Photo: Palapa D1 rises from the Xichang Credit: Spacelaunchreport.com

Palapa D1, owned by Indonesian telco Indosat, suffered a third stage launcher mishap on August 31 during the launch sequence from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Southwest China’s Sichuan province. Consequently the satellite was placed in an unusable orbit.

Failure occurred 20 minutes after liftoff as the third stage was scheduled to ignite for the second burn of the launch. The 13 metre long third stage, powered by two YF-75 liquid hydrogen and oxygen engines capable of generating 35,000 pounds of thrust used on most long March launchers has never failed before.

Engineers at Thales Alenia Space, the designers and manufacturers of the satellite devised a plan though the conservative use of on-board propellant and succeeded in placing the satellite in a geo-transfer orbit on September 3, sufficient for the satellite to subsequently be lifted into geostationary orbit. Thales Alenia’s engineers then remotely reconfigured the  satellite’s on-board computers to gently push Palapa-D into its correct orbit.

The negative aspect of this unexpected maneuvering is that undoubtedly the use of the satellite’s on-board propellant is bound to impact the satellite’s expected 15-year life – and this is bound to trigger an insurance claim. It is too soon to predict the impact on the operational lifetime of the satellite, but it is likely to be measured in years, rather than months, of in-orbit service. Three perigee boost maneuvers were required to modify the injection orbit after spacecraft separation.

The Palapa-D contract was agreed on a ‘build and launch’ basis, so Thales Alenia own – and are responsible for – the satellite until it safely reaches its correct orbit at 113 deg East, which it did on September 10. The satellite is intended to replace Palapa-C2 that has been in position since 1996 and is due for retirement in 2011.

Palapa D1 was built without using American components, and was not restricted by the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations, which allowed the China Great Wall Industry Corporation to be selected as the launch service provider. Latest estimates by Thales Alenia Space indicate the satellite should have sufficient fuel for a ten year service life.

KLSV-1

South Korea’s indigenous KSLV-1 launcher lifted off from the Naro Space Centre on August 25, but failed to launch a scientific observation satellite into low Earth orbit.

A previous launch attempt several days earlier was halted when “abnormal data’ was observed during the automated launch sequence.

The launch had been postponed on five previous occasions: — the end of 2007, end of 2008, the second quarter of 2009 and July 30 and August 11, due to Russia’s refusal to transfer technology or problems in acquiring components.

The KSLV-1 launcher is a mix of Russian and local manufacture: Russia built the liquid fuelled first stage, whilst the second stage has been designed and manufactured in Korea.

Called KSLV-1 (Korea Space Launch Vehicle –1) the 33 metre tall launcher is the pride of the Korean space industry, arousing huge national interest and support.

The Russian made Angara first stage, can generate 170 tonnes of thrust, sufficient to propel the launcher to the edge of space, whilst the South Korean, Naro 1 second stage will generate 8 tonnes of thrust, allowing the launch vehicle to attain low earth orbit.

South Korea has developed a wide range of commercial satellites, including the multi-purpose satellites Arirang or the Mugunghwa. All of these satellites have been launched by American or Russian rockets. This was the first time a South Korea-developed rocket had been used to launch a satellite.

A South Korean official stated that ground stations had failed to contact the satellite, and that it was either in an unknown orbit, or loss

The “missing” STS2 100 kg satellite is a  non commercial scientific payload, fitted with cutting-edge meteorological research equipment using electronic frequencies to conduct tests on the earth’s atmosphere and gauge humidity levels in clouds and water vapor in the atmosphere.

South Korean and Russian scientists were reportedly studying launch data to try and determine the cause of the failure.

The payload was the first Korean satellite to carry laser reflecting mirrors, to accurately measure the distance between itself and the Earth. The equipment would have been used to forecast seismic activities.

Before the launch, officials knew the risk of failure was high. The Director of the Naro Space Centre, Min Kyung Ju is quoted as saying “ Initially the rocket will be moving relatively slowly making it hard to maintain stability as the main engine tries to push up the 140 tonnes  launch vehicle and satellite payload.

If there is a sudden gust of wind or any other slight problem in the stabilization mechanism, the rocket can tip over and be lost.”

Many rockets have been lost  during the first critical stages of ascent, including the US made Vanguard and Atlas, Europe’s Ariane 5, and several other launch vehicles from China and Russia were all lost within a minute of takeoff, according to the South Korean Technology Minister Lee Sang Mok.

Lee also said that the fairings that secure the satellite to the second stage rocket, were made in South Korea and had never been tested in flight.

The launcher cost US$415 million to develop, whilst the satellite cost 13.6 billion Won to build.

South Korean officials confirmed on August 27 that the second stage separation had been successful, but that the location of the satellite was not known. At that time the spacecraft was 342 Km above waters near Australia, instead of the 306 Km predicted trajectory.

The Naro Space Centre was specially constructed for this mission and is located at the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, about 300Km from Seoul.

A more detailed article on the Naro Space Centre appeared in May 2008 edition of Pacific Satellite News.

Palapa D1 is scheduled to be launched from the Xichang Launch Centre, China on August 31 aboard a Long March 3B launcher.

The satellite, said to have cost US$220 million, was built by Thales Alenia Space and based on their Spacebus 4000B3 platform will carry 35 C band and 5 Ku band transponders.

This satellite has been built without the use of any US made components and this allowed the satellite to be exported for launch by the China Great Wall Industry Corporation. The satellite will be located at 113 E with Palapa C2 which is due to be retired in 2011.

Palapa D1 will have a launch mass of 4.1 tonnes, payload power of 6 kW and a projected lifetime of 15 years. The launch company was selected by agreement with Thales and Indosat.

Indosat, the country’s second largest cellular operator after Telkomsel, has 50 corporate customers, including local, national and international television and radio stations.

With a larger capacity and a wider coverage compared with the previous Palapa-C2 satellite, the Palapa-D satellite will have a footprint that covers Indonesia, the countries of ASEAN, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.

Palapa-C2 only has 34 transponders and its footprint is limited to Indonesia, the ASEAN countries, East Asia and the Middle East.

Indosat’s main competitor, PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia, has launched nine satellites since 1976. The most recent one, Telkom-2, was launched in November 2005 from French Guiana.

Indonesia’s satellite program has not always run smoothly. Palapa B2 was launched for the Indonesian government on STS-41B in February 1984.  However, it failed to reach geosynchronous orbit due to an onboard rocket malfunction.

Sattel Technologies (California) purchased the satellite from an insurance group while it was circling the earth in a useless orbit, and contracted NASA to retrieve it. Retrieval occurred in November 1984 on Space Shuttle mission STS-51A.

Sattel also contracted Hughes Aircraft Company (the original manufacturer) and McDonnell Douglas (launch service provider) to refurbish and relaunch the satellite, then renamed Palapa B2-R.  The relaunch in April 1990 was successful, and title transferred back to Indonesia, 6 years and 119 million miles after launch.

In the photograph shown at left, Astronaut Dale A. Gardner, having just completed the major portion of his second extravehicular activity (EVA) period in three days, is holding up a “For Sale” sign.

The sign is referring to the two satellites, Palapa B-2 and Westar 6 both retrieved by astronauts after their Payload Assist Modules (PAM) failed to fire. Today Palapa B2 (renamed Newsat) is located at 42.5E.

Optus D3 night launch, courtesy of Arianespace

Arianespace has successfully launched

JCSAT-12 for Japan’s Sky Perfect JSAT and Optus D3 destined to be co located with Optus C1 at 156 East.

The launch was made using the Ariane 5 launcher from French Guinea with a one hour launch window starting at 22:09GMT, (08:09 AEST). A replay of the succesful launch is viewable on the web at http://www.videocorner.tv/.

The Optus D3 satellite will allow a quite significant capacity increase for customers locatedin Australia and New Zealand with Pay TV provider Foxtel already announcing 20 additional services to be added to their platform by the end of this calendar year. Optus (Sigtel) commissioned the D series satellites to be produced by Orbital and will be the most powerful satellite of the Optus constellation. The D series will be capable of generating up to 5 kW of payload power, distributing this power over an almost identical Australian footprint to the other D series satellites.

Asiasat 5 has arrived at the Baikonur Cosmodrome accompanied by a team from Space Systems Loral. The satellite, built by SSL is based on their well known Star 1300 bus, and will be launched on a Proton Breeze M rocket mid August.  The Proton launch vehicle, utilizing a 4-burn Breeze M will lift off from Pad 39 sometime mid August .  The first three stages of the Proton will use a standard ascent profile to place the Orbital Unit (Breeze M upper stage and AsiaSat 5) into a sub-orbital trajectory.  From this point in the mission, the Breeze M will perform planned mission maneuvers to advance the Orbital Unit first to a circular parking orbit, then to an intermediate orbit, followed by a transfer orbit, and finally to a geo-transfer orbit. Separation of the AsiaSat 5 satellite is scheduled to occur approximately 9 hours, 15 minutes after launch.

AsiaSat 5 is equipped with 26 C-band and 14 Ku-band transponders. The C-band coverage expands on the existing AsiaSat 2 pan-Asian coverage, and the Ku-band coverage consists of three high-power beams, two of which will cover East Asia and South Asia as well as the in-orbit steerable beam that can be positioned to provide service anywhere within the satellite’s view. The satellite is based on SS/L’s 1300 space-proven platform, which provides the flexibility to support a broad range of applications and technology advances.

In other related news, Asiasat has received proposals from several manufacturers for the supply and launch of Asiasat 6, following their “Request for Proposals” several months ago. Asiasat 6 is intended to replace Asiasat 3 at 105.5E and could also serve as a replacement for Asiasat 5, should there be any problem after launch.

Arianespace will launch two new satellites into orbit on the 21st of August, the launcher will carry JCSAT-12 for Japan’s Sky Perfect JSAT and Optus D3 destined to be co located with Optus C1 at 156 East.

The launch will be made using the Ariane 5 launcher from French Guinea with a one hourlaunch window starting at 22:09GMT, (08:09 AEST). The launch will be viewable on the web at http://www.videocorner.tv/.

The Optus D3 satellite will allow a quite significant capacity increase for customers locatedin Australia and New Zealand with Pay TV provider Foxtel already announcing 20 additional services to be added to their platform by the end of this calendar year. Optus (Sigtel) commissioned the D series satellites to be produced by Orbital and will be the most powerful satellite of the Optus constellation. The D series will be capable of generating up to 5 kW of payload power, distributing this power over an almost identical Australian footprint to the other D series satellites.

The satellite will be capable of collecting 975,000 square kilometers of imagery each day, and by adopting a Sun synchronous orbit at an altitude of 770 kilometers, will have an average re-visit time of one day. This capability will have great appeal to Customs and Border Security organizations.

The satellite carries an X band downlink at 800Mbps which can be received directly by the customer when in range.

The company’s first satellite, “QuickBird” was launched in 1981 and orbits the Earth at 450 kilometers providing sub meter resolution imagery whilst  offering large on board storage capability. The satellite maps over 75 million kilometers of the earth’s surface annually. The satellite was fuelled with sufficient propellant for 7 years.

The company’s second satellite, “Worldview 1” was launched in 2007. Operating at an altitude of 496 kilometers, WorldView-1 has an average revisit time of 1.7 days and is capable of collecting up to 750,000 square kilometers (290,000 square miles) per day of half-meter imagery. The satellite is capable of providing half meter resolution.

Worldview 2 was built by Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. and is based on their BCP

5000 spacecraft bus. The BCP 5000 features next generation optical and synthetic radar remote sensing payloads and is also equipped with a new instrument vibration isolation system to control jitter induced by the spacecraft.

Ball Aerospace also built QuickBird and Worldview 1 satellites for Digital Globe, and has worked with the company since the mid 1990’s.

The company built all the instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope, including the new instruments installed on Servicing Mission 4, recently completed by the Space Shuttle.

Worldview 2 is scheduled for launch from the Vandenberg Air Force base in California in September or October this year aboard a Delta 2 launcher.

ABS-2 will be the world’s most powerful commercial satellite ever launched in the Asia Pacific Region with 78 Ka, Ku and C band transponders, and a total output power capability of 14 kW. The satellite will be fueled for a service life of 15 years and will weigh over 6000kg at launch.

ABS-2 will join ABS-1, already considered by some to be one of the most successful satellites in the APR in terms of transponder loading.  ABS-1 still has 14 years of propellant remaining.

SingTel has already announced that it has signed an agreement to purchase multiple transponders on the new satellite.

ABS-1 can be observed with a 3.7m dish from Sydney.

Photo: ABS-1 Footprint.

HOT BIRD 10

When you need to fix a satellite there is only one way to do it. Launch another one!

Fancy watching the behind the scenes of a satellite launch? From payload integration to training with the French Foreign Legion who guard the launch site, National Geographic’s World’s Toughest Fixes has it all promises to be a must see for the sat enthusiast. 

The show, due to air from the 4th June, takes a behind the scenes look at the launch of the $250m HOT BIRD 10 satellite on an Ariane 5 rocket. The launch site, in the depths of the French Guiana jungle presents its own challenges to presenter.

Likewise, the sensitivity of the project is apparent with security requiring that only the host enter some areas, forced to do his own filming.

It should be a fascinating look at the process of getting a communications satellite in orbit, bringing communication and entertainment to millions.

Successful Launch

The satellite was launched from the Xichang Launch Centre, located in the southwest Sichuan province aboard a Long March 3 launcher.

China intends to launch the complete constellation by 2015 and another 10 satellites by the end of 2010.  The system is designed to provide  support for telecommunications, public security services, meteorological, prospecting, disaster recovery and petroleum exploration.

It is expected to rival the US developed GPS system, Russian Global Navigation Satellite System (Glosnass), and the European Union’s “Galileo” system.

The first Compass satellite was launched in 2007, but prior to that, in 2000, China deployed the Beidou-1 navigation system. This was a first generation  S band system which provided ranging information via a neighbouring geostationary satellite. The system was restricted in coverage to East Asia.