New Navy communications satellite in trouble
A Navy communications satellite launched two weeks ago by a ULA Atlas 5 rocket is having trouble reaching its planned geosynchronous orbit.
From that highly elliptical preliminary orbit, the Lockheed Martin-built satellite would perform 7 firings of its Liquid Apogee Engine to raise the low point to circularize the orbit and reduce its orbital tilt closer to the equator.
But after an unspecified number of burns were completed, the trip to geosynchronous orbit was stopped, the Navy said in response to questions submitted by Spaceflight Now. “The satellite experienced an anomaly that required the transfer maneuver to be temporarily halted,” the Navy says. “The Navy’s Program Executive Office for Space Systems has reconfigured the satellite from orbital transfer into a stabilized, safe intermediate orbit to allow the MUOS team to evaluate the situation and determine options for proceeding.”
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A Navy communications satellite launched two weeks ago by a ULA Atlas 5 rocket is having trouble reaching its planned geosynchronous orbit.
From that highly elliptical preliminary orbit, the Lockheed Martin-built satellite would perform 7 firings of its Liquid Apogee Engine to raise the low point to circularize the orbit and reduce its orbital tilt closer to the equator.
But after an unspecified number of burns were completed, the trip to geosynchronous orbit was stopped, the Navy said in response to questions submitted by Spaceflight Now. “The satellite experienced an anomaly that required the transfer maneuver to be temporarily halted,” the Navy says. “The Navy’s Program Executive Office for Space Systems has reconfigured the satellite from orbital transfer into a stabilized, safe intermediate orbit to allow the MUOS team to evaluate the situation and determine options for proceeding.”
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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