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Preview the deployment of the advanced GOES-R weather satellite aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket in the pre-launch news conference held at Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, Nov. 17.
Briefing participants are:
* Stephen Volz, assistant administrator for satellite and information services at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
* Greg Mandt, GOES-R system program director at NOAA
* Sandra Smalley, director of NASA’s Joint Agency Satellite Division
* Omar Baez, NASA launch director
* Scott Messer, program manager for NASA Missions at United Launch Alliance
* Clay Flinn, launch weather officer from the 45th Weather Squadron at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
GOES-R mission briefing
The GOES-R mission briefing details this new observatory that the improve the quality of weather forecasts across the United States.
Briefing participants include:
* Steven Goodman, GOES-R program scientist from NOAA
* Joe Pica, director of the Office of Operations at the National Weather Service
* Sandra Cauffman, deputy director of NASA’s Earth Science Division
* Damon Penn, assistant administrator for response from FEMA
Thu, Nov 17 2016 9:30 AM ART — Thu, Nov 17 2016 3:00 PM ART
About
Two flagship European space programmes will combine on 17 November, as four Galileo navigation satellites are carried into orbit by an Ariane 5 rocket for the first time. Liftoff of Ariane flight VA233 is scheduled for 13:06 GMT (14:06 CET, 10:06 local time) on Thursday. The first Livestream transmission is scheduled for 12:36–13:29 GMT (13.36–14.29 CET), covering the liftoff, ascent and first phases of flight. There will be a follow-up Livestream transmission at 16:30–17:45 GMT (17.30–18.45 CET), to cover the satellite separations and confirmation of success.
European Space Agency
Galileo system status
Next Thursday 17 November at 10.06 Kourou Time/14.06 CET an Ariane 5 will launch Galileo satellites for the first time. Equipped with a specially designed dispenser, the European launcher will deploy four satellites: Galileo Sat 15,16,17 and 18. This video explains the current status of the Galileo system. It includes an interview with Paul Verhoef, ESA Navigation Programme Director.
The Soyuz booster that will send the International Space Station’s next three residents into orbit later this week rolled out of an integration hangar early Monday and rode a railroad car to its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The rocket will lift off at 2020 GMT (3:20 p.m. EST) Thursday from Baikonur, heading to orbit on a two-day chase of the space station, setting up for a radar-guided rendezvous and docking Saturday.
The Soyuz MS-03 spaceship, the third in a line of upgraded Russian crew capsules, will take the longer two-day route to the space station to continue tests of the modernized spacecraft. In recent years, Russia has typically launched Soyuz crews on a six-hour rendezvous trajectory, allowing the craft to reach the complex on the same day as launch.
Continuing a tradition dating back to the dawn of the Space Age, the Soyuz rocket emerged from its hangar at Baikonur mounted on a transport train for the trip to the launch pad.
The rollout Monday came a day after technicians installed the Soyuz capsule on the front end of the rocket. Last week, ground crews placed an aerodynamic fairing, which will jettison a few minutes into the flight, over the Soyuz spacecraft before moving the vehicle to the rocket assembly hangar.
Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, a 45-year-old Russian Air Force pilot and native of Belarus, will occupy the center seat of the Soyuz MS-03 spacecraft as commander. About to fly to the space station for the second time, Novitskiy spent 143 days in orbit on the Expedition 33 and 34 mission in 2012 and 2013.
In the capsule’s left seat will be French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, a European Space Agency astronaut who will serve as Novitskiy’s co-pilot during the flight to the space station. Pesquet, 38, was a spacecraft engineer at CNES, the French space agency, and an Air France commercial airline pilot before his selection as an astronaut in 2009.
Veteran NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, 56, will launch in the the right seat of the Soyuz spaceship on her third spaceflight. Whitson first lived on the space station as a flight engineer and science officer on the Expedition 5 mission in 2002, the launched again in 2007 to command the Expedition 16 mission.
Whitson, a native of Iowa, has accumulated more than 376 days in space during her two previous flights.
Docking of the Soyuz MS-03 spacecraft with the station’s Rassvet module on Saturday is scheduled for around 2201 GMT (5:01 p.m. EST). Expedition 50 commander Shane Kimbrough and flight engineers Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko will welcome the three new crew members.
Whitson will command the station’s Expedition 51 crew next year after the departure of Kimbrough, Ryzhikov and Borisenko.
The Soyuz MS-03 spacecraft will remain docked to the space station until April or May.
NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet address media before departing their training complex at Star City, Russia, for the launch site in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA/Stephanie Stoll
The arrival of the three fresh residents will kick off a busy couple of months on the space station.
“There will be quite a bit of traffic and crew time associated with that,” said Sam Scimemi, NASA’s space station program director at NASA Headquarters.
An Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo craft that arrived at the outpost in October is set to depart the complex Nov. 21 with a load of trash. Before heading for a destructive re-entry, the Cygnus supply ship will deploy several CubeSats and conduct a fire experiment inside a self-contained box within the craft’s pressurized module.
A Russian Progress cargo and refueling freighter is set for launch Dec. 1 from Baikonur, with docking expected Dec. 3.
Then a Japanese HTV supply mission will blast off aboard an H-2B rocket Dec. 9, setting up for its automated rendezvous and capture with the space station’s robotic arm Dec. 13.
The HTV mission will deliver six lithium-ion batteries to kick off a multi-year effort to replace the space station’s aging nickel-hydrogen battery system. The battery changeout will require at least two spacewalks in January, and perhaps as many as four EVAs if astronauts run into any trouble.
“During the next increment, they will be busy,” Scimemi said Monday during a meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s human exploration and operations subcommittee. “There are going to be some challenges. We’ve got two EVAs scheduled to install the batteries, and another couple of EVAs as contingency if they don’t go so well.”
Other activities, aside from a heavy slate of science experiments, will include maintenance on the station’s carbon dioxide removal assembly, activation of a new galley, and preparations to relocate a docking port on the complex, Scimemi said.
Photos of the Soyuz rocket’s rollout Monday are posted below, including images of the launch pad’s gantry towers enclosing the booster backdropped by nearly full moon.
China successfully launches Yunhai-1(01) satellite for environment monitor
Published: 2016-11-11 23:33
Last Modified: 2016-11-12 11:22
Location: Jiuquan,China;
Duration: 0'51
Source: China Central Television (CCTV)
Restrictions: No access Chinese mainlan
Shotlist
Jiuquan City, Gansu Province, northwest China - Nov 12, 2016
1. Yunhai-1(01) satellite lifted off by Long March-2D
2. Animation of Yunhai-1(01) in orbit
3. Various of launch controllers
Storyline
China successfully launched a Yunhai-1(01) satellite with a Long March-2D carrier rocket Saturday from its Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.
The Yunhai-1(01) satellite is mainly designed for detecting environmental elements in the atmosphere and ocean, the space environment, disaster prevention and reduction, and scientific experimentation.
Both the satellite and its carrier rocket are designed and made by the Shanghai Institute of Spaceflight Technology under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.
Saturday's is the 240th flight of China's Long March carrier rockets. NOTE: VIDEO EDITED
A companion to the world’s most powerful private Earth-imaging satellite rocketed into space today from the U.S. west coast atop an Atlas 5 to double the amount of high-resolution imagery available on the commercial market and satisfy the demands of customers clamoring for more.
The 10-year mission of the WorldView 4 satellite began at 10:30:33 a.m. local time (1:30:33 p.m. EST; 1830:33 GMT) as the United Launch Alliance booster powered away from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California after an extended wait to fly.
The launch was postponed eight weeks by a 12,500-acre wildfire that scorched Vandenberg in late September and the lengthy repairs to the base’s power grid in the aftermath.
Today’s liftoff culminated an 8-hour countdown highlighted by retraction of the mobile service gantry and the loading of 66,000 gallons of cryogenic propellants into the two-stage vehicle.
Following the signature status check — “Go Atlas,” “Go Centaur,” “Go WorldView 4” — declaring readiness in the final seconds, the main engine rumbled to life and 189-foot-tall rocket gracefully ascended from the pad.
Un vídeo publicado por United Launch Alliance (@ulalaunch) el
A fog bank remained off the coast, giving mostly clear skies with only wispy high cirrus clouds as backdrop for the Atlas 5 heading downrange.
The first stage fired for four minutes before the Centaur upper stage took over for its 11-minute burn to accelerate the 5,479-pound payload into the targeted sun-synchronous orbit.
WorldView 4 was released from the launcher just 19 minutes after liftoff.
It marked the 137th successful launch in a row for the Atlas program spanning 23 years, the 66th for the Atlas 5 over the span of 14 years and extended United Launch Alliance’s mission record to 112 in nearly 10 years.
WorldView 4, built by Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale, California, and owned by DigitalGlobe of Westminster, Colorado, radioed home healthy system data 45 minutes after its launch.
The Centaur upper stage, still operating after releasing the primary payload, on its next orbit deployed seven cubesats, collectively called ENTERPRISE, for a National Reconnaissance Office rideshare effort, then fired its main engine again to escape Earth and enter solar orbit for a permanent, safe disposal.
The cubesats will perform a variety of experiments and demonstrate high-tech operational concepts for students, national laboratories and government entities, according to the NRO.
In the coming weeks and months, the WorldView 4 craft will settle into its 383-mile (617-km) operational orbit with a period of 97 minutes, open the telescope aperture and undergo a rigorous testing and commissioning period. It should begin taking commercial imagery for retail early next year.
And it will come not a moment too soon for clients seeking DigitalGlobe’s 30 centimeter commercial imagery, a resolution unmatched by competitors in the marketplace.
The make and model of a car can be identified using that quality of space imagery.
An artist’s concept of WorldView 4. Credit: DigitalGlobe
DigitalGlobe currently offers the highest resolution imagery of the Earth’s surface — seeing objects 31-cm or just one-foot across — with its WorldView 3 satellite launched by Atlas 5 two years ago.
But that craft’s capacity is mostly reserved for the company’s biggest customer — the U.S. government. The addition of WorldView 4 will effectively double the amount of 30-cm imagery that can be taken commercially from space, opening the floodgates to sell the data to other customers.
WorldView 4 has a backlog of orders to fill from foreign governments, intelligence agencies and commercial clientele waiting to buy such data, and allowed to do so by U.S. authorities.
“We are especially pleased with the unprecedented early demand for WorldView 4,” said Jeffrey Tarr, DigitalGlobe chief executive officer.
Customers for the company’s special direct-access program are given priority reach to the entire WorldView constellation and new clients have been signing up to receive WorldView 4 imagery even before the craft was launched.
“Importantly, WorldView 4 will substantially increase our ability to image the world with resolution, accuracy and clarity far beyond that of all other commercial providers, enabling us to better serve our international defense and intelligence customers and unlock new commercial use cases,” Tarr said.
WorldView 1 caught this sequence of images of the Atlas 5 launching WorldView 3 from Vandenberg in 2014. Credit: DigitalGlobe +
DigitalGlobe gives customers confidentiality in targeting areas to survey, guaranteed access and data distribution rights, and pre-event and post-event imagery for emergency management in a crisis.
“With the additional 30 cm capacity that we’re bringing online with WorldView 4, and the investments we’ve made in our constellation Direct Access Facility program, we are meeting the growing demand from new and existing customers alike,” Tarr said.
WorldView 4 is designed to see objects as small as 1-foot-wide (31 cm) in panchromatic mode and has a color capability with 4-foot resolution (1.24 m). It will image 263,000 square miles (680,000 square km) of the Earth’s surface per day, doubling the capacity of WorldView 3 now in service providing the same quality high-res data.
The craft uses the Global Positioning System satellite network and onboard star trackers to determine its precise location in orbit relative to the spot on Earth being observed. The imaging options include shooting targeted scenes, large-area collections or long, narrow strips of land.
Built around Lockheed Martin’s LM 900 small satellite design, WorldView 4 stands 18 feet (5.5 meters) tall and has a wingspan of 26 feet (8 meters) when the five power-generating solar arrays are extended.
WorldView 4 in the factory. Credit: Lockheed Martin
Harris Corp., which built the camera system on WorldView 4, says the primary mirror was manufactured to an accuracy of 1/1000th of a human hair. It has an aperture of 3.6 feet (1.1 meters).
The imaging system, known as SpaceView 110, is capable of counting all of the people on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco from the Hollywood sign in Southern California.
Control Moment Gyroscopes will enable unmatched agility for the satellite, allowing it to slew in just 10.6 seconds from one target to another 125 miles (200 km) away.
It features a 3200-Gb solid state onboard storage capability and will communicate with the ground via X-band for data transmissions and S-band for control functions.
DigitalGlobe was founded in 1992 under the name WorldView Imaging Corp. and merged with rival GeoEye and its satellite fleet in 2013. Today, it serves three main customer groups: U.S. government, international defense and intelligence organizations, and commercial buyers.
“Our business with the U.S. government has been renewed for 15 consecutive years, under various contract vehicles, each of which has contributed to growth of the company,” said Tarr.
“DigitalGlobe and its team members are proud to provide a mission-critical service to the NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) and end-users across the U.S. government with our best-in-class constellation and ground infrastructure.”
All five of DigitalGlobe’s sub-50cm high-resolution imagery satellites were launched by Delta 2 and Atlas 5 rockets since 2007. Photos by ULA
On the purely commercial front, the company recently struck deals with the Uber taxi service and the Esri mapping firm.
“We’ve seen customers realize the value of our high-resolution, high-accuracy 30-centimeter imagery in identifying road-related features not visible with less-capable satellites, enabling better mapping and safer navigation,” said Tarr.
The market for commercial imagery includes agriculture, mining, oil and gas, scientific researchers and land developers.
Looking ahead, DigitalGlobe has partnered with Saudi Arabia to field a cluster of small imaging satellites, sharing the capacity 50-50. Launch is expected in 2019.
“This new fleet, which we’ve now named Scout, will tip and cue our high-resolution satellites to help monitor some of the world’s volatile regions,” Tarr said.
The company also plans to start a $600 million investment some time in the next two years to replace the combined capacity of the aging WorldView 1 and WorldView 2.
“This industry-leading, multi-satellite system will deliver WorldView-class resolution, area coverage and positional accuracy with unprecedented revisit,” Tarr said.
All 66 launches by the workhorse Atlas 5 rocket for the Defense Department, National Reconnaissance Office, NASA and commercial clients. Photos by Pat Corkery, Jeff Spotts, Ben Cooper, Walter Scriptunas II, James Murati, Gene Blevins, Bill Hartenstein, Alex Polimeni and Justin Ray
Today’s launch was the sixth of eight planned this year by the Atlas 5 rocket.
The vehicle’s next flight is targeted for Nov. 19 from Cape Canaveral to deploy the advanced GOES-R geostationary weather satellite for NASA and NOAA.
Another Atlas 5 is scheduled from Vandenberg in January for the National Reconnaissance Office to deploy the classified NROL-79 payload. It had been planned for this December, but was delayed by the wildfire’s impacts to the manifest
Live coverage of the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket flight to deploy the WorldView 4 imaging satellite. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
LRR: Countdown clocks will begin ticking in the middle-of-the-night Friday morning to ready an Atlas 5 rocket at America's western spaceport to launch a commercial Earth-imagery observatory.
The Launch Readiness Review today formally gave approval to proceed into countdown operations at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to deploy the WorldView 4 satellite for DigitalGlobe.
Friday's liftoff is targeted for 10:30 a.m. local time (1:30 p.m. EST; 1830 GMT) at the opening of a 15-minute launch opportunity.
A live launch webcast can be viewed on this page.
Air Force meteorologists, as of this morning, now give 90 percent odds that the weather will allow the launch to occur. High pressure has been dominant over the region for the past several days, keeping a weather system to the northwest. At launch time Friday, the forecast calls for mostly clear skies with just some high-level cirrus, light south‐southeasterly winds of 5 to 8 knots and temperatures between 67 and 72 degrees F.
"Team V is thrilled to be launching again following the devastating wildfires we experienced in September. We are excited to launch the Atlas 5 WorldView 4 mission from Vandenberg's Western Range and are looking forward to a safe and successful mission," said Col. Chris Moss, 30th Space Wing commander at Vandenberg and the launch decision authority.
It will be the 12th Atlas 5 to fly from Vandenberg.
The launch countdown begins at 2:30 a.m. local time for the start of an eight-hour sequence to prepare the launch pad and rocket for flight.
This is United Launch Alliance's 112th flight, the 9th just this year, and the company's 19th for a commercial client.
Learn about the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System — NASA’s fleet of hurricane-tracking satellites — launching together on Dec. 12 from Cape Canaveral aboard a Pegasus rocket. The eight small satellites comprising the CYGNSS constellation will help improve hurricane intensity, track and storm surge forecasts.
This NASA news conference held Nov. 10 details the CYGNSS mission and its science objectives.
CAPE CANAVERAL — Calling on the Atlas 5 rocket to flex its muscles one more time, Orbital ATK will partner with United Launch Alliance once again to send a massive load of supplies to the International Space Station astronauts early next year.
In what becomes the first rocket flight booked under ULA’s new RapidLaunch contracting service to substantially shorten the time between signing a contract and liftoff, this new launch is scheduled to occur just four months from now.
The Atlas 5 will launch the Cygnus cargo freighter to the station in March, departing from Cape Canaveral on Orbital ATK’s commercial OA-7 cargo-delivery mission.
“This plan…allows NASA to again capitalize on the operational flexibility built into Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft to assure the space station receives a steady and uninterrupted flow of vital supplies, equipment and scientific experiments,” Orbital ATK said in a statement today.
It will be the third such launch for the rocket and automated ship, following successes last December and this past March, as part of Orbital ATK’s space station resupply contract issued by NASA to ensure a steady supply line to the station from U.S. soil.
But with NASA’s other commercial delivery firm — the SpaceX fleet and Dragon capsules — currently grounded and having already missed a planned November cargo run, the agency is relying on Orbital ATK, the Russians and Japanese to bring the needed food, clothing, spare parts and experiments to the space station.
The new Atlas 5 launch will enable Orbital ATK to deliver a heavier load of cargo and NASA believes in the dependability of the rocket.
“Following a successful Antares launch for the recent OA-5 Commercial Resupply Services mission and subsequent rendezvous and berthing of the Cygnus spacecraft with the International Space Station, Orbital ATK has responded to NASA’s needs for enhanced schedule assurance for cargo deliveries and maximum capacity of critical supplies to the space station in 2017 by once again partnering with United Launch Alliance to launch Cygnus aboard an Atlas 5 for the upcoming OA-7 mission in the spring timeframe,” Orbital ATK said in a statement today.
“The company will be ready to support three cargo resupply missions to the station next year, and will work with NASA to finalize the flight schedule.”
Cygnus at the space station. Credit: NASA
A Cygnus reached the station last month with over 5,000 pounds of supplies after launching atop Orbital ATK’s own Antares rocket. It was the first such flight for the booster in two years, a lull instigated by the 2014 explosion of an Antares and Orbital ATK’s decision to replace the main engines with a different design.
But the more-powerful Atlas 5 rocket can launch over 7,700 pounds of provisions inside a Cygnus, and the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday night that NASA has pushed Orbital ATK to buy another Atlas 5 for its greater lift capacity and reliability record.
Sources told Spaceflight Now that the Atlas 5 would launch the OA-7 mission in March and that Orbital ATK was working with Kennedy Space Center to book facility time to process the Cygnus.
It was not immediately clear if NASA or Orbital ATK would pay for the extra costs associated with the Atlas 5 rocket.
Orbital ATK is under contract to deliver over 63,000 pounds of supplies to the space station via 10 missions through 2018. A follow-on contract has awarded a minimum of six missions through 2024.
“Orbital ATK’s remaining missions to be conducted in 2017 and 2018 under the CRS-1 contract will launch aboard the company’s Antares rockets from NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia,” the company statement says.
Atlas 5 was the gap-filler during Orbital ATK’s Antares problem period, prompting the firm to buy one, then two ULA rockets to fulfill its obligations to the space station program.
Flown 65 times since 2002, the Atlas 5 has performed 25 flights dedicated to the Defense Department, 14 commercial missions, 13 for the National Reconnaissance Office and 13 for NASA.
The new Cygnus launch will be accommodated by ULA’s plan to bolster its vehicle production and create more launch opportunities on the manifest. A spring launch slot was available for Orbital ATK to reserve on short notice.
The H-2A rocket set to launch with the Himawari 9 weather satellite rolled out to its launch pad at the Tanegashima Space Center on Tuesday. Credit: MHI
A sophisticated new Japanese weather satellite will ride an H-2A rocket into orbit Wednesday to start a 15-year mission tracking cyclones and helping meteorologists predict storm movements across the Asia-Pacific and Australia.
The Himawari 9 weather observatory is set to begin its trek to geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) above Earth on Wednesday from the Tanegashima Space Center, a spaceport nestled on the southern flank of Tanegashima Island in southern Japan.
Himawari 9 is the second of two identical weather satellites owned by the Japan Meteorological Agency to offer more detailed and more timely imagery of storms, clouds and other weather systems to forecasters in Japan and across the Western Pacific.
Liftoff of the 174-foot-tall (53-meter) H-2A rocket, built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, is set for 0620 GMT (2:20 a.m. EDT) Wednesday at the opening of a launch window that extends until 0918 GMT (5:18 a.m. EDT).
Launch is set for 3:20 p.m. Japan Standard Time, and it will take nearly a half-hour for the H-2A rocket to place Himawari 9 into an initial geostationary transfer orbit, an egg-shaped loop around Earth with a high point of 22,354 miles (35,976 kilometers), a low point of 155 miles (250 kilometers) and a tilt of 22.4 degrees to the equator.
Japanese officials delayed the launch 24 hours due to a poor weather forecast that could have prevented rollout of the H-2A rocket from its integration hangar Monday.
The weather improved Tuesday, and ground crews at Tanegashima rolled out the H-2A rocket on its mobile launch table around 1630 GMT (12:30 p.m. EDT). The 1,600-foot (500-meter) journey from the vertical assembly building to the launch pad took about 40 minutes to complete, and technicians planned to plug the launch platform into ground electrical and propellant supplies before fueling begins in the final hours of the countdown.
Once the launch team checks out the rocket’s systems and loads it with cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, an automated countdown sequencer will take over the final steps before liftoff.
The H-2A rocket will light its core LE-7A main engine, then ignite two strap-on solid rocket boosters to climb away from the launch pad atop nearly 1.4 million pounds of thrust.
The rocket’s flight computer will command the engine and booster nozzles to pivot moments after liftoff, directing the launcher on an easterly trajectory over the Pacific Ocean.
The H-2A will exceed the speed of sound in less than a minute, then the two solid rocket boosters will consume all their pre-packed propellant at T+plus 1 minute, 38 seconds. Ten seconds later, the boosters will fall away from the H-2A’s foam-covered core stage.
The two halves of the rocket’s clamshell-like nose cone will peel away at an altitude of 88 miles (142 kilometers) at T+plus 4 minutes, 5 seconds, revealing the Himawari 9 satellite to the space environment.
The LE-7A main engine, producing nearly 250,000 pounds of thrust, will shut down at T+plus 6 minutes, 36 seconds, after reaching a velocity of nearly 11,000 mph (4.9 kilometers per second).
Eight seconds later, the first stage and second stage will separate, followed by ignition of the upper stage’s hydrogen-fueled LE-5B engine at T+plus 6 minutes, 50 seconds. The powerplant will burn until T+plus 12 minutes, 12 seconds, to reach a preliminary low-altitude parking orbit, and then start up again at T+plus 23 minutes, 50 seconds, to climb to higher altitude.
The second LE-5B engine burn should end at T+plus 27 minutes, 7 seconds, after injecting the 7,700-pound (3,500 kilogram) Himawari 9 satellite into its intended orbit.
Deployment of Himawari 9 should occur at T+plus 27 minutes, 57 seconds, around 163 miles (263 kilometers) over the Pacific Ocean southeast of Hawaii.
Artist’s concept of the Himawari 8 and 9 satellites in orbit. Credit: MELCO
Built by Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Himawari 9 will maneuver into a circular orbit nearly 22,300 miles (35,700 kilometers) over the equator a few weeks after launch.
At that altitude, the spacecraft’s orbital velocity will match the rate of Earth’s rotation, allowing it to hover over Asia and the Pacific Ocean to collect real-time views of clouds and storms over the Eastern Hemisphere.
Himawari 9 will be parked at 140 degrees east longitude for a mission expected to last up to 15 years. It is Japan’s ninth geostationary weather observatory since the first satellite in the Himawari, or sunflower, series launched in 1977.
Japan launched the identical Himawari 8 weather satellite in October 2014, and a successful launch of Himawari 9 will allow Japan’s weather agency to retire the last pair of meteorological satellites — dubbed MTSAT 1R and MTSAT 2 — that have been in space in 2005 and 2006.
Forecasters from India to Australia have been relying on Himawari 8’s imagery since it entered service in 2015.
Himawari 8 and 9 carry advanced U.S.-built imaging cameras supplied by Harris Corp. The imagers can observe Earth in 16 visible and near-infrared color bands, while the previous generation of Japanese weather satellites were sensitive to five bands.
The new satellites can take a full picture of East Asia and the Western Pacific every 10 minutes, an improvement over the half-hour update times available with Japan’s MTSAT weather satellites.
The spacecraft’s imager can take pictures of certain areas, such as all of Japan, at even faster refresh rates — every 2.5 minutes.
There are also improvements in resolution with the Himawari 8 and 9 satellites, allowing meteorologists to see finer details at the centers of typhoons and better resolve volcanic ash and smoke plumes, fog and low-lying clouds.
