ROCKET PHOTOBOMBS AURORA OUTBURST: Last night in Sweden, aurora tour guide Oliver Wright led a group of 8 under the starry skies of Abisko National Park hoping for a glimpse of the aurora borealis. "Suddenly," says Wright, "one of the guests shouted what's that? "I grabbed my binoculars and saw this amazing crescent-shaped thing moving slowly across the sky." It was not the aurora borealis:"I had never seen anything like it," says Wright, "so I called Chad Blakley of Lights over Lapland, and he confirmed that his live webcam saw it too." A four-frame animation shows it moving slowly across the sky for more than 20 minutes.What was it? Mystery solved: Earlier in the day, an Atlas V rocket blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California carrying the Worldview 4 satellite to orbit. Later, the rocket's Centaur upper stage vented its excess fuel, creating the ghostly cloud over Sweden. For Wright and his guests, the show was far from over. "A huge aurora started to develop around the Moon and became a magnificent corona above our heads," he says. This is a 1/2 second exposure:"It was moving super fast--the fastest corona I've seen in 3 years of guiding," says Wright. "In the end we had some super happy guests and a super happy guide!"
I also stopped in at SpaceX to view the booster and learned the hard way, just how <multiple expletives> LA traffic is.
Quote from: WheelsStop on 11/12/2016 03:38 amHere are some aerial views of the launch today. These are approximately L-8 min, T=0, T+6s, T+8s.Do you also have the High Res. versions ?? can you post them also (if you do not want to do it in the public, then perhaps in L2) Thanks
Here are some aerial views of the launch today. These are approximately L-8 min, T=0, T+6s, T+8s.
January 07, 2019WESTMINSTER, CO, Jan. 7, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - Maxar Technologies Inc. (NYSE:MAXR) (TSX:MAXR) ("Maxar" or the "Company"), a global technology innovator powering the new space economy, today reported that its WorldView-4 satellite experienced a failure in its control moment gyros ("CMGs"), preventing the satellite from collecting imagery due to the loss of an axis of stability.Efforts are ongoing in conjunction with its suppliers in an attempt to restore satellite functionality, but thus far these efforts have been unsuccessful. At this time, Maxar believes that WorldView-4 will likely not be recoverable and will no longer produce usable imagery. Maxar operations has put the WorldView-4 satellite in a safe configuration and will continue to monitor the satellite's location and health. The satellite was built by Lockheed Martin and the CMGs were provided by Honeywell.WorldView-4 was acquired by GeoEye prior to its merger with DigitalGlobe in 2013. It was launched in November 2016 and generated revenues of approximately $85 million in fiscal year 2018. The satellite had a net book value of approximately $155 million, including related assets, as of December 31, 2018. If the satellite is not recoverable, then the net book value will be written off in Q4-2018. Contingency planning and mitigation efforts are underway to assess the use of the Company's other satellites and outside resources to replace imagery collected by WorldView-4 and meet as much of the existing customer commitments and obligations as possible. The Company currently believes it will be able to offset $10 to 15 million of the annual revenue from WorldView-4 and will work to minimize the potential impact on Maxar's financial results in future years.The WorldView-4 satellite is insured for $183 million, and Maxar intends to seek full recovery for the loss of WorldView-4 under its insurance policies. The Company will provide further updates on this matter as new information becomes available.
Anonymouse • an hour agoDoes anyone know what type of bearings were used in the CMGs that failed?
Is it poor taste to point out that this is exactly the kind of equipment failure we're trying to make a thing of the past by our MagTag plug and play interfaces?~Jon
Does Lockheed-Martin have a similar product in development--or would they have to go outside the corporation to NGIS? (WV-4 is built on a L-M s/c bus.)
Quote from: zubenelgenubi on 01/08/2019 07:05 pmDoes Lockheed-Martin have a similar product in development--or would they have to go outside the corporation to NGIS? (WV-4 is built on a L-M s/c bus.)As far as I know Maxar Technologies(DigitalGlobe's parent company) purchasing a satellite servicing solution from Lockmart is also going outside the corporation. Is there something special about the LM-900 bus that would prevent an MEV from attaching?The in-house solution would come from the team that is building Restore-L's bus for NASA. Restore-L is based on the SLL(Space Systems Loral, a Maxar subsidiary) 1300 bus. Maxar has announced the intention to exit the large satellite manufacturing market, so we have reason to question whether the supply chain exists to build a servicing satellite in a timely manner.I do agree that WorldView-4 appears to be an ideal candidate for either MEV or Restore-L. Getting into the history books as the first commercial satellite serviced by a commercial satellite servicing platform is worth the effort in my opinion. The revenue earned from years of additional images only helps the case.
Is it poor taste to point out that this is exactly the kind of equipment failure we're trying to make a thing of the past by our MagTag plug and play interfaces?
I do agree that WorldView-4 appears to be an ideal candidate for either MEV or Restore-L. Getting into the history books as the first commercial satellite serviced by a commercial satellite servicing platform is worth the effort in my opinion. The revenue earned from years of additional images only helps the case.
Quote from: Joseph Peterson on 01/08/2019 11:19 pmI do agree that WorldView-4 appears to be an ideal candidate for either MEV or Restore-L. Getting into the history books as the first commercial satellite serviced by a commercial satellite servicing platform is worth the effort in my opinion. The revenue earned from years of additional images only helps the case.MEV1 is launching to the GEO belt this year to begin comsat life extension, same place MEV2 will be utilized. It's a hard sell to commission the construction and launch of an MEV to SSO unless you're preparing to buy the entire service life for your satellite... plane changes use up an atrocious amount of dV.