LIVE: Atlas V - 401- AV-017 - DMSP F18 - VAFB - Oct 18, 09

[sdsds]

A question for anyone--maybe the meteorology members... With global Geo-synch satellite coverage what does a polar weather bird give you?  One obvious answer would be polar coverage but given these birds originally supported film based imagery collection by verifying targets weren't cloud covered to avoid wasting film and everything (except Russian collection) is digital now so film usage isn't a concern, I'm curious what having a shot every 12 hours gives you?

NPOESS, which should be the DMSP follow-on program, justifies polar orbits here: http://www.ipo.noaa.gov/index.php?pg=yporbit&tab=5

[jongoff]

Why? Why not just deorbit the Centaur?

And this leads to the "why are they doing it again?" question.

Too much excess performance.  IIRC, the reentry became a bit complicated (trying to make sure it came down in the right spot).  The escape option gives an opportunity to test a number of improvements that could help on future missions - not necessarily any specific flights, just generically.

To elaborate more, as I understand it, this is the flight where they're going to test centrifugal propellant settling techniques for Centaur (basically you try to spin up the centaur to get the fluid rotating as a solid body, then you despin it and go back to vented settling, then lather, rinse, repeat until you have the operations pinned down).  I hadn't heard about them putting the centaur into earth escape first, but that may just have been part of the plan I hadn't heard of yet.

I'll ask.

~Jon

[jongoff]

Ok,
Got a little feedback.  Apparently between the DMSP delivery and the escape burn, they'll have a ~2.5 hour coasting window during which they'll run a series of experiments with rotational settling and some other cryo technologies.  Then, once they're done getting all the data they can, they'll do the escape burn to dispose of the Centaur.

~Jon

[jcm]

Does anyone have a contact for the folks doing the Centaur experiment?
We'll want to know the post-burn state vector here at the Center for Astrophysics, so that when the Minor Planet Center folks track it as an apparent asteroid they don't confuse it with a hazardous Near-Earth-Object.

Thanks, Jonathan

[jongoff]

Does anyone have a contact for the folks doing the Centaur experiment?
We'll want to know the post-burn state vector here at the Center for Astrophysics, so that when the Minor Planet Center folks track it as an apparent asteroid they don't confuse it with a hazardous Near-Earth-Object.

Thanks, Jonathan

Ping me offline and I'll put you in contact.

~Jon

[Blackstar]

NPOESS, which should be the DMSP follow-on program, justifies polar orbits here: http://www.ipo.noaa.gov/index.php?pg=yporbit&tab=5

I believe that explanation leaves off one additional purpose.  Not only do the polar orbiting satellites provide higher resolution (meaning that they can track the edge of storm fronts and other meteorological data to a higher precision), but they also allow for better calibration of the GEO satellites.  That might be a function of resolution, but as I heard it, they collect data that is then used to tune the coarser data returned from the GEO satellites.

[infocat13]

Does anyone have a contact for the folks doing the Centaur experiment?
We'll want to know the post-burn state vector here at the Center for Astrophysics, so that when the Minor Planet Center folks track it as an apparent asteroid they don't confuse it with a hazardous Near-Earth-Object.

Thanks, Jonathan

Ping me offline and I'll put you in contact.

~Jon

I use to have a collection of Boeing "pop up reports" for upper stages in solar orbits as this is a topic of interest to me would love to start a collection like that anew 

[jcm]

Does anyone have a contact for the folks doing the Centaur experiment?
We'll want to know the post-burn state vector here at the Center for Astrophysics, so that when the Minor Planet Center folks track it as an apparent asteroid they don't confuse it with a hazardous Near-Earth-Object.

Thanks, Jonathan

Ping me offline and I'll put you in contact.

~Jon

I use to have a collection of Boeing "pop up reports" for upper stages in solar orbits as this is a topic of interest to me would love to start a collection like that anew 

Wish you still had it - I have some data on such stages and am slowly compiling the full catalog of orbits for artificial heliocentric objects.

- Jonathan

[Antares]

Does anyone have a contact for the folks doing the Centaur experiment?
We'll want to know the post-burn state vector here at the Center for Astrophysics, so that when the Minor Planet Center folks track it as an apparent asteroid they don't confuse it with a hazardous Near-Earth-Object.

Thanks, Jonathan

Note too that per the Mission Book, there is a point after the burn when they download the state vector.  So you'll eventually get something better than the preflight prediction.

[zeke01]

Higher resolution?  There might also be useful information about the vertical profile of the atmosphere that you can get if you look at a slant, that won't work from geosync.

Correct.  Only polar orbiters provide the valuable high-resolution data of the upper atmosphere in the high latitude regions and add additional 'fill-in' coverage over oceans where surface based platforms are widely dispersed and slant viewing angles from geosats are less than optimal.  These data are fed into the global weather models every hour.  Being able to successfully assimilate these data (from what ever source and times) resulted in notable forecast improvements since the late 90's.

The following URL gives you some idea of what observing platforms can and are used in numerical weather models; just about anything they can get their hands on!   Data from polar orbiters contribute significantly to the haul.

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/realtime/hourly/t22z/index.summary.shtml

zeke

[1tom2go]

How is everything looking for tomorrow? 

[Chris Bergin]

All on schedule so far.  If that changes, it'd of been noted.

[Rocket Guy]

This is the 600th Atlas launch.

[sdsds]

Cork Nosecone

Is the 14 foot payload fairing for this launch essentially the same as the one developed in 1990 for Atlas I?  Does this one use a cork coating on the nosecone?  (Do any other fairings use cork?)

[Jim]

Cork Nosecone

Is the 14 foot payload fairing for this launch essentially the same as the one developed in 1990 for Atlas I?  Does this one use a cork coating on the nosecone?  (Do any other fairings use cork?)

yes and yes and maybe.  Cork is used by Delta II on the first stage near the fwd SRM attach points.

[Satori]

Moved for live coverage...

[Chris Bergin]

A bit foggy it would appear:

Vandenberg AFB, Calif. (Oct. 18, 2009)- A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with the Air Force's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program F18 Payload is positioned for launch from Space Launch Comple-3 at Vandenberg AFB, Calif.  Liftoff is set for 9:12 a.m. PDT today.  Photo by Pat Corkery, ULA

[Chris Bergin]

Launch preview - by Chris Gebhardt:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/10/live-atlas-600th-mission-launch-dmsp-f18-vandenberg/

[Skyrocket]

Does anyone know the launch mass of the DMSP satellite?

[robertross]

Launch preview - by Chris Gebhardt:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/10/live-atlas-600th-mission-launch-dmsp-f18-vandenberg/

That was a great read Chris G, thanks!