AFSPC-11, EAGLE (ESPA Augmented Geostationary Laboratory Experiment): HTI-SpX, MYCROFT, CEASE-III-RR, ISAL, ARMOR - Atlas V 551 (AV-079) - CCAFS SLC-41 - 22:00 14.04.2018 - 02:41 15.04.2018 (UTC)

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Запись трансляции пуска

Launch of Atlas V 551 Rocket with AFSPC-11

Space Videos

(32:05)

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Jared-Base | AFSPC-11‏ @baserunner0723 3 мин.3 минуты назад

#AFSPC11 @murphypak @BeckePhysics @NASASpaceflight @ChrisG_NSF @Cosmic_Carol @Astro_Zach @WeAreGoFL @NightCapApp @ExploreSpaceKSC @murphypak @WaywardPlane @ulalaunch @torybruno

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Запись трансляции пуска (ULA)

Atlas V AFSPC-11 Live Launch Broadcast (April 14)

United Launch Alliance

Трансляция началась 47 минут назад

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William Churchill‏ @kudrios 18 мин. назад

Short loop of #AtlasV rocket launch from #GOES16 visible imagery showing exhaust cloud @ulalaunch

(video 0:02)

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Spaceflight101 LIVE‏ @S101_Live 7 мин. назад

Centaur should be shutting down at this point after a 5-minute 49-second burn to enter a GTO-type orbit with an apogee over 35,000 Kilometers in altitude. The critical circularization & plane change maneuver to achieve a Geostationary Drift Orbit is planned at 4:47 UTC. #AtlasV

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http://spaceflight101.com/afspc-11/atlas-v-launches-afspc-11-mission/

Muscly Atlas V Rumbles off fr om Florida on Direct Geostationary Delivery with CBAS & EAGLE
 April 14, 2018

Photo: ULA Webcast

The most powerful version of ULA's Atlas V rocket – sporting five Solid Rocket Boosters for maximum thrust off the pad – soared into sunset on Saturday after blasting off fr om Florida's Cape Canaveral with a pair of U.S. Air Force Satellites. Riding under the five-meter fairing of the climbing rocket was a very different pair comprising a secretive military communications satellite going by the name of CBAS and an experimental platform called EAGLE, setting out to demonstrate cutting-edge technology for the collection of space surveillance data.

Atlas V leapt off its Cape Canaveral Air Force Station launch pad at 23:13 UTC on Saturday, 7:13 p.m. local time. Flying in its 551 configuration for the eighth time, Atlas V departed the Space Coast in a hurry – accelerating beyond the speed of sound in just 35 seconds, shedding the five boosters before the T+2 minute mark and dropping its Swiss-made payload fairing into the Atlantic at the three-and-a-half minute mark. Another minute later, the job of the RD-180-powered first stage was done and the Centaur upper stage assumed control for an all-night ascent mission.

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Photo: ULA Webcast

CBAS and EAGLE are booked for a direct flight to Geostationary Drift Orbit – creating a complex mission with a duration of nearly seven hours and requiring three main engine burns by the trusted Centaur upper stage, conducting its 248th mission on Saturday.

Centaur's first two burns were to lift the vehicle into a Parking Orbit and then into an elliptical transfer orbit before the upper stage settled down for a five-hour coast phase to the peak of the egg-shaped orbit. The critical circularization burn is planned at 4:47 UTC on Sunday and the two payloads will be on their way by 6:10 UTC, though the exact timing of their release is withheld fr om the public due to the semi-secret nature of the mission.

Saturday's mission was only known by its Air Force Space Command number – AFSPC-11 – when showing up on launch manifests and the identity its payloads was kept under wraps until shortly before launch, though the use of an Atlas V 551 rocket piqued the interest of outside observers as one of the most powerful U.S. launch vehicles currently in operation.

Enlisting the help of five SRBs, Atlas V 551 is usually called up when heavy lifting or high-energy deliveries are required. Its previous assignments were sending the New Horizons and Juno probes off to explore Pluto and Jupiter and to lift the U.S. Navy's MUOS fleet which rank among the heaviest communications satellites currently in operation.


Photo: United Launch Alliance

The task of AV-079 – the 77th Atlas V – was a direct-to-GEO delivery of two sizeable payloads – CBAS, the Continuous Broadcast Augmenting SATCOM,riding in the top position and EAGLE, the ESPA Augmented Geostationary Laboratory Experiment, installed between CBAS and the Centaur upper stage. The presence of EAGLE on the AFSPC-11 mission had been rumored for some time but the identity of CBAS as top passenger was only revealed on April 6 with just over a week to liftoff.

In the announcement of CBAS as one of this mission's payloads, the U.S. Air Force said the satellite is designed for communications relay capabilities to support senior leaders and combatant commanders in an augmenting function to existing military satellite communications (milsatcom) capabilities. The satellite will offer a combination of functions: serving as a relay point for military communications and delivering continuous military data broadcasting.


Depiction of CBAS in ULA's Mission Booklet for AFSPC 11 – Credit: United Launch Alliance

Specifics like who built the satellite and in which frequency bands it operates were not disclosed in the run-up to Saturday's launch. CBAS likely weighs between 1,960 and 3,100 Kilograms based on the known direct-to-GEO performance of the Atlas V 551 and the mass range for EAGLE.

The U.S. Air Force Military Satellite Communications Directorate currently operates two major communications architectures in Geostationary Orbit. The Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) System, currently operating nine satellites, serves as the backbone of military communications by delivering open and encrypted X- and Ka-Band links for a wide variety of applications from remote-controlling of UAVs to voice communications with individual soldiers. AEHF, the Advanced Extremely High Frequency Satellites, provide secure and high-capacity communications to remote and handheld terminals to serve warfighters during all levels of conflict.

Wh ere CBAS will fit into the picture remains to be seen and will likely hinge on the skills of amateur satellite trackers as mission details like operational location in Geostationary Orbit are unlikely to be made public by the Air Force.


Image: Orbital ATK

Somewhat more is known about EAGLE, riding into orbit affixed between Centaur and CBAS as the first flight of Orbital ATK's ESPAStar platform. Taking an ESPA payload adapter as a basis, Orbital ATK added provisions for power generation, propulsion, attitude control and data handling which can be shared by the payloads installed around the ESPA ring. These can either be separable satellites taking advantage of the craft's precise injection capabilities or these can also be hosted payloads sharing the ESPAStar platform for maneuvering, pointing and data downlink for the duration of their mission.

EAGLE – to best public knowledge – carries at least one separable satellite, designated Mycroft, and four attached payloads primarily geared toward the exploration of Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and threat-detection technology. SSA has been a particular focus area in recent years as a number of countries have been actively pursuing missions capable of gathering information on the satellites of others, some with the potential of manipulating another nation's space assets.


AFSPC 11 Mission Insignia – Credit: U.S. Air Force

One particular technology demonstration on EAGLE that may build the foundation for future SSA missions is an Inverse Synthetic Aperture Ladar – combining synthetic aperture technology from radar missions with laser-based imaging from LIDAR sensors to obtain an ability of collecting highly resolved images of a resident space object beyond the optical capabilities of a conventional telescope. EAGLE also hosts a Hypertemporal Imaging Space Experiment that aims to demonstrate the use of blending imagery of a target obtained in various wavelength bands over regular time intervals to extract a maximum of information on the properties of that target – useful for intelligence-gathering of Earth- and space-based targets.

Two other attached payloads riding on EAGLE will demonstrate a small package measuring space weather parameters to assist in fault attribution and recovery while an Air Force Research Lab satellite platform demonstration will test out systems for a future resilient satellite.

Mycroft, weighing in at no more than 130 Kilograms, is understood to be a follow-on mission to the ANGELS demonstration that ran from 2014 to 2017 and used a small maneuverable satellite to test out uncooperative rendezvous systems, navigation algorithms and 'inspection' sensors to aid SSA efforts. According to the Air Force, Mycroft will separate from EAGLE at some undisclosed time in the mission, retreat to a distance of 35 Kilometers and then re-rendezvous with its parent spacecraft to test out different rendezvous sensors and processing systems as well as an imaging platform for collecting data on other satellites in orbit.


Photo: United Launch Alliance

The launch of CBAS and EAGLE required a special breed of rocket, capable of threading a fine line between brute force and precision as a direct-to-GEO injection is among the most complex missions for a launch vehicle – requiring a powerful rocket possessing the performance for injecting a sizeable satellite into an equatorial orbit nearly 36,000 Kilometers in altitude but also counting on the upper stage to remain functional after five hours of battling extreme temperatures and radiation.

Direct-to-GEO missions are a rare occurrence as satellites bound for GEO are typically delivered into an elliptical transfer orbit from wh ere they must circularize their orbits over the equator under their own engine power to reach a point wh ere their velocity is interlocked with that of Earth and keeps them centered over the same location at all times.

Of ULA's 126 missions performed before Saturday, only around a dozen or so were direct injections into GEO – most of them were for secret government business involving heavily classified satellites operated by the National Reconnaissance Office. In fact, Saturday's mission was the first not-fully-classified direct GEO injection performed by Atlas V.

>> Atlas V 551 Specifications & Tech Overview

A smooth seven-hour countdown set the stage for Saturday's liftoff with the sun low in the west at launch time, not a cloud in the sky and Atlas V standing over 60 meters tall atop its Atlantic-side launch pad, weighing in at over 570 metric tons – broken down in 205 t of explosive solid propellant, 305 t of volatile liquid rocket fuels, 58 t of rocket dry mass and only 3.5 t for the two payloads.


Photo: ULA Webcast

Atlas V came to life at T-2.7 seconds when the Russian-built RD-180 engine started breathing fire and soared to a launch thrust of 390 metric-ton-force. Upon ignition of the five AJ60 Solid Rocket Boosters, Atlas V jumped off its launch pad with a total thrust of 12,200 Kilonewtons, nearly 1,250 metric-ton-force pushing the vehicle up toward clear afternoon skies over Florida's Space Coast.

The rocket balanced vertically through the help of thrust vector control within the two-chamber main engine and the boosters, starting the process of pitching and rolling onto its due-easterly departure path within four seconds of liftoff. Aligned with an 89.9-degree azimuth, Atlas V crossed the speed of sound at T+35 seconds and the RD-180 throttled back as the vehicle encountered maximum dynamic pressure eleven seconds later.


Photo: ULA Webcast


Photo: ULA Webcast

The five boosters, having helped accelerate Atlas V to more than four times the speed of sound, burned out at the T+94 second mark after each consumed 41 metric tons of propellant. Atlas V held them for another 13 seconds after burnout to ensure separation occurred in favorable aerodynamic conditions, dropping the 17-meter long SRBs toward a safe splashdown in the ocean. With the boosters gone, Atlas V continued flying east-south-east under the power of its RD-180 main engine, guzzling down 1,150 Kilograms of rocket-grade Kerosene and Liquid Oxygen every second.

RD-180 was throttled back again for the separation of the 20.7-meter long payload fairing halves three minutes and 31 seconds into the mission when Atlas V had escaped the discernible atmosphere. The Forward Load Reactor around Centaur also dropped away as Atlas V shed no-longer-needed weight before throttling up again to a peak vacuum thrust of 422 metric ton-force.

A gradual reduction of thrust began as the mission passed T+4 minutes and Atlas V had lost the majority of its launch mass, requiring the RD-180 to step off the gas in order to maintain a maximum acceleration of 4.6Gs. BECO – Booster Engine Cutoff was confirmed at T+4 minutes and 34 seconds.

The 32.5-meter long Common Core Booster was discarded by means of pyrotechnic separation devices and retrorockets that pushed it clear of the Centaur upper stage and its RL-10C engine. Ten seconds after staging, Centaur fired up its Hydrogen-fueled engine to push the stack into orbit with a thrust of 10,400 Kilogram-force. The mission entered a deliberate news blackout at this point, though the planned events of the night's mission were provided beforehand:


Photo: ULA Webcast

Centaur's initial burn was planned to last six minutes and one second to place the stack in a Low Earth Parking Orbit for just 12 minutes of coasting – designed to allow Centaur to traverse the Atlantic and conduct its second burn centering the equator so that the high point of the resulting elliptical orbit would the positioned over the equator on the opposite side of the planet. The RL-10 was to re-start at T+22 minutes and 57 seconds on a five-minute and 49-second burn tasked with raising the orbit's apogee to over 35,000 Kilometers and shaving a few degrees off its inclination.

Upon completion of the second burn, Centaur was to settle in for a five-hour coast phase – a quiescent mission phase that appears to be uneventful from an outside perspective but represents the major challenge of a direct-to-GEO mission. Over the course of the lengthy coast, Centaur uses tapoff gas from its tanks to keep the cryogenic propellants settled inside the tanks while the Hydrazine reaction control engines fire to manage the vehicle's body rates and rotate it to even out solar exposure. Added provisions for Centaur's lengthy climb included extra batteries and Helium pressurization to keep its brains fed with power and the tanks at the proper pressures.

>> Launch Profile

The third burn of the mission is planned at T+5 hours and 34 minutes – expected to last two minutes & 36 seconds and tasked with raising the orbit's perigee and flatten out the orbital inclination to achieve a perfectly circular orbit above Earth's equator, drifting relative to the Geostationary Belt.


AFSPC-11 Mission Ground Track – Image: United Launch Alliance

The two satellites are expected to separate from the Centaur upper stage before T+6 hours and 57 minutes – the exact timing is not being disclosed to the public due to the semi-classified nature of the AFSPC-11 mission, though separation some 35,300 Kilometers above Borneo would not be visible with conventional means anyway. Mission success will be confirmed by ULA or the U.S. Air Force before CBAS and EAGLE head into obscurity to carry out their missions out of public view.

Saturday's mission marked the third Atlas V launch of 2018. The next mission of the workhorse launcher is set for May 5 from Vandenberg, California withNASA's InSight lander headed to Mars for a comprehensive study of the planet's interior. The next east coast Atlas V is not planned until late August when Boeing's Starliner crew spacecraft is scheduled to conduct its first test flight – a date that can be considered tentative at best.

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Julia‏ @julia_bergeron 2 ч. назад

I spy five boosters and an Atlas making a delivery run. It's amazing what you can capture watching a launch 13.5 miles away from your back yard. Thank you for the evening entertainment @ulalaunch

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Julia‏ @julia_bergeron 2 ч. назад

The point of view from home makes it seem like the VAB and LC-41 are neighbors. Mighty Atlas cleared the pad in quite a hurry tonight.

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https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/04/14/photos-atlas-5-rocket-blasts-off-for-u-s-air-force/

Photos: Atlas 5 rocket blasts off for U.S. Air Force
April 14, 2018 | Stephen Clark

An Atlas 5 rocket rumbled into space Saturday evening after lifting off from Cape Canaveral with multiple U.S. Air Force communications and tech demo satellites, and brilliant clear skies made for ideal viewing conditions shortly before sunset.

Спойлер

Powering off the launch pad with 2.6 million pounds of thrust, the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off at 7:13 p.m. EDT (2313 GMT) with the U.S. Air Force's Continuous Broadcast Augmenting SATCOM satellite and an experimental payload-carrier named EAGLE.

The Atlas 5 rocket aimed to place its satellite passengers into a circular orbit more than 24,000 miles (about 39,000 kilometers) above the equator, a trip that was expected to take around six hours.

These photos captured from multiple viewing points around Cape Canaveral show the 197-foot-tall (60-meter) Atlas 5 taking off in its most powerful configuration, with five solid rocket boosters adding to the thrust of the launcher's RD-180 main engine.


Credit: Alex Polimeni/Spaceflight Now


Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now


Credit: Walter Scriptunas II/Spaceflight Now


Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now


Credit: Alex Polimeni/Spaceflight Now


Credit: Walter Scriptunas II/Spaceflight Now


Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now


Credit: Alex Polimeni/Spaceflight Now


Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now


Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now


Credit: Alex Polimeni/Spaceflight Now


Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now


Credit: Walter Scriptunas II/Spaceflight Now

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Jonathan McDowell‏Подлинная учетная запись @planet4589 7 мин. назад

AV-079 should now have made its third Centaur burn and be in the target orbit 3000 km above GEO. We don't know when spacecraft separation is planned for, but probably quite soon.

[zandr]

http://tass.ru/kosmos/5127943

В США запустили ракету-носитель Atlas V с двумя военными аппаратами
НЬЮ-ЙОРК, 15 апреля. /ТАСС/. Американская компания United Launch Alliance в субботу осуществила с космодрома на мысе Канаверал (штат Флорида) запуск тяжелой ракеты-носителя Atlas V с двумя аппаратами военного назначения. Трансляция запуска ведется на сайте компании.
Старт был дан в 19:13 по времени Восточного побережья США (в 02:13 мск в воскресенье).
С 2002 года это 77-й пуск Atlas V. "Через одну минуту и 40 секунд после пуска полет проходит нормально", - сообщили в компании.
CBAS предназначен для наращивания возможностей существующей группировки американских военных спутников связи. Как пояснила ULA, данный аппарат сконструирован для последовательной передачи данных через ретрансляционную линию связи таких спутников.
EAGLE, по словам компании, представляет собой экспериментальную платформу, предназначенную для демонстрации маневренности космического аппарата, способного выводить до шести различных грузов на геостационарную орбиту. Данный аппарат оснащен технологическими наработками, призванными находить аномальные явления в космосе и составлять характеристику потенциальных столкновений с малыми космическими телами.
ULA была основана в 2006 году. Она является совместным предприятием авиационных гигантов Boeing и Lockheed Martin.

Какая интересная фраза (выделена).

Из

tnt22 пишет:
 http://spaceflight101.com/afspc-11/atlas-v-launches-afspc-11-mission/

Muscly Atlas V Rumbles off fr om Florida on Direct Geostationary Delivery with CBAS & EAGLE

Гуглпоревод

обратный синтетический апертурный ладонь, сочетающий синтетическую апертурную технологию от радиолокационных миссий с лазерной визуализацией датчиков LIDAR для получения возможности собирать высокоразрешенные изображения резидентного пространства объект за пределами оптических возможностей обычного телескопа. EAGLE также представляет собой экспериментальный эксперимент по гиперпространству, который направлен на демонстрацию использования смешанных изображений цели, полученной в различных диапазонах длин волн, через регулярные интервалы времени для получения максимальной информации о свойствах этой цели, полезной для сбора разведывательных данных, и космических целей.

ясности не добавляет.

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AF SMC‏ @AF_SMC 2 мин. назад

Congratulations to the #AFSPC11 integrated team and all mission partners on a successful launch!

Спойлер

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[tnt22]

04/15/2018 09:22 Mission success confirmed Stephen Clark

United Launch Alliance has confirmed a successful conclusion to tonight's mission in a post-flight press release.

The Atlas 5 rocket's Centaur upper stage apparently delivered the U.S. Air Force's Continuous Broadcast Augmenting SATCOM (CBAS) and EAGLE experimental payload carrier to an orbit slightly above the geostationary belt some 24,200 miles (39,000 kilometers) over the equator.

Спойлер

The flight marked the 77th successful Atlas 5 mission since the rocket's debut in August 2002.

"Today's launch is a testament to why the ULA team continually serves as our nation's most reliable and successful launch provider for our nation's most critical space assets," said Gary Wentz, ULA vice president of government and commercial programs. "I want to thank the entire ULA team, and the phenomenal teamwork of our mission partners."

The Centaur upper stage conducted three firings on tonight's mission for the direct injection into a near-geostationary orbit. ULA ended its live broadcast of the mission moments after the Centaur ignited on its first burn, at the request of the U.S. Air Force.

The next Atlas 5 mission is set for May 5 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, with NASA's InSight lander heading for Mars.

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[tnt22]

https://www.ulalaunch.com/missions/missions-details/2018/04/15/united-launch-alliance-successfully-launches-afspc-11-mission-for-the-u.s.-air-force

United Launch Alliance Successfully Launches AFSPC-11 Mission for the U.S. Air Force
Atlas V AFSPC-11 Mission Overview

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., (April 15, 2018 ) – A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket carrying the Air Force Space Command (AFSPC)-11 mission lifted off from Space Launch Complex-41 on April 14 at 7:13 p.m. EDT. AFSPC-11 is a multi-payload mission. The forward payload is referred to as CBAS (Continuous Broadcast Augmenting SATCOM) and the aft spacecraft is EAGLE (EELV Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA) Augmented Geosynchronous Experiment).

Спойлер

"Today's launch is a testament to why the ULA team continually serves as our nation's most reliable and successful launch provider for our nation's most critical space assets," said Gary Wentz, ULA vice president of Government and Commercial Programs. "I want to thank the entire ULA team, and the phenomenal teamwork of our mission partners."

This mission was launched aboard an Atlas V Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) 551 configuration vehicle, which includes a 5-meter large Payload Fairing (PLF). The Atlas booster for this mission was powered by the RD AMROSS RD-180 engine. Aerojet Rocketdyne provided the five AJ-60A solid rocket boosters (SRBs) and RL10C-1 engine for the Centaur upper stage.

This is the 77th launch of the Atlas V rocket, ULA's 4th launch in 2018 and the 127th successful launch since the company was formed in December 2006.
ULA's next launch is the InSight mission for NASA on an Atlas V rocket. The launch is scheduled for May 5 at Space Launch Complex-3 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

With more than a century of combined heritage, United Launch Alliance is the Nation's most experienced and reliable launch service provider. ULA has successfully delivered more than 125 satellites to orbit that aid meteorologists in tracking severe weather, unlock the mysteries of our solar system, provide critical capabilities for troops in the field and enable personal device-based GPS navigation.

For more information on ULA, visit the ULA website at www.ulalaunch.com, or call the ULA Launch Hotline at 1-877-ULA-4321 (852-4321). Join the conversation at www.facebook.com/ulalaunch, twitter.com/ulalaunch and instagram.com/ulalaunch.

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[Старый]

zandr пишет:
Гуглпоревод
ясности не добавляет.

Лазерный локатор с синтезированием аппертуры с целью повысить разрешение выше возможностей оптических телескопов.

[tnt22]

Tory Bruno‏Подлинная учетная запись @torybruno 3 ч. назад

127

[tnt22]

Atlas V AFSPC-11 Launch Highlights

United Launch Alliance

Опубликовано: 15 апр. 2018 г.

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket carrying the AFSPC-11 mission for the U.S. Air Force lifts off from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on April 14, 2018. AFSPC-11 is a multi-manifested mission. The forward spacecraft is referred to as CBAS (Continuous Broadcast Augmenting SATCOM) and the aft spacecraft is EAGLE (ESPA Augmented GEO Laboratory Experiment).

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[tnt22]

http://spaceflight101.com/photos-strongest-atlas-v-rocket-races-into-clear-afternoon-skies-on-u-s-air-force-mission/

Photos: Strongest Atlas V Rocket Races into Clear Afternoon Skies on U.S. Air Force Mission
 April 14, 2018 

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V 551 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 41, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 23:13:00 UTC on April 14, 2018 with the Air Force Space Command 11 mission comprising the CBAS military communications satellite and EAGLE experimental platform. Utilizing the most powerful Atlas V version currently available, the mission was set for a complex three-burn, seven-hour flight profile to dispatch the two payloads directly into a Geostationary Drift Orbit.

Спойлер

>> Read our Launch Recap

All Photos: United Launch Alliance

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[Старый]

tnt22 пишет: 
 

Однако башня и платформа ржавые весьма.

[tnt22]

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/04/15/multi-satellite-stack-hoisted-into-high-altitude-orbit-by-atlas-5-rocket/

Multi-satellite payload hoisted into high-altitude orbit by Atlas 5 rocket
April 15, 2018 | Stephen Clark


A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifts off at 7:13 p.m. EDT (2313 GMT) Saturday. Credit: United Launch Alliance

A package of communications and tech demo satellites for the U.S. Air Force rode a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket into an orbit more than 20,000 miles over the equator after liftoff from Cape Canaveral Saturday evening.

The dual-payload mission required the most capable version of ULA's Atlas 5 rocket, a hot-rod launcher with five solid-fueled strap-on motors to add an extra boost during the fiery liftoff at 7:13 p.m. EDT (2313 GMT) from Cape Canaveral's Complex 41 launch pad.

Спойлер

Riding 2.6 million pounds of thrust, the Atlas 5 surpassed the speed of sound in less than 30 seconds as it arced toward the east over the Atlantic Ocean, leaving an exhaust plume in its wake contorted by a column of upper level winds. The five solid rocket boosters, built by Aerojet Rocketdyne, dropped away just shy of the mission's two-minute point, and the Atlas 5's Russian-made RD-180 main engine continued chugging a mix of kerosene and liquid oxygen for four-and-a-half minutes.

The Atlas 5's bronze first stage dropped away, leaving the Centaur upper stage's RL10C-1 engine to ignite for the first of three maneuvers to initially reach a parking orbit, then raise its altitude to deploy the mission's two main payloads high above the equator.

The rocket was programmed to deploy the Air Force's Continuous Broadcast Augmenting SATCOM, or CBAS, satellite first. The CBAS satellite — pronounced "sea bass" — is a military communications relay station designed to keep commanders in contact with senior government leaders, according to the Air Force.

CBAS rode in the forward, or upper, position inside the Atlas 5 rocket's payload shroud. Another satellite, an experimental multi-payload carrier known by the acronym EAGLE, was fastened below the CBAS spacecraft during launch, and was expected to separate from the Centaur upper stage second.

The Atlas 5's guidance computer aimed for a circular orbit roughly 24,200 miles (39,000 kilometers) over the equator, slightly above the geostationary orbit region populated by numerous telecom, reconnaissance and early warning satellite. The rocket reached its intended orbit after commanding the Centaur stage's RL10 engine on a six-hour flight to the mission's target altitude, with the final upper stage burn nulling out the payload's orbital inclination to 0 degrees.

The long-duration mission, the first such direct Atlas 5 flight to a near-geostationary orbit disclosed by ULA, kept officials awake into early Sunday, Florida time, to confirm a successful conclusion to the launch.

ULA declared success shortly after 2 a.m. EDT (0600 GMT) Sunday in a press release, wrapping up the 77th flight of an Atlas 5 rocket since its debut in August 2002.

"Today's launch is a testament to why the ULA team continually serves as our nation's most reliable and successful launch provider for our nation's most critical space assets," said Gary Wentz, ULA vice president of government and commercial programs. "I want to thank the entire ULA team, and the phenomenal teamwork of our mission partners."


The Atlas 5's RD-180 main engine and five solid rocket boosters propel the rocket off the launch pad Saturday. Credit: United Launch Alliance

Saturday's launch for the Air Force was codenamed AFSPC 11, and many details about the payloads aboard the rocket remained secret until the final days before liftoff.

The Air Force kept the identity of the main payload on the launch secret until April 6, when officials revealed the CBAS satellite's communications relay function.

"CBAS is a military satellite communications spacecraft destined for geosynchronous orbit to provide communications relay capabilities to support senior leaders and combatant commanders," the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center said in a statement. "CBAS will augment existing military satellite communications capabilities and broadcast military data continuously through space-based, satellite communications relay links."

An Air Force spokesperson declined to identify the contractor that built the CBAS satellite, and the military released no further details on the mission.

The lower passenger is the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA) Augmented Geosynchronous Laboratory Experiment satellite. The Air Force calls the nested acronym EAGLE for short.

Orbital ATK developed the EAGLE spacecraft by modifying a ring-like structure often used to connect small satellites to their launchers, adding solar panels, computers, rocket thrusters and instrumentation to the adapter. The Air Force says EAGLE will a pathfinder for future missions, demonstrating a maneuverable satellite design that could help the military launch new capabilities at less cost.

Managed by the Air Force Research Laboratory's space vehicles directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, the EAGLE mission "hosts experiments designed to detect, identify, and attribute threatening behavior as well as enhance space situational awareness," the Air Force said in a statement.

One of the experiments is a separating daughter satellite named Mycroft, apparently named for the older brother of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. In one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short stories, Sherlock Holmes says Mycroft possesses observational and deductive abilities greater than his own.

The Air Force describes Mycroft as a "fourth-generation space situational awareness experiment." The service said the satellite will test technology that could be used by future missions to survey, catalog and inspect objects in geostationary orbit.


File photo of an ESPASat-class satellite similar to Mycroft. Credit: U.S. Air Force/Orbital ATK

The Mycroft satellite, also built by Orbital ATK, "will explore ways to enhance space object characterization and navigation capabilities, it will investigate control mechansms used for flight safety, and it will explore the designs and data processing methods for enhancing space situational awareness," the Air Force wrote in a fact sheet on the mission.

Mycroft is a follow-up to the Air Force's ANGELS satellite, which launched into an orbit just above the geostationary belt in 2014 and ended its mission in November. ANGELS inspected the upper stage of its Delta 4 rocket soon after launch, then tested in-orbit surveillance, navigation and rendezvous operations for the rest of its mission.

According to the Air Force fact sheet, Mycroft will fly to a distance of around 21 miles (35 kilometers) from EAGLE, then re-approach the mother satellite to a range of about a kilometer, or 3,300 feet.

Mycroft will evaluate the region around the EAGLE satellite with an on-board camera, the Air Force said, and use its sensors and software to perform advanced guidance, navigation and control functions.

"The space domain is crucial today and will only increase in value moving into the future," said Maj. Gen. William Cooley, commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory. "If the Air Force is to truly embrace space superiority then improving our ability to protect and defend vital space interests is of paramount importance."

The Air Force said engineers have completed "rigorous research and development" to ensure Mycroft can safely fly through the congested geostationary orbit region.

Mycroft weighs a few hundred pounds, and its main body is no bigger than a mini-refrigerator, with a deployable solar panel out the side.

The Air Force owns four operational satellite sleuths in Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program. The GSSAP satellites flying around the same region as Mycroft and ANGELS more than 22,000 miles over the equator, feeding data on numerous foreign and commercial spacecraft movements positions to military officials.

The EAGLE satellite is scheduled to operate at least one year, and the Mycroft mission is expected to last 12 to 18 months, the Air Force said.

"Other experiments hosted on the EAGLE will detect, identify and analyze system threats such as man-made disturbances, space weather events or collisions with small meteorites," the Air Force wrote in a fact sheet released Friday. "Together, EAGLE and Mycroft help train operators and development of tactics, techniques and procedures during exercises or experiments to improve space warfighting."

The Air Force will also use the EAGLE mission as a training tool for engineers and satellite controllers.

Another experiment on EAGLE will evaluate the performance of a "hypertemporal" imager that combines data in infrared, ultraviolet and visible light, a capability the Air Force says will allow analysts to extract more information from image scenes.

Two more separable payloads are also abroad the EAGLE satellite, according to information provided during ULA's launch webcast. No details about their missions were released.

The next Atlas 5 mission is set for May 5 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, with NASA's InSight lander heading for Mars.

Another launch from Cape Canaveral is scheduled for Monday evening, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will loft NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey satellite, an orbiting observatory that will search for planets around other stars.

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