A question concerning Soyuz launches and a listing of event sequences from today's 'Live Coverage' of TMA-17...Regarding this portion: "L- 20 sec: Ignition of 1st, 2nd stage engines at intermediate thrust level" 1st and 2nd stage is referring to the four 'boosters' as 1st and the inner 'core' as 2nd stage, right? I see 'stages' named differently at different sites and am just clarifying terms used. ~Same as saying Stage 0 and Stage 1 as well? And the inner/centrally-located engine, which stays at ~'intermediate power' while boosters are lit (right?) becomes Stage Two (second Stage, per se) once the lateral boosters (and SAS 'abort things') are done/dropped and that inner engine *then* goes ~full-power, right?Basically correct? I searched around a bit and did not see anything specific on this, fwiw Alex
Reading the Soyuz LV Users Guide for Kourou, I noticed that the Fregat orbital transponder operates at 2860 Mhz, whereas the Ariane V transmits at 2200 MHz. Since I doubt that the existing Ariane V ground stations can adapt to 2860 Mhz, does this mean that Fregat's orbit determination system will be modified to transmit at 2200 Mhz? Such a change may have significant ramifications for the future, since it would allow European, commercial and Russian orbit determination systems to be unified.
Quote from: Danderman on 12/25/2009 06:32 pmReading the Soyuz LV Users Guide for Kourou, I noticed that the Fregat orbital transponder operates at 2860 Mhz, whereas the Ariane V transmits at 2200 MHz. Since I doubt that the existing Ariane V ground stations can adapt to 2860 Mhz, does this mean that Fregat's orbit determination system will be modified to transmit at 2200 Mhz? Such a change may have significant ramifications for the future, since it would allow European, commercial and Russian orbit determination systems to be unified.Ground stations are very adaptable. The same stations support Atlas, Delta II, Pegasus, Ariane, etc.
All of the western LVs listed above have transponders operating at 2200 Mhz, whereas Soyuz Fregat operates at 2860 Mhz, so I am not sure if the adaptation by a ground station is that trivial or even possible, compared to adapting the Fregat transponder. I'm not a radio guy, so I don't know which is the easiest approach.
The various launch vehicles use various methods to downlink data, analog, digital, PCM, etc. They are very adaptable.The same ground stations also receive spacecraft downlinks
Someone from among the thermal mode specialists came to the conclusionthat the hot jets of gas from the DPO nozzles would blow on the solar arraypanels. They reported to Feoktistov. Without giving it much thought, heproposed that they turn them on their support bracket 180 degrees about theiraxis, so as not to undertake a complex modification of the spacecraft and lookfor other sites to install the engines.
Why are they still flying the standard Soyuz TMA (20 and 21) after validating the new version, and once again (Soyuz TMA 22) after Soyuz TMA 02M?
Tri-module separation occurred at 6:57am. 16 sec after the separation command, software pitched the PAO instrumentation/propulsion module in the rear to a specific angle (-78.5 deg from reference axis) which, if the PAO would have remained connected to the SA/Descent Module, would have resulted in enough heating on the connecting truss to melt it, thus ensuring separation.