USA’s next generation weather sentinel completes assembly

[clongton]

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/06/next-generation-weather-sentinel-assembly/


Awesome article Chris. We too often forget that space is more than rockets, spaceships and launchpads. Space touches our personal lives every single day in one form or another, such as the GEOS satellites that are the subject of this article. Every day I check the weather several times, as do most of us. How often do any of us stop and think about the Weather satellite in orbit that is providing the data we are looking at on our television screens? This article discusses the completion of the first of a new generation of such satellites scheduled for launch in March next year on an Atlas-V. This spacecraft will improve the data we are already getting by providing much higher resolution of the weather and storm patterns, as often as every 30 seconds! For your members who live in the mid-section of the US it is especially interesting to know how this series of spacecraft will vastly improve the forecasting of the location, severity and likely path of that most destructive of storms, the tornado.

That is a great history you provided for these types of spacecraft, all the way back to the mid 1970's. I did not know that some of the older ones who's capabilities have been superseded by newer vehicles have been re-purposed as communications links for far-away and out the the way places. I often wondered if they were just sitting there dormant.

A question I have about this new bus however. What does it use for station-keeping? Is it chemical or electric propulsion? Also the article stated the satellite is "designed for 10 years of on-orbit operation preceded by up to 5 years of on-orbit storage". What is the reason for it being launched 5 years before it is scheduled to go online?


Anyway, I thought this was a great article and wanted to thank you for it. Nicely done!

[baldusi]

Very good article Chris. But the use of Sentinel in the title given that it is the name of the Copernicus operative spacecrafts (i.e. the European weather network) is sort of confusing. I know, only confusing to the ones in the known. But very informative none the less. I want more of this sort of articles.

[arachnitect]

A question I have about this new bus however. What does it use for station-keeping? Is it chemical or electric propulsion? Also the article stated the satellite is "designed for 10 years of on-orbit operation preceded by up to 5 years of on-orbit storage". What is the reason for it being launched 5 years before it is scheduled to go online?

GOES-R will likely be operational less than 5 years after it launches, but the next satellite in the series will be completed several years before it should be needed.

It's easier and safer to store the satellites in orbit than match production and launch to estimated lifetimes.

[Star One]

A question I have about this new bus however. What does it use for station-keeping? Is it chemical or electric propulsion? Also the article stated the satellite is "designed for 10 years of on-orbit operation preceded by up to 5 years of on-orbit storage". What is the reason for it being launched 5 years before it is scheduled to go online?

GOES-R will likely be operational less than 5 years after it launches, but the next satellite in the series will be completed several years before it should be needed.

It's easier and safer to store the satellites in orbit than match production and launch to estimated lifetimes.

Interesting definition of safer when there is a chance of being hit by micro meteorites or even increasingly space junk. I know the risk isn't as great as the lower orbits but it's not like these higher orbits are free of miscellaneous bits & pieces.

[arachnitect]

A question I have about this new bus however. What does it use for station-keeping? Is it chemical or electric propulsion? Also the article stated the satellite is "designed for 10 years of on-orbit operation preceded by up to 5 years of on-orbit storage". What is the reason for it being launched 5 years before it is scheduled to go online?

GOES-R will likely be operational less than 5 years after it launches, but the next satellite in the series will be completed several years before it should be needed.

It's easier and safer to store the satellites in orbit than match production and launch to estimated lifetimes.

Interesting definition of safer when there is a chance of being hit by micro meteorites or even increasingly space junk. I know the risk isn't as great as the lower orbits but it's not like these higher orbits are free of miscellaneous bits & pieces.

Maybe "safer" wasn't the correct word.

I meant it as shorthand for higher probability of continuous coverage by the whole program. On orbit spares can take over in a matter of days. Launching a stored satellite takes months at best.

[baldusi]

[...]
I meant it as shorthand for higher probability of continuous coverage by the whole program. On orbit spares can take over in a matter of days. Launching a stored satellite takes months at best.

Isn't also cheaper? The experience with long term storage for satellites (DMSP-19/20 I'm looking at you) has been terribly expensive.