Atlas 5 launches weather satellite, reentry tech demo mission

An Atlas 5 successfully launched a polar-orbiting weather satellite and a reentry technology demonstrator on the final flight of the vehicle from California. The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 401 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 3 at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 4:49 a.m. Eastern Nov. 10. A problem loading liquid oxygen in the rocket’s Centaur upper stage delayed the liftoff by 24 minutes, two-thirds of the way into the 36-minute launch window. The Centaur upper stage deployed the mission’s primary payload, the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) 2 satellite, 28 minutes after liftoff, placing it into a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of approximately 800 kilometers. The spacecraft made contact with controllers shortly after deployment. However, NASA reported nerly three hours after liftoff that they had yet to receive telemetry that the solar array deployed as planned. JPSS-2 is the second of four planned polar-orbiting weather satellites in the JPSS program to provide weather data for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. JPSS-1, built by Ball Aerospace, launched in 2017 and is in service as NOAA-20. An older satellite, Suomi NPP, also provides weather data from polar orbit but is nearing the end of its life as it runs out of stationkeeping propellant. Northrop Grumman built JPSS-2 and has contracts for JPSS-3 and -4, which will provide continuity for the JPSS program into the 2030s. Steve Krein, vice president of civil and commercial space at Northrop Grumman, said in an October interview that the company is “well along” in the production of the two future JPSS satellites.

An Atlas 5 lifts off Nov. 10 from Vandenberg Space Force Base carrying the JPSS-2 weather satellite and LOFTID tech demo. Credit: NASA TV

The satellites use the latest version of Northrop’s LEOStar-3 bus. “We’ve got a new avionics suite, we’ve got a new set of sensors, wheels, star trackers, et cetera, that we brought to bear both for the Landsat [9] mission and the JPSS mission,” he said. “It’s a continuous upgrade in components and operating paradigms.”

The JPSS satellites provide critical weather data that complements observations by the GOES series of satellites in geostationary orbit. “JPSS data is a major input into U.S. and international global numerical weather prediction models,” said Jordan Gerth, meteorologist and satellite scientist at NOAA’s National Weather Service, during a pre-launch briefing Nov. 8. “With JPSS, the quality of local three- to seven-day weather forecasts is outstanding.”

A secondary payload on the launch was the Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID), a technology demonstration of an inflatable heat shield. LOFTID separated from the Centaur 75 minutes after liftoff, after the upper stage performed two burns to place it on a reentry trajectory.

The vehicle appeared to perform as expected through reentry, deploying a parachute and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean east of Hawaii 2 hours and 13 minutes after liftoff. A recovery vessel will pick up the spacecraft as well as a separate data recorder ejected from LOFTID before splashdown.

LOFTID is designed to test the performance of an inflatable decelerator six meters across, collecting data during reentry before splashing down east of Hawaii. NASA is interested in using that technology, scaled up, for landing future Mars missions too large for existing entry, descent and landing systems. ULA, which cooperated with NASA on LOFTID through a Space Act Agreement, is studying using that technology for recovering engines from its Vulcan rocket.

The launch was the 100th mission for NASA’s Launch Services Program, which coordinates launches for NASA science missions. It is also the final Atlas 5 launch for the program and the final Atlas 5 launch from Vandenberg. ULA will convert the launch pad for use by Vulcan.

Jet taking off from Florida will launch NASA weather satellite

After a two-year delay, NASA is ready to use a jet aircraft to launch a new space weather satellite from Florida on Thursday night, weather permitting. The Ionospheric Connection Explorer or ICON satellite will help NASA understand and predict how solar flares interact with the earth's atmosphere and magnetic field, including our planet's deadly Van Allen radiation belts. The data is expected to help satellites avoid radiation.The rocket will be carried high over the Atlantic from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on a Northrop Grumman L-1011 Stargazer aircraft. When it's about 50 to 100 miles east of Daytona Beach, it will drop a 52,000-pound Pegasus XL rocket and payload. The rocket will ignite and carry the satellite into orbit. Previous launches in 2017 and 2018 were delayed due to faulty sensors and vibrations detected from the rocket as it was carried by the jet, Northrop Grumman officials said. Those issues were corrected after lengthy, difficult testing during which engineers had to mimic the conditions of the rocket's high-altitude journey. Despite the delays, the mission is coming in at its original budget of $252 million, NASA officials said. "This satellite will help us get exactly the right physics, and you will now have a much more accurate prediction about what that solar flare is going to do," said Nicola Fox, heliophysics division director for NASA. The flight is set to take off about 8:32 p.m. Thursday. The rocket should launch after about one hour, at roughly 40,000 feet. NASA will broadcast the event starting at 9:15 p.m. The rocket itself will only fly for about 10 minutes before releasing its payload.

Weather delayed the launch Wednesday night. There's a better chance for good launch conditions Thursday night - 70 percent, according to the U.S. Air Force.

The Pegasus has launched 90 satellites on 43 previous missions, according to Northrop.

Dropping the rocket is "the most exciting part of the flight," said Phil Joyce, vice president of space launch programs at the company. A copilot on board actually pushes a switch to drop the Pegasus, if weather and all other conditions are good.

"It's dropping 52,000 pounds, but the plane still has the same lift," he said. "So the plane climbs fairly rapidly about 1,200 to 1,500 feet as the rocket drops for about 5 seconds before firing. That also gives us safety margin of distance."

NASA believes the ionosphere, where the Sun ionizes the air to create charged particles, is significantly influenced by storms in Earth's lower atmosphere. ICON will also help NASA better understand how atmospheric winds control ionospheric variability.

Northrop Grumman began air-launching Pegasus rockets in 1990, when one launched from beneath a NASA B-52 aircraft.

Pegasus launches have been conducted from six separate sites in the United States, Europe and the Marshall Islands.

A crew of seven will be on the ICON mission plane when it takes off. In case of storms or other delays, there is a 90-minute launch window.

MetOp-C ready for big day

With liftoff set for 7 November, the latest MetOp weather satellite has been rolled out to the launch pad and positioned on the Soyuz rocket for its ride into space from French Guiana. MetOp-C is the last in the current series of MetOp satellites, following on from MetOp-A and MetOp-B, which were launched in 2006 and 2012, respectively. Launching the satellites sequentially ensures continuous observations of a host of atmospheric variables such as temperature, humidity, trace gases, ozone, and wind speed over the ocean. These data are used mainly for numerical weather prediction - the basis for weather forecasting. Recent studies show that MetOp-A and MetOp-B have already reduced errors in one-day forecasts by as much as 27%. The satellites have all been developed by ESA under a cooperation agreement with EUMETSAT for the space segment of the EUMETSAT Polar System. This is also Europe's contribution to a multi-satellite system shared with the US NOAA agency. While it was envisaged that each successive satellite would take over from its predecessor, their extraordinary quality means that MetOp-A and MetOp-B are still going strong. Once MetOp-C has been launched and commissioned for service, EUMETSAT will have three satellites in the same orbit, equally spaced by 120 . This will benefit weather forecasting even more. MetOp-C has been at Europe's Spaceport in Kourou for a few months being carefully prepared for liftoff and its life in space.

ESA's MetOp-C Project Manager, Stefane Carlier, said, "MetOp is a large satellite carrying an array of instruments. Teams from ESA, EUMETSAT, Airbus Defence and Space and instruments suppliers have been working hard to get to this point.

"We had to say good-bye when the satellite was sealed in the Soyuz fairing and rolled out to the launch pad.

"While it is mainly in the hands of Arianespace for launch, ESA will still be playing a role in its big day, particularly through our teams here in Kourou for the countdown and teams at our operations centre in Germany who are responsible for the mission's first critical days in orbit.

"Ownership of MetOp-C will be transferred to EUMETSAT after liftoff."

MetOp-C will liftoff on 7 November at 00:47 GMT (01:47 CET), 6 November 21:47 local time.