Oh, yeah... this is the space age.

SpaceflightNow Tracking

[March 9: ATV Jules Verne (topic)]

[March 11: STS-123 Shuttle Endeavour mission (topic)]

[March 13: NROL28 spy satellite (topic)]

Puttin' 'em up faster than we can shoot 'em down!

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good thing there's alot of space up there! (pun partially intended)

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Yup... keep puttin' em up, and we'll keep on supplying avionics for: Deltas, Atlases, and Sea Launch -- even some hardware on the shuttle (but NASA just keeps on recycling what they have). 3 sets of avionic hardware out of 6 launches in 9 days means job security for me and my fellow workers.

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Back in the mid 1980s, the Soviet Union alone was flying something like 60 space launches each year. Part of the reason was their satellites didn't last very long. Add in the US and rest of world launches and it was a pretty interesting time.

I would imagine that this rate will only increase in the very near future with all of the commercial ventures that are going up soon and governments worldwide trying to get an edge in space.

The Fool

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New Frontiers

Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici
-"By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe"

All hail the New Space Age!

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Kai's home computer is broken and her posting may be eratic for a while - ToSeek
"The only way to explore the universe is to go and look." - Brian Cox
Well, the best way to find out is to go there and, find out. - Raven's Cry
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

Coincidentally, Universe Today: When Will Space Traffic Control Be Necessary?

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"Didn't last very long" might be taken as indicating that they were unreliable. However their their Votok derived Zenit film return reconnaissance satellites had were designed to have short operational lives and returned their films after 1-2 weeks. More than 500 were launched between 1961 and 1994.

Jon

SpaceflightNow Tracking

I didn't say they'd all be successful launches...

International Launch Services press release: ILS DECLARES PROTON LAUNCH ANOMALY

Quote:

The Proton Breeze M rocket lifted off at 5:18 a.m. today local time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying the AMC-14 satellite for SES AMERICOM and its customer, EchoStar Corporation. Preliminary flight information indicates that the anomaly occurred during the second burn of the Breeze M upper stage. The satellite failed to reach the planned orbit. The satellite was built by Lockheed Martin.

This went better:

ULA press release: United Launch Alliance Successfully Launches GPS IIR-19 Mission for Air Force

Quote:

United Launch Alliance successfully launched a Delta II expendable launch vehicle today from Space Launch Complex 17-A at 2:09 a.m., EDT carrying the Air Force’s GPS IIR-19(M) satellite. This launch marks the first mission for the Air Force from the cape in 2008.

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"Didn't last very long" might be taken as indicating that they were unreliable.

Actually, in the 1980s and 1990s, many Soviet era satellites just didn't last very long. For example, their early Glonass navigation satellites only operated for about 18 months compared to 5-10 years for a similar GPS satellite. They used to launch a lot of store-dump communications satellites (each launch carried 6 or 8 of these satellites). Most of them didn't last 2 years. The fact is, many of their satellites just weren't very reliable back then. They've improved them quite a bit since then.

It's true that many of their satellites were designed for a short life - often less than a month. Sometimes, it was due to the need to deorbit the film for use in reconnaissance analysis. They were relatively slow to field long-lived digitial photo-reconnaissance satellites with a downlink capability and the ones they fielded only lasted much shorter times than ours.

What they did do very well was design simple and effective satellites that were relatively inexpensive. They kept the designs constant and produced them in large numbers, then launched them on a robust family of launch vehicles. I remember reading a classified report in the late 1980s that mentioned a launch failure. They had the replacement satellite on orbit less than 2 weeks later. By way of comparison, the US would barely have the accident investigation started in that time. It would've taken us months to clear the launcher for operations again and depending on the satellite, it might've taken a year or longer to send up the replacement. In that regard, the old Soviet military space program was much more robust than ours and was more closely aligned with wartime operations.

According to wikpedia the early Glonass satellites were designed to have short operational life times, most exceeded this. More recent satellites in the series have longer design lives.

Jon

When you're talking about a constellation of 24 satellites, a short operational life means you're constantly having to send up replacements. If each satellite only lasts about 18 months, you have to completely replenish the constellation every year and a half. IIRC, they launch Glonass satellites three at a time on Proton boosters. If that's correct, you need 4 boosters and 12 satellites a year to maintain the constellation. That's hardly an efficent way to operate.

Sea Launch :: Current launch:

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Well, it's still the New Space Age. So now, whenever something is old, we have to say "That is so Information Age."

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Kai's home computer is broken and her posting may be eratic for a while - ToSeek
"The only way to explore the universe is to go and look." - Brian Cox
Well, the best way to find out is to go there and, find out. - Raven's Cry
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

Haven't there been previous Breeze-M upper stage failures?

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Sea Launch :: Current launch:

Webcast

Webcam

Launch window:
Wednesday March 19, 1548 PDT
Wednesday March 19, 1848 EDT
Wednesday March 19, 2248 UTC

20 minutes to launch window

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Sea Launch Webcast

Go for launch

Dedicated to Arthur C Clarke

Launch window:
Wednesday March 19, 1548 PDT
Wednesday March 19, 1848 EDT
Wednesday March 19, 2248 UTC

1 minute to launch

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Liftoff

L= 0:00:00 Liftoff
L+ 0:02:29 Stage 1 Separation
L+ 0:03:52 Payload Fairing Jettison
L+ 0:08:31 Stage 2 Separation
L+ 0:08:41 Block DM 1st Burn Ignition
L+ 0:13:10 Block DM 1st Burn Shutdown
L+ 0:43:10 Block DM 2nd Burn Ignition
L+ 0:50:15 Block DM 2nd Burn Shutdown
L+ 1:00:55 Spacecraft Separation
L+ 6:00:00 Spacecraft Acquisition (estimated)

flight nominal

Edit: stage 1 sep, second stage ignition, nominal
Edit: continued nominal; now 1st Block DM ignition, nominal
Edit: 1st Block DM shutdown
Edit: 2nd Block DM ignition; nominal
Edit: 2nd Block DM shutdown; spacecraft separation; nominal

Turn on the DirecTV and see if it works! Oh, that's right... It's got to spread its wings first...

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All's well that ends well.

Sea Launch :: Current launch:

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As long as we don't have to shoot anymore down with missiles... hahahah what a waste.

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http://www.ryanmercer.com