OrbitalHub

Arianespace dixit:

“Two telecommunications satellites that will provide expanded relay capacity for Australia and Argentina were orbited today on Arianespace’s ninth mission in 2015 – putting the company on track to perform a record 12 flights this year using its three-member launch vehicle family, which consists of the heavy-lift Ariane 5, medium-lift Soyuz and lightweight Vega. Lifting off exactly on time during a daylight departure from the Spaceport in French Guiana, the heavy-lift Ariane 5 utilized for today’s mission deployed its Sky Muster and ARSAT-2 satellite passengers during a 32-minute flight sequence. It marked the 82nd mission overall using Arianespace’s workhorse launcher, as well as the 68th consecutive Ariane 5 success. In post-launch comments, Chairman and CEO Stéphane Israël confirmed that Arianespace was on pace for a record-setting operational performance this year (12 flights from the Spaceport in 12 months), and also highlighted the company’s continued commitment to quality. The Ariane 5 ascends from the Spaceport in French Guiana with a dual-satellite payload of Sky Muster and ARSAT-2.

Further extending Ariane 5’s track record of highly accurate payload delivery, the estimated orbital parameters at injection of its cryogenic upper stage for Flight VA226 were:

– Perigee: 249.2 km. for a target of 249.5 km.

– Apogee: 35,911 km. for a target of 35,927 km.

– Inclination: 5.99 deg. for a target of 6.00 deg.

The first-released passenger on today’s mission was Sky Muster, which is the initial satellite to be operated by nbnâ„¢ – a service provider owned by the Commonwealth of Australia. This company’s objective is to ensure all Australians have access to fast broadband as soon as possible, at affordable prices and at the least cost to taxpayers. Built by Palo Alto-based SSL (Space Systems Loral), Sky Muster is scheduled to operate from geostationary orbit. It is designed to deliver broadband services to more than 200,000 rural and remote Australians, providing coverage to the entire country – including the Norfolk, Christmas, Macquarie and Cocos islands. Launch of nbn’s second spacecraft also has been entrusted to Arianespace. […]

Completing today’s mission was the deployment of ARSAT-2, which is the second of three geostationary satellites that will increase Argentina’s telecommunications capacity and guarantee the same level of connectivity quality across the country’s regions. Arianespace successfully orbited the first of these relay platforms – ARSAT-1 – on an Ariane 5 flight in October 2014. Built under the responsibility Argentina’s INVAP, ARSAT-2 will be operated by the state-owned Argentinian operator ARSAT (Empresa Argentina de Soluciones Satelitales Sociedad Anónima) to provide direct-to-home (DTH) television, Internet access services for reception on VSAT antennas, along with data transmission and IP telephony.”

Video credit: ESA / Arianespace

ESA dixit:

“The AIM spacecraft will be launched in October 2020 on board a Soyuz-Fregat launch vehicle from Kourou. After launch and one or more deep-space manoeuvres, AIM will arrive at Didymos in June 2022, some months before DART’s impact.After arrival, the AIM spacecraft will transition into a heliocentric co-flying orbit, from which it will observe the binary system to derive a high-resolution 3D model of the asteroid, determine its mass and dynamical state, and characterise its surface and shallow sub-surface properties by means of a thermal infrared imager and high-frequency radar. This first characterisation phase would last for a couple of months and be conducted from a distance of between 35 to 10 km from the asteroid. Following this, the AIM spacecraft will release a number of CubeSats and a lander which is based on DLR’s MASCOT lander used for the JAXA Hayabusa-2 mission. The lander will carry out a detailed characterization of the deep-interior structure of the asteroid by means of a low-frequency bistatic radar. Approximately two weeks before DART impact, the AIM spacecraft would be moved to an orbit about 100 km from the asteroid to safely conduct impact observations. After the impact, a second characterisation phase would conclude the mission.

The AIM spacecraft is based on a very simple design with fixed solar arrays and a fixed high-gain antenna. The baseline propulsion system uses a bi-propellant (MMH/MON) fuel with 24 thrusters each capable of producing 10 N of thrust. A separate Helium tank would keep the four 60 l propellant tanks pressurized. Power is generated by two deployable, fixed solar arrays with an output of 165 W each at a distance of 2.2 AU from the Sun, and a total panel surface of 5.6 m². The total spacecraft dry mass would be about 420 kg and the propellant mass about 292 kg.

The target of the AIM mission is asteroid 65803 Didymos (1996 GT), an Apollo-type near-Earth orbit (NEO) with a perihelion that is just below the aphelion radius of Earth orbit. Didymos is a binary body; the primary body has a diameter of around 750 m and a rotation period of 2.3 hours, while the secondary body had a diameter of around 170 m and rotates around the primary at a distance of 1.2 km in 12 hours. Study of the Didymos moon should offer valuable insights into the origins of our Solar System, and help scientists develop planetary defence strategies against any incoming asteroids in the future. Informally called ‘Didymoon’, the asteroid is nearly three times larger than the body thought to have caused the 1908 Tunguska impact in Siberia, the largest impact in recorded history. An equivalent asteroid striking Earth would be well into the ‘city-killer’ class, leaving a crater of at least 2.5 km diameter and causing serious regional and climate damage. The 2013 Chelyabinsk airburst, whose shockwave struck six cities across Russia, is thought to have been caused by an asteroid just 20 m in diameter.”

Video credit: ESA

NASA dixit:

“New imagery from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is revealing details never before seen on Jupiter. High-resolution maps and spinning globes (rendered in the 4k Ultra HD format) are the first products to come from a program to study the solar system’s outer planets each year using Hubble. The observations are designed to capture a broad range of features, including winds, clouds, storms and atmospheric chemistry. These annual studies will help current and future scientists see how such giant worlds change over time.”

Video credit: NASA Goddard

NASA dixit:

“Six hours after its launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the unpiloted ISS Progress 61 cargo craft automatically docked to the International Space Station. After a series of pre-programmed rendezvous burns of its engines, the resupply vehicle linked up to the aft port of the Zvezda Service Module to deliver more than three tons of food, fuel and supplies for the six Expedition 45 crew members on the orbital laboratory. The new Progress will remain attached to Zvezda until early December.”

Video credit: NASA / Roscosmos