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METOP launch Monday -- unusual trajectory



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 14th 06, 10:18 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jim Oberg[_1_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 440
Default METOP launch Monday -- unusual trajectory

Launch is set for Monday -- take a look at
the unusual ascent trajectory, and follow the
plot out a few more thousand miles....



April 7, 2006

MetOp to be shipped to Baikonour 17 April
http://www.eumetsat.int/idcplg?IdcSe...rgetNodeId=114

Following yesterday's decision by EUMETSAT, the first operational
meteorological satellite of the EPS mission, MetOp, has been declared ready
for shipment to the Baikonour Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.


The 4.2 tonne satellite will leave Toulouse airport on 17 April 2006
on-board an Antonov 124 transport plane. This will be the second of a total
of three Antonov 124 flights, foreseen to transport the separate parts of
the satellite - the Service Module, the Payload Module and the Solar Array -
including the electrical and mechanical ground support equipment required
for the launch campaign.

MetOp will be launched by Starsem on 17 July at 22:28 Baikonour time (18:28
CEST) with the latest Soyuz ST/Fregat version. This version will incorporate
new digital avionics and a new, larger fairing of diameter 4.11 m, which
will be flown for the first time with MetOp. The launcher trajectory will be
north-west - heading towards Svalbard and north Greenland.

MetOp flies at an altitude of about 837 km (i.e. approximately 43 times
closer to Earth than a geostationary satellite), observing smaller areas in
considerably finer detail. The Metop series consists of a total of three
satellites, which are designed to provide Meteorological operational data
from polar orbit until 2020. The MetOp satellite will provide global data
that significantly improves forecasts of severe weather and disaster
mitigation and will also contribute to the monitoring of the climate and the
environment.

All MetOp satellites have been developed by a joint EUMETSAT and European
Space Agency (ESA) team, with EADS Astrium as the prime contractor. A total
of 11 instruments are aboard the Metop satellites, which are provided by
EUMETSAT, ESA, the French Space Agency (CNES), and the US National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

==========

Wrong Metop Data with H.A.
From: Gerhard HOLTKAMP )
Date: Fri Jul 14 2006 - 15:48:49 EDT


Heavens-Above allows you already to select Metop (MetOp-A) but be advised
that
you should not yet generate any predictions for it with H.A. as their orbit
elements are about half a revolution out of step with the actually planned
ones (at least at the moment of this posting - 19 UTC, 14-JUL-06). Maybe
they
fix it before Monday's launch; otherwise as soon as Spacetrack posts Metop
elements after the launch the situation will probably remedy itself. (So a
day after launch you should be safe.)

The following is the planned insertion state vector for Metop (which I got
from Metop flight dynamics):

Elements in J2000.
EPOCH: 2006/07/17-17:36:53.560 UTC
X 522.81136
Y -2427.98222
Z -6764.74918
Vx -1.8691329
Vy -6.8111776
Vz 2.30034444

From this I get the following TLEs (which I already posted earlier):

Metop Sep
1 99999U 06099A 06198.73395324 .00000028 00000-0 26562-4 0 1
2 99999 98.7337 257.5914 0024535 156.6977 131.5842 14.21428546 1

I should add that these TLEs are not as perfect as I would like them. They
show deviations up to 30 km from the numeric propagation of the state vector
(Usually when generating TLEs out of state vectors my deviations are only
about 2 or 3 km - I don't know why I got this fairly large deviation here.)
Still this would mean an error of only 4 seconds or so and the above TLEs
should be more than adequate to locate Metop in the hours after launch. (And
keep in mind that the insertion might not be perfect! I think 2 or 3 seconds
either way might not be uncommon.)

Gerhard HOLTKAMP
Darmstadt, Germany



  #2  
Old July 15th 06, 12:42 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Henry Spencer
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,170
Default METOP launch Monday -- unusual trajectory

In article ,
Jim Oberg wrote:
Launch is set for Monday -- take a look at
the unusual ascent trajectory, and follow the
plot out a few more thousand miles....


Unless it's hiding behind some of the stupid Flash nonsense, I didn't see
a trajectory plot... In any case, the description and the orbital
elements are consistent with a launch toward a 95.4-deg inclination -- one
of the standard Baikonur-Soyuz inclinations -- plus a bit of yaw steering
by the Fregat stage to reach 98.7. Not a path Baikonur uses every week,
but not anything especially new and strange.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |
  #3  
Old July 15th 06, 12:22 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jim Oberg[_1_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 440
Default METOP launch Monday -- unusual trajectory

Get a string and a globe and seat-of-your-pants take a gander at
the first rev ground track,
and it IS unusual in terms of WHOM it goes right over the head of.


"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Jim Oberg wrote:
Launch is set for Monday -- take a look at
the unusual ascent trajectory, and follow the
plot out a few more thousand miles....


Unless it's hiding behind some of the stupid Flash nonsense, I didn't see
a trajectory plot... In any case, the description and the orbital
elements are consistent with a launch toward a 95.4-deg inclination -- one
of the standard Baikonur-Soyuz inclinations -- plus a bit of yaw steering
by the Fregat stage to reach 98.7. Not a path Baikonur uses every week,
but not anything especially new and strange.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |



  #4  
Old July 16th 06, 03:21 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Henry Spencer
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,170
Default METOP launch Monday -- unusual trajectory

In article ,
Dr John Stockton wrote:
...the description and the orbital
elements are consistent with a launch toward a 95.4-deg inclination -- one
of the standard Baikonur-Soyuz inclinations -- plus a bit of yaw steering
by the Fregat stage to reach 98.7. Not a path Baikonur uses every week,
but not anything especially new and strange.


"The launcher trajectory will be north-west - heading towards Svalbard
and north Greenland." ...


I suspect that means "north and a bit west". The northern ends of
Svalbard and Greenland are just above 80degN, in about the right places
for a straightforward launch from Baikonur to a 98-99deg orbit to cross
them.

Could the true original information have had not north-west (315 deg)
but north north west (in which Turnpike's spelling checker would like to
"correct" the repeated word) (337.5 deg) or north by west (348.75 deg)...


Either of those is at least roughly plausible.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |
  #5  
Old July 17th 06, 05:44 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jim Oberg[_1_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 440
Default METOP launch Monday -- unusual trajectory


"Jim Oberg" wrote
Launch is set for Monday -- take a look at
the unusual ascent trajectory, and follow the
plot out a few more thousand miles....



Today's planned launch of a European weather satellite,
on a Russian rocket, that would have passed
directly over central United States, has been
cancelled due to a fuelling problem about one hour
before blast-off.

They may be able to try again tomorrow.

The exact path across North America is
southwards over winnipeg, Denver, El Paso then
over Mexico.

I.E., almost direrctly over Cheyenne Mountain, home
of the North American Air Defense HQ.

Fortunately, they are aware the never-before-used
flight path is entirely peaceful. No startling surprises.


  #6  
Old July 18th 06, 03:50 PM posted to sci.space.policy
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1
Default METOP launch Monday -- unusual trajectory


MetOp launch for Tuesday has also been been cancelled.

This gives one more chance on Wednesday 19th at the same time of day.

Tim

Jim Oberg wrote:
"Jim Oberg" wrote
Launch is set for Monday -- take a look at
the unusual ascent trajectory, and follow the
plot out a few more thousand miles....



Today's planned launch of a European weather satellite,
on a Russian rocket, that would have passed
directly over central United States, has been
cancelled due to a fuelling problem about one hour
before blast-off.

They may be able to try again tomorrow.

The exact path across North America is
southwards over winnipeg, Denver, El Paso then
over Mexico.

I.E., almost direrctly over Cheyenne Mountain, home
of the North American Air Defense HQ.

Fortunately, they are aware the never-before-used
flight path is entirely peaceful. No startling surprises.


  #7  
Old July 19th 06, 05:05 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Henry Spencer
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,170
Default METOP launch Monday -- unusual trajectory

In article ,
Jim Oberg wrote:
Fortunately, they are aware the never-before-used
flight path is entirely peaceful...


Baikonur has done sun-synchronous launches before, although possibly not
at this *exact* azimuth.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |
 




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