Author Topic: Vega Flight VV01 - Lares & AlmaSat-1 & 7 cubesats - February 13, 2012  (Read 108444 times)

Offline baldusi

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Instead, from another good source in Kourou at the time of the launch, it has been reported that LARES release was going to be considered good if within 20Km of altitude. It appears that the release happened within a few METERS of the target altitude.
Wow! Statistically it has no significance. But I do hope they keep this record.
BTW, if the extra performance seen as a bug or as a feature? I.e. it's a pleasant surprise or a variance problem?

Offline dsky

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Instead, from another good source in Kourou at the time of the launch, it has been reported that LARES release was going to be considered good if within 20Km of altitude. It appears that the release happened within a few METERS of the target altitude.
Wow! Statistically it has no significance. But I do hope they keep this record.
BTW, if the extra performance seen as a bug or as a feature? I.e. it's a pleasant surprise or a variance problem?

It may not be significant statistically-wise, but engineering-wise it is a serious data point (particularly so because it is a good one). :)

As far as I can quote, it came both as a pleasant surprise and as an expected consequence of a slightly reduced payload mass with respect to the mass planned in the software load. I do not know which had the greater impact, but I like to suspect the first one.
Why be a rocket scientist, when you can be a spacecraft engineer?

Offline dsky

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Big news!

Here is a first movie of the VEGA launch as seen from the on-board cameras. Most of it is in a kind of slow frame rate, but at the end there is a high frame rate clip of the P80 separation.
The whole movie has different events in it.

I hope they will release a better one, but for now it is just great to view it!

http://www.asitv.it/index.php?DLr=cN2xsU2L4yofyk3jfFrTWnhCxpaY9s
Why be a rocket scientist, when you can be a spacecraft engineer?

Offline jcm

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Dito. Thanks, dsky.

And for anyone else who cares:
Purely based on numbers shown during the webcast I estimated a 3rd stage orbit of -30 x 775 km (?) Also, the velocity peaked around T+1:40, 3:12 and 5:31 for each of the three solid stages. Thrust levels dropped sharply around these points in time and the vehicle - not surprisingly - appeared to be coasting towards the separation events while trading speed for altitude.

Yeah, but in my experience the error bars on getting the orbit from those webcast numbers are pretty large. Seems reasonable though - would put reentry S of New Zealand as advertised, somewhere around 180W 68S
at 1112 UTC or so. Hopefully ESA will release the real figures at some point.
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Offline Galactic Penguin SST

Big news!

Here is a first movie of the VEGA launch as seen from the on-board cameras. Most of it is in a kind of slow frame rate, but at the end there is a high frame rate clip of the P80 separation.
The whole movie has different events in it.

I hope they will release a better one, but for now it is just great to view it!

http://www.asitv.it/index.php?DLr=cN2xsU2L4yofyk3jfFrTWnhCxpaY9s


Astronomy & spaceflight geek penguin. In a relationship w/ Space Shuttle Discovery. Current Priority: Chasing the Chinese Spaceflight Wonder Egg & A Certain Chinese Mars Rover

Offline Prober

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Good video to watch.

Like the old Saturn video, can see this being used in future Sci-Fi movies out of Hollywood.

2017 - Everything Old is New Again.
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant..." --Isoroku Yamamoto

Offline edkyle99

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Good video to watch.

A little bit dicey on the last stage separation seen in the video, but everything worked.  Note that the first stage of the flight does not appear to use roll control.

 - Ed Kyle

Offline douglas100

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A little bit dicey on the last stage separation seen in the video, but everything worked.  Note that the first stage of the flight does not appear to use roll control.

 - Ed Kyle

Yeah, I wondered about that. It seemed to be rolling almost as fast as the second stage of the first Falcon 9 at one point.

The only information about roll control I've come across is that the AVUM provides roll control for the second and third stages (and for itself, of course.) So you could be right about the first stage.

It seemed to keep on rolling even after first stage separation, but then sorted itself out. So AVUM appears to have done a good job and provided excellent control and accuracy.
Douglas Clark

Offline edkyle99

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A little bit dicey on the last stage separation seen in the video, but everything worked.  Note that the first stage of the flight does not appear to use roll control.

 - Ed Kyle

Yeah, I wondered about that. It seemed to be rolling almost as fast as the second stage of the first Falcon 9 at one point.

The only information about roll control I've come across is that the AVUM provides roll control for the second and third stages (and for itself, of course.) So you could be right about the first stage.

It seemed to keep on rolling even after first stage separation, but then sorted itself out. So AVUM appears to have done a good job and provided excellent control and accuracy.

I believe that other, similar solid motor rockets, like Athena and Taurus and probably Minotaur, also have no first stage roll control.

 - Ed Kyle

Offline jcm

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Space-Track has apparently still not identified the cubesats from the Vega VV01 launch - still listed as Object C to Object J
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Offline bolun

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Interview with Stefano Bianchi, ESA's Vega programme manager.


Offline bolun

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CubeSats satellite operations update
 
28 March 2012

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Education/SEM2KRGY50H_0.html

Offline mdo

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For the record, all the payloads were finally mapped to an ID.

Satellite    ID           Apo [km] Peri
---------------------------------------
LARES        2012-006A    1435     1453
ALMASAT-1    2012-006B    1329      309
E-STAR       2012-006C    1213      301
GOLIAT       2012-006D    1210      301
MASAT-1      2012-006E    1212      301
XATCOBEO     2012-006F    1164      300
PW SAT       2012-006G    1186      301
ROBUSTA      2012-006H    1220      300
UNICUBESAT   2012-006J    1226      300
AVUM R/B     2012-006K    1279      267
« Last Edit: 05/05/2013 12:27 pm by mdo »

Offline Jester

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Sorry to bump an old thread, but i'm looking for the total lift performance (in kg) for VV01 ? (press/launch kits only quote max. performance)

Edit:

and while we are at it, does VEGA have a launcher serial number ? like Ariane has for example VA214 / L 569
« Last Edit: 07/28/2013 11:32 am by Jester »

Offline jcm

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Sorry to bump an old thread, but i'm looking for the total lift performance (in kg) for VV01 ? (press/launch kits only quote max. performance)

Edit:

and while we are at it, does VEGA have a launcher serial number ? like Ariane has for example VA214 / L 569


Here is the best weight breakdown I've been able to generate.
Good question about the serial numbers, haven't seen anything - and presumably the AVUM stages and Zefiro motors each have their own serial numbers, which would be nice to have.


2012-006A  LARES                          400   
2012-006B  ALMASat                         12   
2012-006C  e-st@r                           1   
2012-006D  Goliat                           1   
2012-006E  MagyarSat-OSCAR-72               1   
2012-006F  XaTcobeo                         1   
2012-006G  PW-Sat 1                         1   
2012-006H  ROBUSTA                          1   
2012-006J  UNICubeSat GG                    1   

2012-006K  AVUM/LARES A&H/SS               10? 
2012-006K  Vega AVUM VV01                1200   full  660 empty
2012-006K  LARES Support System           300   
2012-006K   937B Payload Adapter           149   
 for a total of 1119 kg on orbit for 2012-006K and
                   419 kg on orbit for the other objects.


You can decide which things count as payload and which don't ...
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Offline Jester

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Thanks Jonathan, small corrections:

LARES is 360 kg

ALMaSat-1 is 12.5 kg


LARES is 386,8 kg
http://www.bernese.unibe.ch/publist/2013/post/CB_LARES_EGU2013.pdf

more is welcome :)


EDIT:

ALMaSat-1:
The total mass of the spacecraft with adapter and separation system is 20.5 kg (13.56 kg of ALMASat-1 and 6.54 kg for AD-SS).
 
« Last Edit: 08/16/2013 05:38 pm by Jester »

Offline mdo

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For the record, all the payloads were finally mapped to an ID.

Satellite    ID           Apo [km] Peri
---------------------------------------
LARES        2012-006A    1435     1453
ALMASAT-1    2012-006B    1329      309
E-STAR       2012-006C    1213      301
GOLIAT       2012-006D    1210      301
MASAT-1      2012-006E    1212      301
XATCOBEO     2012-006F    1164      300
PW SAT       2012-006G    1186      301
ROBUSTA      2012-006H    1220      300
UNICUBESAT   2012-006J    1226      300
AVUM R/B     2012-006K    1279      267


Satellite    ID           Apo [km] Peri
---------------------------------------
LARES        2012-006A    1452     1436
ALMASAT-1    2012-006B    1196      306
E-STAR       2012-006C     915      292
GOLIAT       2012-006D     905      293
MASAT-1      2012-006E     912      292
XATCOBEO     2012-006F     756      284
PW SAT       2012-006G     832      289
ROBUSTA      2012-006H     925      292
UNICUBESAT   2012-006J     943      293
AVUM R/B     2012-006K    1106      265


Some fresh TLEs for the fun of it: The CubeSats are now well separated from each other. XATCOBEO has a few months left before the final death spiral. In comparison, LARES' orbit is rock solid (by design).
« Last Edit: 03/23/2014 08:49 am by Jester »

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