ocean altimetry and surface temperature.

Sentinel-3A lifted off fr om Russia's prime military launch site on February 16, 2016 and currently operates fr om an orbit of 802 by 803 Kilometers, inclined 98.63 degrees.


Sentinel-3B Encapsulation – Photo: ESA

Wednesday's Rockot/Briz-KM launch is targeting a near-circular injection orbit of 810 Kilometers, inclined 98.65 degrees from wh ere the satellite will use its own engines to join Sentinel-3A at an in-plane phase angle of 140 degrees in a setup optimized to cut the revisit time of the two-satellite constellation to less than two days. Another two satellites are on order to join the constellation in the first half of the 2020s to increase revisit time and ensure data continuity.

In contrast to the other Copernicus missions, Sentinel-3 operates in a more operational capacity in that a fast data processing pipeline will deliver processed data products in a timely manner to be used in marine forecasting, ice monitoring and ocean current assessments. This is accomplished with a largely automated ground system for data processing and distribution as well as data dumps from the satellite on every orbit of Earth.


Photo: ESA

The Sentinel-3 satellites are outfitted with two imaging payloads and two topography instruments. The Ocean and Land Color Imager is a pushbroom imaging instrument comprised of five cameras covering 21 spectral channels to deliver detailed land and ocean color data as well as fire detection, vegetation data, atmospheric aerosol contents and cloud top height. The other imaging instrument is the Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer covering infrared wavelengths and sweeping out a wide field of view to gather surface temperature data over land and the ocean.

The Topography Payload hosts an active Synthetic Aperture Radar bouncing radio pulses off the ground to measure ocean wave heights and land topography, assisted by a Microwave Radiometer recording Earth's natural microwave emissions to provide correction data accounting for atmospheric water content. To make precise topography measurement, Sentinel-3 relies on a trio of Orbit Determination Systems, in combination achieving a sub-centimeter accuracy in calculating the satellite's orbit.

>> Detailed Instrument Descriptions


Site 133/3 Launch Complex – Photo: Eurockot

Built and tested by Thales Alenia in France, the satellite was packed up in March and flown to Plesetsk, some 800 Kilometers north of Moscow. Arriving at its launch site on March 17, Sentinel-3B was greeted by snowy weather which caused some hold-ups in the final leg of its journey completed by train. Final testing confirmed the satellite made it to the launch site without problems and was in working order before completing fueling for its planned seven-year mission.

The satellite was mated to its launch adapter on April 14 before taking its position atop the Briz-KM upper stage and being encapsulated in the protective payload fairing. It was then moved to the Site 133/3 launch pad wh ere it was hoisted for installation atop the two-stage Rockot Booster for a final test of checkout activities including a complete countdown rehearsal on Sunday to clear the way for the Launch Readiness Review which gave approval for fueling of the Rockot booster with toxic, self-igniting propellants.

First flown as a space launcher in 1990, Rockot has a launch mass of 107 metric tons and can deliver payloads up to 1,200 Kilograms to Sun Synchronous Orbit. Both Rockot stages and Briz-KM use hypergolic propellants, Unsymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine and Nitrogen Tetroxide.

>> Rockot Launch Vehicle Overview


Sentinel-3A Launch – Photo: ESA

On Wednesday, the satellite team at the launch site and the European Space Operations Center in Germany will head into a seven-hour countdown operation to put the Sentinel-3B satellite through final checkouts, configure it for launch and complete data flow checks with the various ground stations involved in the mission. Wednesday's launch will initially be supported by Russia's Ground Station Network tracking the ascending Rockot vehicle followed by passes over ground stations in South Africa, Kenya, Belgium and Sweden – supporting launch vehicle telemetry relay as well as communications with Sentinel-3B after spacecraft separation.

Final approval from the State Commission is expected six hours before launch and Rockot will head into a series of checkouts. The Mobile Service Tower will be retracted from the above-ground launch canister and, as the count heads into its tail end, the satellite team will provide a final readiness call when Sentinel-3B is on battery power. The final countdown sequence kicks off at T-3 minutes and includes steps to transfer Rockot & Briz-KM to onboard power and pass control over to the launcher.


Image: ESA/ATG Medialab

T-0 at 17:57:38 UTC marks the start of final gyro settling and ignition comes at T+11 seconds as the RD-0233/0234 engines on the 1st stage soar up to a collective liftoff thrust of 191 metric-ton-force. Climbing out of its Launch Container, Rockot will ascend vertically for a moment before pitching over to begin heading to the north-west to aim for a polar orbit.

Rockot passes Maximum Dynamic Pressure 50 seconds after liftoff when pushing through 11 Kilometers in altitude. The first stage will fire until T+2 minutes and 19 seconds when it shuts down its engines and separates from Stage 2 that will have already ignited its vernier engine to pull away from the first stage.

Staging at 68 Kilometers in altitude will set the stage for a burn of just over three minutes as the second stage pushes the vehicle out of the atmosphere with a thrust of 25 metric-ton-force. Sentinel-3B is revealed three minutes into the flight when Rockot will pass 121 Kilometers in altitude, well outside the dense layers of the atmosphere wh ere aerodynamic forces are no-longer a concern.

>> Reference: Sentinel-3A Launch Profile

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Sentinel-3B Launch Profile – Image: Khrunichev

Спойлер

After second stage shutdown at T+5 minutes and 19 seconds, the Briz-KM upper stage will be in charge of powered flight. It will start with a burn of just over nine minutes, firing its S5.98 engine with a thrust of 2,000 Kilogram-force to boost the stack into an elliptical Parking Orbit of around 153 by 785 Kilometers.

Once arriving in orbit, the stack will enter an hour-long coast to climb to the apogee of its orbit so that the second burn can bring up the perigee and circularize the orbit. While coasting, the vehicle will pass over the Hartebeesthoek, and Malindi ground stations, covering the second burn and spacecraft separation. Briz-KM's second burn is set to start one hour and 15 minutes into the flight and last around 33 seconds to put the vehicle into an orbit of 809 by 811 Kilometers, inclined 98.65°.

Following separation 80 minutes after launch, Sentinel-3B will be tasked with establishing a stable orientation, deploy its single solar array and check in with ground stations to deliver health data to teams at ESOC, marking the start of a three-day initial commissioning phase. For Briz-KM, two disposal maneuvers are coming up after satellite deploy to lower its orbit.

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[tnt22]

ESA Operations‏Подлинная учетная запись @esaoperations 10 мин. назад

#Sentinal3 B Flight Control Team report that the spacecraft has stabilised herself and is in "Sun Pointing Phase" - everything nominal!

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ESA Operations‏Подлинная учетная запись @esaoperations 9 мин. назад

"2 minutes to carrier down Alaska" - Ground Operations Manager gives heads-up to Flight Control Team of impending Loss of Signal as the satellite transits over the horizon heading north...

7 мин. назад

#Sentinel3 B has now passed over the horizon and we have Loss of Signal over Alaska. Next contact will be over #Troll in Antarctica in about 37 minutes. Spacecraft is now orbiting Earth once every 101 minutes!

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http://spaceflight101.com/copernicus/rockot-successfully-launches-sentinel-3b/

Sentinel-3B Land & Ocean-Sensing Satellite Delivered to Orbit by Russian Rockot Booster
 April 25, 2018

Image: ESA Launch Webcast

Europe's Copernicus Earth Observation Constellation welcomed its seventh member on Wednesday after the Sentinel-3B ocean- and land-sensing satellite received a smooth ride to orbit atop a Russian ballistic-missile-turned-space-launcher.

As one of the largest remote sensing constellations, Copernicus currently operates four differently-instrumented satellite types to keep close watch over a changing planet – monitoring land, ocean and atmospheric parameters to serve the scientific community, support operational applications like weather forecasting and ocean monitoring, and guide the decision-making process regarding environmental policies and land use.

The three-stage Rockot/Briz-KM booster shot up fr om its above-ground launch container at Site 133/3 of the Plesetsk Cosmodrome at precisely 17:57:52 UTC to deliver the 1,250-Kilogram Sentinel-3B satellite into the orbital plane of its twin that launched in 2016. Rockot's converted ballistic missile stages were in action for five and a half minutes before handing off to the Briz-KM upper stage that was tasked with a pair of engine burns to first inject the stack into an elliptical parking orbit before coasting and circularizing the orbit after half a lap around Earth.

Спойлер

Image: ESA/ATG Medialab

Sentinel-3B pushed off with loaded springs 80 minutes after liftoff to depart the Briz-KM upper stage and embark on its planned seven-year mission collecting surface color and temperature data over land and ocean as well as altimetry data for sea state assessments. The European Space Agency confirmed Sentinel-3B was in good shape after its nighttime liftoff and was in stable communications with the ground.

Wednesday's launch marked the 31st for the Rockot launch vehicle and its 29th orbital mission since its debut as a space launch vehicle in 1994. It most likely was the vehicle's final commercial mission operated by Eurockot – a joint project of ArianeGroup and rocket builder Khrunichev – as Rockot is expected to be retired by the end of the year.

Based on a stockpile of leftover UR-100N intercontinental ballistic missiles, Rockot was always faced with a limited inventory of vehicles but the rocket's retirement comes because Ukrainian-built components of the Briz-KM flight control system are no-longer available to the Russian Federation for regular operation of Rockot missions.


Sentinel-3B during Processing – Photo: ESA

As a result, Rockot is currently looking at another three missions before sailing into retirement: lifting the GEO-IK-2 No. 3 geodesy satellite, an unspecified defence ministry mission and a trio of Gonets-M communications satellites.

Taking over for Rockot is the Soyuz 2-1v that flew for the first time in 2013 and is slightly more powerful than the UR-100N-based vehicle. Soyuz 2-1v is also considered more environmentally friendly due to its use of LOX/Kerosene propellant in its boost stages as opposed to Rockot's toxic, storable propellant combination.

Copernicus is a multi-billion Euro effort to create an operational system capable of collecting a comprehensive set of Earth observation parameters with a fleet of differently-instrumented satellites and turning them into usable data for scientists, weather forecasters, and policy-makers. The program operates a variety of instruments including high-resolution multi-spectral cameras, radar systems capable of day-and-night, all-weather imaging as well as specialized sensors for the measurements of sea/land topography, atmospheric changes and surface temperature.

The Copernicus Program's global surveys are used by policy-makers, maritime operators, scientists, meteorologists and resource managers. Taking the pulse of an ever-changing planet, the Copernicus satellite constellation is expected to finish its initial deployment by 2021. With a program cost of €6.7-billion, Copernicus is Europe's single most expensive space project and regarded as the world's most ambitious environmental satellite program.

With its current complement of satellites, Copernicus generates around 15 Terabytes of data per day – making it one of the five largest data producers in the world. Over its initial years of operation, Copernicus has delivered over 55 Petabytes of data to a user base of nearly 140,000.


Sentinel Family – Image: ESA

The Sentinel fleet began deployment back in 2014 when the Sentinel-1A Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellite took flight fr om French Guiana atop a Soyuz rocket, setting out to collect sub-meter resolution radar imagery for land and ocean services. It was joined by a nearly identical twin in 2016 to achieve a high revisit rate between the two.

Sentinel-2 also operates as a two-satellite system, launching in June 2015 and March 2017 and hosting high-resolution, multi-spectral imaging instruments to deliver information on land surface parameters, vegetation type, soil and water cover, inland water bodies and coastal areas. The Sentinel-3 satellites are widely regarded as the most comprehensive members of the constellation, hosting four payloads for land and ocean surface temperature measurements and topographical measurements through an altimetry instrument suite.

Sentinel-4 and 5, unlike the other constellation members, are hosted payloads on the next-generation of weather satellites operated by EUMETSAT with Sentinel-4 operating from Geostationary Orbit and Sentinel-5 flying on the MetOp Second Generation in Sun Synchronous Orbit, both tasked with atmospheric monitoring.


Sentinel-3B Processing – Photo: ESA

A Sentinel-5 Precursor Satellite was launched last year as a stopgap for vital atmospheric spectroscopy data before the upcoming MetOp satellites are ready for launch. Sentinel-6, set for launch in 2020, will replace the Jason Ocean Altimetry Satellite and additional satellites beyond Sentinel-6 are planned as part of the expansion of the constellation in the 2020s.

Data from the Sentinel satellite fleet are distributed worldwide free of charge, benefiting not only the scientific community but being also employed by businesses, security officials and the public. As such, Copernicus is considered an operational program with satellites being produced in series to ensure data continuity over a long period, unlike one-off science missions like Europe's EnviSat that provided data from 2002 through 2012.


Image: ESA/ATG Medialab

Under Copernicus, the European Commission acts as the funding body and provides overall project management while the European Space Agency is tasked with developing and launching the satellites. EUMETSAT is responsible for the day-to-day operations and the distribution of operational marine data products while ESA is in charge of all other data dissemination and archiving tasks.

Sentinel-3 stands out among the Copernicus satellites as the constellation's most complex members and operating under a more operational architecture with focus on quick data product distribution after collection.

Standing 3.71 meters tall, the Sentinel-3 twins rely on the PRIMA satellite platform of Thales Alenia Space, employing a single, 2,000-Watt solar array, precise three-axis pointing systems, onboard propulsion for orbit maintenance and a multi-sensor orbit determination system to keep track of their orbit with an accuracy of a few centimeters to be able to deliver precise ocean and land altimetry data.

>> Sentinel-3 Spacecraft Overview >> Instrument Descriptions


Image: ESA

Each satellite hosts a 21-channel Ocean and Land Color Instrument (OLCI) operating at a ground resolution up to 300 meters, a Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSRT) measuring land/ocean temperature with an accuracy of ±0.3°C, and a Synthetic Aperture Radar Altimeter (SRAL) and Microwave Radiometer (MWR) operate in unison to provide precision measurements of ocean states and land topography.

Additionally, data delivered by the instruments will come to use in land and sea ice assessments, ocean-current forecasting, sea-water quality and pollution assessments, as well as a number of land, atmospheric and cryospheric applications in an operational sense (e.g. fire detection, forest cover mapping, land use monitoring).

Forming a dual-satellite system, Sentinel-3A and 3B will operate at an in-plane separation of 140 degrees – unusual for a tandem configuration wh ere 180 degrees provides the best possible revisit time between the two constellation members. This particular setup was sel ected for Sentinel-3 in a compromise between a desire to maximize daily coverage of the constellation while also gaining some overlap between the two satellites' ground swaths to study fast-progressing ocean phenomena like Eddies.


Photo: ESA Webcast


Photo: ESA Webcast

As an operational mission, Sentinel-3 implements a high-degree of automation on the satellite and the ground segment to be able to release data products within three hours of acquisition.


For its ride into orbit, Sentinel-3B relied on Rockot – a converted UR-100N Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, developed in the 1970s and first flown as a space launch vehicle in the 1990s. Standing 29 meters tall, the ICBM-based launch vehicle uses storable propellants – Unsymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine & Nitrogen Tetroxide – on all three of its stages.

Engineers at the Site 133/3 launch pad loaded the two-stage Rockot with 82,200 Kilograms of self-igniting propellants to start the week; the Briz-KM had received its dose of toxic propellant before integration with the rocket. Most of the day on Wednesday was dedicated to the Network Countdown, readying the Sentinel-3B satellite via final battery charging and health checks while also preparing the ground tracking network for its role in relaying communications from the satellite.

>> Rockot Launch Vehicle

Rockot – still partially hidden in its above-ground launch container – was revealed just ten minutes before launch when its Mobile Service Tower retracted to its liftoff position. By that time, Sentinel-3B was running on internal power and teams in Germany had given their final GO for launch.


Photo: ESA Webcast

Rockot entered the irreversible steps of its final countdown sequence at T-3 minutes with the pressurization of tanks, opening of fuel valves, the transfer to internal power and the activation of the Guidance Platform. Clocks hit zero at 17:57:38 UTC when final guidance system initialization started.

Rockot ignited its four first stage engines and lifted off at precisely 17:57:52.016 UTC, rising from its launch tube, initially guided by rails. Thundering off, the 107-metric ton Rockot completed a short vertical ascent before starting to pitch and roll to align itself with the planned ascent path to the north west, immediately disappearing into low-hanging clouds in the twilight skies over Russia's primary military launch base.


Photo: ESA Webcast

Ascending with a total thrust of 191 metric-ton-force, Rockot burned some 600 Kilograms of propellant per second as it powered away from Earth with three RD-0233 engines and one RD-0234, quickly moving past the speed of sound. The launch vehicle encountered Maximum Dynamic Pressure 50 seconds after lifting off, passing 11 Kilometers in altitude and traveling at 570 meters per second.

At T+2 minutes and 16 seconds, the four-chamber RD-0236 vernier engine of the second stage was ignited and soared up to full thrust of 1,600 Kilogram-force as its exhaust was directed through four hatches on the first stage. Shutdown of the first stage came at T+2:19 and was followed split-seconds later by separation of the 17-meter long first stage, assisted by four retrorockets that pushed the first stage away to clear the way for the second stage to ignite its main engine.


Image: ESA

With the first stage headed to a crash landing in the Barents Sea, Stage 2 fired up its RD-0235 main engine, outputting a thrust of 24,500 Kilogram-force for a burn of just under three minutes to lift the vehicle out of the atmosphere. When the stack reached an altitude of 120 Kilometers at T+3 minutes, it was safe to jettison the protective payload fairing and expose the Sentinel-3B satellite as aerodynamic forces could no longer harm the delicate payload.

Rockot's job was done at T+5 minutes and 19 seconds when it shut down its second stage and separated the Briz-KM upper stage to finish the orbital injection. Briz-KM initially ignited its four 392-Newton vernier engines for propellant settling prior to firing up its S5.98 main engine on a burn of nine minutes to lift the satellite into a Parking Orbit. Only the first portion of the lengthy burn was covered via live telemetry before Briz-KM headed out of ground network range, leaving teams with nothing to do but wait for Briz-KM to complete its pre-programmed mission profile before re-appearing in ground station range.


First Signals fr om Sentinel-3B – Image: ESA Webcast

Standing 2.6 meters tall, Briz-KM launched with five metric tons of propellants in its tanks for consumption by a 2,000-Kilogram-force S5.98 main engine. First lifting the stack into Parking Orbit of around 153 by 785 Kilometers, Briz-M was then tasked with a 60.5-minute ballistics phase to climb to apogee and then re-fire its engine for 33 seconds in order to lift the vehicle into a circular orbit 810 Kilometers in altitude, inclined 98.65 degrees.

Separation of the satellite was set for 19:17 UTC, though acquisition of signal was only expected after Sentinel-3B had completed a pre-programmed series of steps to stabilize its three-axis orientation, deploy the single solar arrays and initiate communications with the ground. Applause broke out at the European Space Operations Center when the first signals of the satellite were detected through the Kiruna, Sweden station – confirming it was wh ere it was supposed to be after a successful launch.

Throughout the night and the next three days, teams at ESOC will put the satellite through a series of tests and reconfigurations to ensure Sentinel-3B is healthy and ready for the activation of its instruments. For the first four months of its mission, the satellite will shadow Sentinel-3A at a distance of less than 250 Kilometers to allow the two to cover the exact same ground scenes to enable cross-calibration of their instruments before they will be spaced at a 140-degree separation in their orbital plane.

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Запись видеотрансляции ESA

Launch of Russian Rokot with ESA's Sentinel 3B Satellite

Space Videos

Трансляция началась 3 часа назад

(2:21:50)

[zandr]

https://www.roscosmos.ru/25004/

РОСКОСМОС. КОСМИЧЕСКИЙ АППАРАТ SENTINEL-3B ВЫВЕДЕН НА РАСЧЕТНУЮ ОРБИТУ
Европейский спутник Sentinel-3B («Сентинел-3Б») выведен на расчетную орбиту. 25 апреля 2018 года в 22:17 мск космический аппарат отделился от разгонного блока «Бриз-КМ» на заданной солнечно-синхронной орбите. На реализацию всех этапов пусковой кампании от старта ракеты космического назначения «Рокот» с космодрома ПЛЕСЕЦК до отделения спутника потребовалось 1 час 20 минут.

Спойлер

Космический аппарат Sentinel-3В предназначен для решения задач программы мониторинга окружающей среды Copernicus («Коперник»), известной ранее как «Программа глобального мониторинга в интересах охраны окружающей среды и безопасности» (CMES - Global Monitoring for Environment and Security programme). Программа Copernicus осуществляется под эгидой Еврокомиссии в партнёрстве с ЕSA и Европейским агентством по окружающей среде. Sentinel-3В будет заниматься сбором данных дистанционного мониторинга о состоянии океанов, морских льдов и прибрежных зон.
Sentinel-3В стал третьим из спутников серии Sentinel, запущенных на РКН «Рокот» в рамках контрактов, заключенных ESA c СП Eurockot. Начиная с 2000 года, предприятие Eurockot предоставляет пусковые услуги ракеты-носителя «Рокот» и обеспечивает коммерческие запуски на низкие орбиты малых космических аппаратов. Значительное число этих запусков осуществляется с космическими аппаратами, предназначенными для наблюдения Земли, проведения научных экспериментов и исследований, отработке новых технологий в условиях космического пространства. В рамках контрактов, заключенных между Eurockot и ESА, ракета-носитель «Рокот» успешно вывела на орбиту шесть спутников глобального мониторинга Земли (GOCE, SMOS, SWARM, Sentinel 3A, Sentinel 5P, Sentinel-3b), а также, технологический демонстратор PROBA-2. Состоявшийся запуск стал 14–м для предприятия Eurockot.

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[tnt22]

http://www.eurockot.com/2018/04/rockot-launcher-successfully-injects-sentinel-3b-earth-observation-satellite/

04/25/2018
Rockot Launcher Successfully Injects Sentinel-3B Earth Observation Satellite

Eurockot Launch Services GmbH of Bremen, Germany, successfully injected the Sentinel-3B satellite today at 20:57 hrs local time (17:57 hrs UTC, 19:57 hrs CET) from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Northern Russia for the European Space Agency (ESA) using a Rockot launch vehicle. The satellite was injected at approximately 818 km altitude and 98.63 degrees inclination.

This was Eurockot's third launch in support of the European Copernicus multiple satellite system following the successful launch of Sentinel-3A in February 2016 and Sentinel-5p in October 2017.

Copernicus is the Earth Observation Satellite Programme headed by the European Commission (EC) in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA). Copernicus satellites support the European Union`s European policy of improving the management of the environment globally to help mitigate the effects of climate change and ensure civil security.

Eurockot Launch Services GmbH is the joint venture of ArianeGroup (51%) and Khrunichev Space Center (49%).


Sentinel-3B lifts off (Credits: ESA)

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Sentinel-3B liftoff replay

European Space Agency, ESA

Опубликовано: 25 апр. 2018 г.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=50a0YoQ5ETYhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=50a0YoQ5ETY (1:20)

[tnt22]

http://blogs.esa.int/eolaunches/2018/04/25/and-we-have-liftoff/

Posted on April 25, 2018 by Honora

SENTINEL-3B LAUNCHED FOR COPERNICUS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=50a0YoQ5ETY

The second Sentinel-3 satellite, Copernicus Sentinel-3B, was launched today, joining its identical twin Sentinel-3A in orbit. This pairing of satellites increases coverage and data delivery for the European Union's Copernicus environment programme.

The 1150 kg Sentinel-3B satellite was carried into orbit on a Rockot launcher from Plesetsk, Russia, at 17:57 GMT (19:57 CEST; 21:57 local time) on 25 April.

Rockot's upper stage delivered Sentinel-3B into its planned orbit.

Just 92 minutes after liftoff, Sentinel-3B sent its first signals to the Kiruna station in Sweden. Data links were quickly established by teams at ESA's operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany, allowing them to assume control of the satellite.

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During the three-day launch and the early orbit phase, controllers will check that all the satellite's systems are working and begin calibrating the instruments to commission the satellite. The mission is expected to begin routine operations after five months.

"This is the seventh launch of a Sentinel satellite in the last four years. It is a clear demonstration of what European cooperation can achieve and it is another piece to operating the largest Earth observation programme in the world, together with our partners from the European Commission and Eumetsat," said ESA Director General Jan Wörner.

With this launch, the first set of Sentinel missions for the European Union's Copernicus environmental monitoring network are in orbit, carrying a range of technologies to monitor Earth's land, oceans and atmosphere.

ESA's Director of Earth Observation Programmes, Josef Aschbacher, said, "With Sentinel-3B, Europe has put the first constellation of Sentinel missions into orbit – this is no small job and has required strong support by all involved. It allows us to get a very detailed picture of our planet on a daily basis and provides crucial information for policy makers.

"It also offers lots of opportunities for commercial companies to develop new innovative services. And, the free and open data policy allows every citizen to have updates for their own use.

"When we designed such a satellite constellation 20 years ago not everyone was convinced Europe could do that. I am glad to see this has become reality and that it is now a large European success story."

Copernicus relies on the Sentinels and contributing missions to provide data for monitoring the environment and for supporting civil security activities. Sentinel-3 carries a series of cutting-edge sensors to do just that.

Over oceans, it measures the temperature, colour and height of the sea surface as well as the thickness of sea ice. These measurements are used, for example, to monitor changes in Earth's climate and for more hands-on applications such as marine pollution.

Over land, this innovative mission monitors wildfires, maps the way land is used, checks vegetation health and measures the height of rivers and lakes.

Data from the Copernicus Programme are used worldwide and are free of charge.

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https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/04/25/european-environmental-observer-launched-by-russian-rocket/

European environmental observer launched by Russian rocket
April 25, 2018 | Stephen Clark

A new European satellite carrying instruments to track changes in the world's oceans, measure receding ice sheets and chart vegetation growth climbed into orbit Wednesday on top of a Russian Rockot launcher.

The successful launch added the seventh satellite to the Copernicus Earth-observing fleet, a network of environmental observatories funded by the European Union in partnership with the European Space Agency.

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The Sentinel 3B spacecraft — weighing approximately 2,535 pounds (1,150 kilograms) — lifted off at 1757:51 GMT (1:57:51 p.m. EDT) Wednesday from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in far northern Russia.

The satellite rode a Rockot booster through an overcast sky at the remote forested military base, turning to the north-northwest with hydrazine-fueled engines generating 420,000 pounds of thrust.

Liftoff occurred at 8:57 p.m. local time at Plesetsk, located around 500 miles (800 kilometers) north of Moscow.

The Rockot's lower two stages were taken from Russia's stockpile of decommissioned UR-100N, or SS-19, ballistic missiles. Originally built to carry nuclear warheads, the missile stages were repurposed for satellite launches.

The missile stages completed their back-to-back firings in the first five minutes the mission, and a Breeze KM upper stage — added to the UR-100N booster to convert it into a satellite launcher — ignited for the first of two burns to place Sentinel 3B into orbit.

The Breeze KM upper stage burned for more than nine minutes to reach a preliminary elliptical parking orbit, then reignited at 1912 GMT (3:12 p.m. EDT) for around 30 seconds to circularize its orbit at an altitude of approximately 500 miles, or 800 kilometers.

The Sentinel 3B satellite, built by Thales Alenia Space, deployed from the Breeze KM stage soon after the rocket's second firing, and engineers at the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany, received telemetry from the spacecraft as it soared over a ground station in Kiruna, Sweden, at around 1930 GMT (3:30 p.m. EDT).

The radio signals from Sentinel 3B confirmed the Breeze KM upper stage, which conducted its pre-programmed maneuvers outside of communications coverage, put the new environmental monitoring satellite in the correct orbit.

Controllers said the satellite unfurled its solar array wing to begin producing electricity, one of the first major steps in any satellite's life after launch.

The signal from Sentinel 3B "arrived perfectly on time," said Paolo Ferri, head of the mission operations department at ESA's control center in Germany. "What happens now? The team has to work the whole night to stabilize the spacecraft ... and confirm all the systems are working."

Around three days of intense checkouts and activations are planned for Sentinel 3B through late Friday or early Saturday, then controllers will proceed with commissioning of the satellite's observing instruments.


Artist's concept of the Sentinel 3B satellite in orbit. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab

Sentinel 3B joins an identical observatory named Sentinel 3A which launched in February 2016. It's the seventh satellite in the multibillion-euro Copernicus program managed by the European Commission, the EU's executive body.

Billed as the world's most ambitious program of space-based Earth observation, the Copernicus program is intended to provide data on the planet's oceans, land surfaces and atmosphere with unprecedented rapidity to scientists, policymakers, businesses, security officials and the public.

The data from the Sentinel satellites are distributed worldwide free of charge. European officials consider the Sentinel satellites part of a continuing operational service, developed in series rather than as one-off science missions.

With the launch of Sentinel 3B, the Copernicus program has a full complement of three satellite families. The first two satellites in the Sentinel 1 and Sentinel 2 families, which are focused on disaster response and land surveys, were launched from 2014 through 2017. Another satellite, named Sentinel 5 Precursor, launched last October to measure global air quality.

Post-launch testing and calibration of the Sentinel 5 Precursor satellite ended earlier this week, just in time for control teams to shift their focus to Sentinel 3B, which is kicking off a seven-year mission.

"This is the seventh launch of a Sentinel satellite in the last four years. It is a clear demonstration of what European cooperation can achieve and it is another piece to operating the largest Earth observation programme in the world, together with our partners from the European Commission and Eumetsat."

ESA is in charge of developing and launching the Sentinel satellites on behalf of the EU. For Sentinel 3B, and its predecessor satellite Sentinel 3A, the European weather agency Eumetsat is responsible for mission operations and the distribution of marine data, while ESA will handle the dissemination of land environmental data.

Launched into an orbit over the poles, Sentinel 3B carries an ocean and land color instrument, a sea and land surface temperature radiometer, a dual-frequency synthetic aperture radar altimeter, and a microwave radiometer.

The sensors will look for ocean pollution and track ocean currents, measure the temperature of sea water and ocean waves, and detect changes in ice and vegetation coverage. The Sentinel 3A and 3B satellites can also measure the height of rivers and lakes, and detect wildfires, a capability demonstrated during last year's fire season in California.


This image of the western Mediterranean was taken by Sentinel 3A's Ocean and Land Color Instrument on Oct. 16, 2016. The islands of Corsica and Sardinia can be seen in the west with coast of Tuscany and the island of Elba to the northeast. The waters along the east coast of Corsica and along the Italian coast are colored by discharge from the land following recent heavy rainfall. Credit: ESA/Eumetsat

"We're not just working with the marine environmental service, we're also working with the land, with the atmosphere and with the climate service," said Susanne Mecklenburg, Sentinel 3 mission manager at ESA. "There's a large variety of data that we can actually supply. The marine service is probably the most developed for the moment. It's already using data over the ocean, in particular the ocean color data, which tells us something about the marine ecosystem, about the health of the sea, and also can help predict things like harmful algal blooms."

Once it completes an initial checkout, Sentinel 3B will fly in formation with Sentinel 3A for around four months, loitering at a distance of about 138 miles (223 kilometers) to allow scientists to calibrate measurements from the new satellite and ensure its instruments are performing as expected.

"Sentinel 3B, especially, is very complicated because it has four insturments on-board, and thus is something like the successor of the very famous Envisat satellite," Woerner said. "It has sensors on-board to look to the sea, to ice, but also to fire, so it's really a very complex machine."

Some time in September, Sentinel 3B should be declared operational, once the new satellite moves a farther distance from its twin, allowing both observatories to work in tandem and collect data at the same place on Earth every one-to-two days.

"With Sentinel-3B, Europe has put the first constellation of Sentinel missions into orbit — this is no small job and has required strong support by all involved," said Josef Aschbacher, director of ESA's Earth observation programs. "It allows us to get a very detailed picture of our planet on a daily basis and provides crucial information for policymakers.

"It also offers lots of opportunities for commercial companies to develop new innovative services. And, the free and open data policy allows every citizen to have updates for their own use," Aschbacher said in a statement.

"When we designed such a satellite constellation 20 years ago not everyone was convinced Europe could do that," he said. "I am glad to see this has become reality and that it is now a large European success story."

Sentinel data are shared with and redistributed by numerous government agencies and companies, including NASA, NOAA and the U.S. Geological Survey in the United States, Geoscience Australia, institutions across Europe, and Amazon and Google, according to Aschbacher.

"We learned a lot (from the Sentinel 3A mission)," said Craig Donlon, ESA's Sentinel 3 mission scientist. "We have scientists working in Europe and all over in the international operational laboratories, as well as in the research institutes, using satellite data from Sentinel 3 together with other instruments on other satellites to address a whole variety of different questions.

"For example, in the Great Barrier Reef, the Sentinel 3 sea and land surface radiomenter is providing us with the best sea surface temperatures in the world, and these are helping us to understand coral bleaching."

Two more copies of the Sentinel 3 satellite family are in development for launch in 2023 and 2024 to replace the Sentinel 3A and 3B spacecraft.

The Sentinel 3A and 3B satellites have a combined value of approximately 515 million euros, or about $575 million, according to Bruno Berruti, ESA's Sentinel 3 project manager.

About two-thirds of that cost can be attributed to Sentinel 3A because it was the first satellite in the series, he said.

After accounting for the value of ESA's contract with Eurockot, a German-Russian venture in charge of commercial Rockot launch services, the cost of Sentinel 3B's mission could be estimated at around 200 million euros, or roughly $240 million.

The launch of Sentinel 3B may have been the last commercial Rockot flight under the auspices of Eurockot, a partnership between European-based Ariane Group and Moscow-headquartered Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center.

Several more Rockot missions are planned for Russian government satellites, but Eurockot has no more commercial missions booked, and Russian news reports have suggested the Rockot program will soon end.

Small ESA satellites like the ones that used to regularly launch on Rockot boosters are now expected to fly on European Vega rockets launched from European territory in French Guiana, a region of South America administered by France. Future satellites from Eurockot's other previous customers are also reserved to launch on other rockets.

Rockot boosters fitted with Breeze KM upper stages upgraded for satellite launches have flown 28 times since 2000, a record that includes a 2005 mission that led the destruction of an ESA science satellite, and a 2011 launch that deployed a Russian military payload into the wrong orbit.

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НОРАД зарегистрировал 2 объекта запуска

Код Выделить Развернуть

0 TBA - TO BE ASSIGNED
1 43437U 18039A   18115.90215451 -.00000044  00000-0  00000+0 0  9993
2 43437  98.6232 183.8461 0012034 284.3934 214.8602 14.26457543    12

0 TBA - TO BE ASSIGNED
1 43438U 18039B   18115.90574020  .00002177  00000-0  10000-3 0  9997
2 43438  98.6927 183.8188 0257705 307.0042 229.7514 14.97036135    03
43437 / 2018-039A : 795 x 812 km x 98.623°
43438 / 2018-039B : 397 x 755 km x 98.693°

[oby1]

ZOOR пишет:
Молодцы.

ЕвроКота жалко только. Много и хорошо заказывал.

 Кто знает,  возможно еще коммерция будет,  Рокот судя по некоторой инфе продолжит летать с новой СУ.

[PIN]

Поехал домой после ухода за горизонт на Аляске. Скучно, никаких аномалий. Вообще :-[

[PIN]

А выведение нормальное, отклонения в пределах 1..1.5 сигмы номинальной дисперсии параметров.

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https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/worldwide/space/press-release/sentinel-3b-orbit

SENTINEL-3B IN ORBIT!

25.04.2018

Cannes, April 25, 2018 – The Sentinel-3B satellite, built by Thales Alenia Space for the European Space Agency (ESA), was successfully orbited today by a Rockot launcher from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

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A cornerstone mission in the European Earth observation program Copernicus, Sentinel-3B features a series of state-of-the-art instruments.

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• Two optical instruments: OLCI (Ocean and Land Color Instrument) and SLSTR* (Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer).
  

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• Two RF (radio-frequency) instruments: SRAL (Synthetic-aperture Radar ALtimeter), and MWR (Microwave Radiometer), which will provide measurements to determine the topography of oceans, sea ice and bodies of water on land.
  

Sentinel-3B will systematically cover all of the Earth's land surfaces and oceans, gathering data that will help improve oceanographic and atmospheric forecasts. It will also improve our understanding of the oceans' "health", as well as fishery and water resources, agriculture, forests, biodiversity, public health and food security. At the same time, it will allow us to accurately monitor changes in sea heights and the shrinking polar ice.



Sentinel-3B's orbit at 815 kilometers allows it to scan the entire surface of the Earth, using both radar and optical sensors, while regularly revisiting the same area. Because of this regular scanning of the surface, Sentinel-3B offers a plethora of applications: tracking marine currents and therefore movements in pollution, the movement of plankton and the marine biomass that consumes it, changes in ocean levels, monitoring polar ice, forests, farming zones, etc.
 
A number of satellites in the Copernicus program are already in orbit: Sentinel 1A, launched in 2014, 2A, launched in 2015, 1B and 3A, launched in 2016, 2B and 5P, launched in 2017. They are already transmitting a substantial stream of raw data, used in conjunction with data from other Earth observation satellites. The successful launch of Sentinel-3B means that the three Sentinel missions are now complete, marking a major turning point for Thales Alenia Space.
 
Thales Alenia Space won the original contract from the European Space Agency back in December 2009, with Telespazio directing ground segment operations for the entire Sentinel-3 mission. Users can receive significant environmental data just three hours after the information has been picked up by the satellites.

* The SLSTR (Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer), built by an international consortium led by Leonardo of Italy, delivers very precise measurements of the Earth's surface, with a resolution of 1,000 meters. It includes two channels for the observation of fires.

Copyrights:
Artistic view: © ESA/Pierre Carril
Photo: ©Thales Alenia Space/Imag

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