https://twitter.com/BepiColombo/status/882895245951860736Quote BepiColombo @BepiColombo#BepiColombo launch window is ~8 weeks, starting 5 Oct 2018
BepiColombo @BepiColombo#BepiColombo launch window is ~8 weeks, starting 5 Oct 2018
People calm down. If I'm not mistaken, Arianespace can launch two Ariane 5 launches within a month, possibly even two weeks. They have two launch tables, a launcher preparation building (BIF) and a Payload intergation building (BAF).If they have the second launcher prepared (build-up) at the beginning of the first launch. They only have to move the 2th launcher to the BAF, mate the payload (already prepared) and do final checks.Quote from: Salo on 07/06/2017 11:07 amhttps://twitter.com/BepiColombo/status/882895245951860736Quote BepiColombo @BepiColombo#BepiColombo launch window is ~8 weeks, starting 5 Oct 2018Again don't worry.Before and after these two launches Ariane 5 can't launch for about a month, if I'm not mistaken.
MetOP-C will be launched by a soyuz rocket.
Arianespace officials will meet with managers from both projects in September to determine which high-profile science mission will go first.
DutchSpace @DutchSpace 8m8 minutes agoMission swaps at #CSG Ariane5 #VA240 is now #Galileo in December, the ex VA240 is renamed to #VA241 and moves to next year
More #CSG updates: #Ariane5 #VA239 moves 1 day to 1st of September, #Vega #VV11 is planned for November.
At a meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s science committee July 24, Alan Boss, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution and a member of the Astrophysics Advisory Committee, warned that BepiColombo could take precedence over JWST for that October 2018 launch slot.“BepiColombo has rights to launch before James Webb does,” he said in a summary of a meeting of that advisory committee earlier in the month.
While the Ariane 5 is capable of flying at a relatively high cadence — three Ariane 5 rockets launched in May and June of this year — the extensive payload processing requirements of both BepiColombo and JWST appear to rule out launching both missions around the same time.“It’s unclear if BepiColombo will be out of the way” before JWST arrives at Kourou for launch preparations, Boss said. He believed JWST needed three to six months of “full access” to facilities at Kourou to prepare for launch. “You really want to have BepiColombo long gone before you move in and start taking over.”If BepiColombo sticks to its current schedule, that could mean delaying JWST by several months. “There’s some concern that that October 2018 launch may actually slip into the spring of 2019,” he said.That schedule conflict is due in part to delays in the development of BepiColombo. The mission’s launch has slipped several times in the last decade. In 2007, when ESA approved moving the mission into its development phase, it was expected to launch on a Soyuz rocket in 2013.
Boss noted BepiColombo’s delays in his presentation, suggesting that the mission could face additional delays. ESA officials, though, said at an event in early July that the spacecraft was on scheduled to ship to French Guiana in early 2018 to being final launch preparations.“We are looking forward to completing the final tests this year, and shipping to Kourou on schedule,” Ulrich Reininghaus, project manager for BepiColombo at ESA, said in a July 6 statement about the completion of the latest series of tests of the spacecraft. That statement added that the launch schedule for the mission would be confirmed later this year.
Additional problems, however, could lead to delays in JWST regardless of any launch site conflicts. “There’s some concern that they might be running out of funded schedule reserve,” Boss said, particularly as the project goes into critical final assembly and testing activities. “There’s some concern, but the JWST folks are confident they will overcome the remaining hurdles and get it done on time.”
Cross-posting this.
Quote from: Star One on 08/01/2017 04:33 pmCross-posting this.I can't see how availability of payload processing facilities at CSG could be a problem.Look into any Arianespace launcher User's manual, for example Ariane5, and you'll find out there are three payload processing facilities at CSG.S1 is located north of the Jupiter launch control center, it can accomodate basic processing activities for two or three satellites (comsat size).S3 is located at the ELA-2 zone. There are two buildings used for hazardous payload processing operations. One building is dedicated to Soyuz launches, the other is used for satellite fuelling operations. Lastly there is the S5 zone, located beside the road between Kourou and the CSG launch zones. S5 can accomodate three or four payloads simultaneously, and is suited for all payload preparation processes.I think both JWST and BepiColumbo will be prepared inside the S5 facilities. Could someone with more knowledge about payload preparation and the facilities at CSG react on this please?
Aiming for launch in late 2020, Proba-3 is not one but two small metre-scale satellites, lining up to cast a precise shadow across space to block out the solar disc for six hours at a time, and give researchers a sustained view of the Sun’s immediate vicinity.
Owner @Avanti_plc says 28-GHz Hylas 4 Ka-band sat, built by @OrbitalATK, now set for @Arianespace launch in March, yr later than planned.
Is 12 December 2017 confirmed for the Galileo Ariane 5 launch? Does this come from a reliable source? I haven't seen it posted elsewhere yet.
The Hellas-Sat-4/SaudiGeoSat-1 spacecraft will advance to final assembly and tests toward its scheduled launch in the second quarter of 2018 to eventually provide telecommunications services to customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.