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After months of delays caused by problems with launch vehicles and the coronavirus pandemic, a Russian Soyuz rocket and the Fregat upper stage took off from South America and delivered the French-built Falcon Eye 2 military observation satellite on a Tuesday night. orbit on target for the United States. United Arab Emirates.
The kerosene-powered Soyuz ST-A launcher took off from the Guiana Space Center on the northeastern coast of South America at 20:33:28 EST Tuesday (0133: 28 GMT Wednesday) with the Falcon Eye 2 reconnaissance satellite of the UAE military, a jointly developed mission by the European space industry supports Airbus and Thales Alenia Space.
The Russian-built rocket flew off its launch pad in French Guiana with more than 900,000 pounds of thrust and quickly disappeared into the clouds above the tropical spaceport.
Takeoff took place at 10:33 pm local time in French Guiana after mission leaders canceled two previous launch attempts on Sunday and Monday due to bad weather and an issue with telemetry reception at a survey station. to the ground.
Soyuz threw its four liquid-fueled first-stage boosters overboard about two minutes into the flight as the rocket ascended north from the Guiana Space Center. Officials confirmed the good layoffs of the second and third phases of the Soyuz in the first nine minutes of the mission.
A Fregat upper stage separated from the Soyuz third stage for a couple of engine burns to place the Falcon Eye 2 in an egg-shaped transfer orbit, then in a circular synchronous polar orbit at a target altitude of 379 miles or 611 kilometers.
Soyuz rocket takeoff from French Guiana with Falcon Eye 2, launching a new global surveillance facility for the UAE. https://t.co/NRR21H8sOj pic.twitter.com/vXbNqz5VUu
– Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) 2 December 2020
The upper stage performed those maneuvers as designed, and the Fregat deployed the 2,623-pound (1,190-kilogram) Falcon Eye 2 spacecraft nearly 59 minutes after take-off as it flew within range of a monitoring station in Australia.
Arianespace, the French launch services company overseeing the mission on Tuesday evening, said the mission was successful.
“I confirm that tonight we have had success with our Soyuz launcher,” said Stéphane Israël, CEO of Arianespace. “Falcon Eye is in targeted orbit.”
Designed for a 10-year mission, the Falcon Eye 2 satellite will collect high-resolution images for downlink to the UAE military. With global coverage, the spacecraft provides the UAE with an independent source of space surveillance data for use in military campaigns, intelligence analysis and strategic planning.
According to Michel Roux, ground teams at an Airbus control facility in Toulouse, France were expected to receive the first signals from Falcon Eye 2 on Friday, starting a 10-day trial period before handing over control of the satellite to engineers. Abu Dhabi, according to Michel Roux, Director of the Falcon Eye Program at Airbus.
“We will check that the satellite and ground system are fully operational, then the system will be officially handed over to the UAE, giving them fully autonomous access to ultra-high resolution space imagery,” said Philippe Pham, vice president of Earth observation. , navigation and science at Airbus. “This will be a capability that only a handful of countries in the world have.”
The launch of the Falcon Eye 2 satellite comes more than a year after an identical observation vehicle called the Falcon Eye 1 was lost in a rocket failure.
Falcon Eye 1 was launched in July 2019 on a European Vega rocket, but the launcher failed during the second phase of its mission. The rocket and Falcon Eye 1 crashed to Earth before entering orbit.
The Falcon Eye 1 mission was insured for 369 million euros, or $ 407 million, including the satellite’s value and launch, according to Space News.
Officials from the UAE government, which owns the billion-dollar Falcon Eye program, decided after last year’s failure to swap the launch of the identical Falcon Eye 2 satellite into Arianespace’s launch program from a Vega rocket to a Soyuz booster.
The light-class Vega rocket is one of three launchers operated by Arianespace from the Guiana Space Center, along with the Russian-made Soyuz medium lift launcher and the heavy lift Ariane 5 rocket.
After switching to a Soyuz rocket, the Falcon Eye 2 satellite was due to take off in March. But technical problems with the Soyuz rocket’s Fregat upper stage and delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic have forced officials to reschedule the flight for November.
Technical and meteorological delays therefore forced managers to keep the Falcon Eye 2 satellite on the ground from the scheduled launch date Saturday until Tuesday night.
The Vega mission originally assigned to launch Falcon Eye 2 – known as VV17 in the Arianespace launch manifesto – was also found to have failed in flight. The failed launch on November 16 destroyed a Spanish Earth observation satellite and a French research probe. It was the second failure for a Vega rocket in its last three missions, following a successful return-to-fly launch in September.
Airbus Defense and Space built the Falcon Eye satellites and Thales Alenia Space provided high-resolution optical imaging payloads for both spacecraft.
The agreement between the UAE and the French industry to build Falcon Eye satellites was brokered with support from the French government, but a US government safety review delayed the final signing of the contract between UAE, Airbus and Thales until 2014. The satellites use some components made in the United States, prompting the Obama administration to temporarily suspend the deal until officials finally approved the export of the US parts for the use by the armed forces of the United Arab Emirates.
The two Falcon Eye spacecraft were built on the design of the French Pleiades Earth Imaging Satellites launched in 2011 and 2012 and reportedly have a resolution of around 2.3 feet, or 70 centimeters, in their mode. high resolution imaging.
In remarks during the Arianespace launch webcast on Tuesday evening, Roux said the exact imaging capabilities of the Falcon Eye 2 are “confidential.”
Under the agreement, European companies provide the Falcon Eye satellite, ground systems and training to Emirati engineers.
“Falcon Eye is not just a satellite,” Pham said. “It is a complete space system, including the ground segment and image processing capabilities. It will provide high quality Earth observation images for our customers.”
The launch on Tuesday evening was the 24th flight of a Soyuz rocket from the Guyana Space Center since October 2011 and the 12th flight of the venerable Russian launcher this year from French Guiana, Kazakhstan and Russia.
It was the eighth Arianespace mission of 2020. The company plans two more launches later this year, both with Soyuz missiles.
A Soyuz launcher is expected to carry 36 OneWeb broadband satellites into orbit from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia on December 17. The French Army’s CSO 2 optical reconnaissance satellite will be launched on December 28 on a Soyuz rocket from the Guiana Space Center.
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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.
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