Re: Fate of Lockheed Martin Athena 2 and Ikonos 1
Kevin Fetter (kfetter@geocities.com)
Wed, 28 Apr 1999 22:02:30 -0400
You are correct, this satellite was launched to the south. The LAUNCH
AZIMUTH was 192.0000 DEG.
The orbital element I had posted was for when the satellite was to pass
over africa, the time of separation from the OAM - ORBITAL ADJUST MODULE.
Of course It doesn't matter since the satellite was lost.
There is always ikonos 2.
There is one other 1 meter resolution satellite to be launched this year.
"Nov. 19: Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL with OrbView-3 Earth imaging
satellite staged from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Launch Time TBD."
So it will still be possible to get high resolution sat photo's.
Now I wonder where that new milstar will be going. I read somewhere it is
going to replace one of the milstar's in orbit. Are will it be in a
different orbital slot.
Kevin
At 06:37 PM 4/28/99 -0700, you wrote:
>Previous discussion:
>
>>>> >>From a Kevin Fetter posting:
>>>> >IKONOS 1
>>>> >1 28000U 99XXXX 99117.80454155 .00000000 00000-0 00000-0 0 0
>>>> >2 28000 98.1840 185.3400 0010520 69.9850 279.8240 14.62686263 04
>>>>
>>>Philip Chien wrote:
>>>> this is incorrect. It's the orbit of a satellite launching to the
>>>> North-Northwest from Vandenberg which would be a violation of the range
>>>> rules. The Athena/Ikonos launch was to the South-Southwest.
>>
>>"Bj–rn Gimle" <b_gimle@algonet.se> and others said:
>>
>>>No, it's not. My predictions showed a S-N pass around 19:47 UT at 59 N
>>
>>yup. My fault. I was half asleep and fully non-functional when I crunched
>>the orbit. The funny thing is Justin Ray (Fla Today Online) and I were
>>chatting the previous week about with a Titan IV investigation underway we
>>really didn't need to have another failure investigation to follow at the
>>same time .... ARGH! Plus the technical conference "Space Congress" is in
>>town, plus the dress rehearsal for the next shuttle flight, plus the
>>Milstar launch on Friday, etc. etc. It's a busy week and my cloning
>>machine's on the blink.
>>
>>No new details on what happened to Athena / Ikonos but I may get some more
>>details later today. I checked the sat catalog report and so far nothing
>>reported in orbit from this launch. So far each of the "Civilian Spy Sats"
>>(Earthwatch, Ikonos) has had major failures ... The conspiracist in me
>>wonders if they're related ...
>>
>
>
>I'm a little confused about this. Did it launch to the north or south? On
>the web page:
>
>http://www.flatoday.com/space/today/042799k.htm
>
>A spokesman for Lockheed Martin was asked and replied:
>
>Question: Please give us additional details from what you know from
>telemetry. Did the upper stage complete its second burn and did the
>spacecraft separate?
>
>Larry Price, Lockheed Martin's director of small launch vehicle programs:
>"We have telemetry until nominal loss of signal (LOS) from Vandenberg. We
>are analyzing all of that telemetry currently. Spacecraft deployment was
>planned over Malindi in Africa and we don't have that telemetry. So we are
>analyzing from the information that we do have."
>
>=============
>
>It seems that in order to travel over Africa that it did have to be launched
>toward the south. Is this right?
>
> Ralph McConahy
> 34.8829N 117.0064W 670m
>
>
>
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