Recently in Satellites Category

An ILS Proton Breeze M rocket successfully launched the Nimiq 6 commercial communications satellite for the satellite operator Telesat at 1912 GMT on 17 May from the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan.  After a 9 hour 14 minute 5-burn mission, the Breeze M upper stage successfully released the satellite into its planned geostationary transfer orbit.  The satellite, which uses a version of the Space Systems Loral, SS/L-1300 bus design, will use its on-board propulsion to positition itself into its final geostationary Earth orbit position.

The Japanese climate change monitoring satellite GCOM-W1 (Shizuku) was launched successfully at 1639 GMT on 17th May 2012 by a Japanese H-2A202 launch vehicle.  The lift off took place at Japan's main launch site at Tanegashima. Also aboard was the South Korean Earth observation satellite Kompsat 3 and two small satellites: the Houryuu 2 (aka Houryuu 2) amateur radio satellite and the experimental satellite SDS 4.

As the Malaysian satellite operator Measat sues Intelsat over an alleged breach of contract and for alleged lost earnings due to a damage-related launch delay, Measat has revealed details about exactly how the damage was done to its Measat 3A satellite.

While it was known that the Measat 3A communications satellite was struck by an overhead crane hook duriing its Baikonur launch preparations in August 2008 (for which led a pre-launch insurance claim was paid out), less well known is that in November 2008, as the spacecraft was being loaded into its transport aircraft on its way back to the satellite's maker, Orbital Sciences, for repairs, the Measat 3A satellite was accidently dropped by another crane.  In the end Measat 3A was returned and successfully repaired, and was finally launched by a Zenit 3 SLB rocket flying from Baikonur in June 2009.

The Russian military spacecraft designated Cosmos 2480 was successfully launched at 1405 GMT on 17 May by a Soyuz U launch vehicle flying from the Plesetsk launch site in Northern Russia.  The spacecraft is believed to be a Yantar-4K2M (Kobalt M) class military reconnaissance satellite.

An Ariane 5 ECA launch vehicle successfully launched the Japansese commercial communications satellite JCSAT-13 along with the Vietnamese communications satellite Vinasat 2 at 2213 GMT on 15 May 2012 from the Kourou launch site in French Guiana.  

Both satellites, which are to be finally placed in geostationary Earth orbit (GEO), used versions of hte A2100 bus design built by Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems.

Courtesy: BAE Systems

The UK Government has just reversed a decision on which type of F-35 fighter aircraft it wants for its new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers which are currently under construction.  Fearful of any costly development hitches over new technology electromagnetic catapults/traps, the government has decided to go back to the STOVL  "jump jet" F-35B version rather than having the longer range US Navy-style F-35C tail-hook/arrestor hook landing type.  

The decision has its dangers, not least because the costly-to-develop vertically landing F-35B might still be cancelled as it so nearly was in 2011.  In that event, the Royal Navy would be in the unhappy position of having aircraft carriers with no aircraft to fly off them, especially given that the UK's Ministry of Defence has already sold its remaining Harrier GR7 and GR9 strike bombers to the Americans.  

Is bringing the Sea Harrier out of retirement feasible in an emergency? 

Of course, the Royal Navy could try and dig its prematurely retired Sea Harriers out of their museums and engineering training establishments (the final FA-2 version of the Sea Harrier fighter was highly rated for its Blue Vixen radar/AMRAAM missile fit).  However, Ascend's analysis is that only about 10 to 12 of these could be restored to flying condition and that any such recovery could take several months.  Even this discounts all the ground and aircrew training that would be needed for such an emergency squadron resuscitation.

Whether the F-35B proves to be the right choice of carrier jet fighter or not, some critics are wondering if the United Kingdom needs aircraft carriers at all.  In recent newspaper and television interviews, Sir John Nott, who was the UK Defence Secretary at the time of the Falklands War in 1982, said he still did not think that the Royal Navy needed aircraft carriers.  His conclusion remains erroneous and even a little ungrateful, especially given that it was the same Sea Harrier-toting aircraft carriers that he had previously tried to scrap or sell off, which allowed the Falklands War to be won.

Carriers are very useful but they are vulnerable

While Sir John Nott and his fellow carrier critics are probably wrong about their utility, it has to be accepted that due to their size and military value, aircraft carriers do make very vulnerable and attractive targets.  Just as the one-time king of the seven seas, the battleship, was soon rendered impotent by the advent of carrier-borne dive-bombers and the threat of torpedos launched from aircraft and submarines, so the inheritor of the battleship's crown, the aircraft carrier, may soon find its own reign usurped by the arrival of a new weapon class:  diving anti-ship missiles.

After Exocet's lethality was demonstrated in the Falklands War, a lot of effort was put into developing missile and gun defences against Exocet-class sea-skimming anti-ship missiles and, most recently, against their satellite-targeted  supersonic successors (e.g. india's Brahmos missile).  However, now a very different kind of anti-ship missile is threating naval ships.  These are ballistic missiles which have been especially designed to make high velocity diving attacks "from the Gods".  

China and Iran are developing diving anti-ship missiles

An example of this new missile type is China's DF-21D which has been specifically designed to target US Navy aircraft carriers and deny them an operational position in close proximity to China's territory (or a disputed territory like Taiwan).  These missiles are thought to be remotely targeted,  using data-relayed target observations from China's Yaogan/Jianbing  radar and optical reconnaissance satellites, and from airborne reconnaissance aircraft, before  finally employing a sophisticated optical seeker for the terminal guidance of their final diving strikes. 

It is not just China that has worked on this type of anti-ship missile technology with aim of making an "area denial" to carriers.   Iran has boasted about its own shorter range ballistic diving missile system called Khalije Fars and has even had its official FARS news agency post images and footage of one of its successful missile tests - albeit that it hits an admittedly stationary target ship.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc7eUO1aw9M&feature=fvwrel

Nevertheless, while the technology is still relatively young, these ballistic diving missiles, once perfected, could mark the retirement of the carrier as a serious offensice weapons platform.   The US and Royal Navies have one hope for their carrier operations:  that is that  anti-ballistic missile systems carried by their carriers' escort vessels, such as the US Navy's Standard Missile SM-3 and Royal Navy's Aster 30 (Sea Viper), will be able to intercept such hostile missiles during their hypersonic approaches and supersonic terminal dives.  But they will have to do so without failure if their carriers are to survive.   

The answer:  Spread the risk and put F-35B jets on lots of ships

China has launched the Yaogan 14 electro-optical military reconnaissance satellite into a near-polar sun- synchronous low Earth orbit on 10 May.   The launch took place at 0706 GMT, lifting off from the Taiyuan launch site.  The flight used a Long March 4B launch vehicle.   

Being launched with Yaogan 14 was a small science satellite called Tiantuo 1 (TT-1).  This satellite is officially for "scientific purposes" and was built by China's National University of Defence Technology (NUDT), based in Changsha, Hunan Province.  The university is reported to be under the supervision of China's Ministries of Defence and Education.

Following its loss of contact on 8 April, and a subsequent failure to recover the spacecraft, the European Space Agency (ESA) has formally declared that the Envisat environmental and remote sensing satellite mission is now over. 

Since the failure, engineers and scientists from ESA and Envisat's manufacturer Astrium have struggled to recontact the craft. The attempt at fault finding and recovery even enlisted ground radar and telescopes on Earth and Pleiades imaging satellites in space.  However, in the end all the effort was fruitless. 

Artist's impression of the Envisat spacecraft.  Courtesy: Astrium

Despite the formal ending of the mission, engineers will continue to investigate the failure and carry on with attempts to recontact the craft.  For the time being, an internal power regulator failure or short circuit is suspected of causing the sudden failure of the telemetry and command system or its safe mode solar pointing default procedure; failures that there would normally be no way back from.    

Launched in March 2002, Envisat exceeded its five year minimum design life by over five years.  During its ten year life the spacecraft has yielded valuable Earth monitoring data covering weather, atmospheric and temperature measurements as well as providing optical and infrared imagery.  Concerns remain within the climate change science community that the dataset will now be significantly interrupted until ESA's new Sentinel spacecraft from Europe's Global Monitoring for Environmental Security (GMES) programme, can come online.

The US military should benefit from the launch of its latest communications satellite, AEHF-2.  The military communications satellite was launched successfully at 1842 GMT on 4 May 2012 via a United Launch Alliance (ULA) operated ATLAS V 531 launch from Cape Canaveral.  

An ATLAS V 531 flew the AEHF 2 military communications spacecraft into orbit.  Courtesy: ULA/Pat Corkery

The next launch into orbit was from China's Jiuquan launch base when a Long March 2D/2 launched the Tian Hui 1B Earth observation satellite successfully at 0710 GMT on 6 May 2012.

The first Falcon 9/Dragon C2+ launch to the International Space Station was delayed to 19 May to conduct further software checks on the Dragon capsule.

While your correspondent cannot call himself a huge fan of the game, by family tradition, he supports the London football team of Queen's Park Rangers (QPR).   Nevertheless, it was to his surpise, that, during one of his irregular trips to a very tense relegation avoidance match (against Stoke), that in between all the swearing and booing at the opposing team, the fans appeared to be chanting their support for the NASA's now retired and re-entered Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS).    While it sounded like "Come on UARS!" in fact what they were actually chanting was "Come On You Rs!"  (Rs is the nickname for Rangers).

On a more serious subject, sport (especially Premier league football) remains the main reason that BSkyB's subscription satellite television operation remains so popular.  Its £1 billion a year profitability is why Rupert Murdoch is so keen to gain control of the firm (nearly bringing down a Prime Minister in the process). 

Actually, so great are its reveneus that satellite television has skewed the analysis of figures on UK satellite industry.  Recently, the UK Space Agency has been crowing about how "space revenues" are growing at circa 10% - and that is in a recession.  However it should be realised that lot of this business is, in fact, in the form of revenues from derivative interests such as satellite broadcasting. satellite services, and space insurance.  While this growth and revenue does feed downwards (or rather upstream) to the rest of the industry, sadly, satellite and launch vehicle manufacturing remains a very small business in the United Kingdom. 

Nevertheless, due to its high-added-value small volume manufacturing nature, space remains one of the few high tech industries (Formula One motor racing is another example) that the UK can genuinely compete and succeed in.   

As such, like QPR, the UK Space Industry gets this writer's well deserved, if a little too irregular, support.