Tag: DMSP
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SpaceX launches Space Force weather satellite designed to take over for a program with roots to the 1960s
The Weather System Follow-on – Microwave (WSF-M) space vehicle was successfully encapsulated April 8, 2024, ahead of its scheduled launch as the U.S. Space Force (USSF)-62 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., marking a major milestone on its upcoming launch into low Earth orbit. Image: SpaceX SpaceX launched a military weather satellite designed to…
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Air Force ends effort to recover DMSP weather satellite
Artist’s concept of a DMSP weather satellite in orbit. Credit: U.S. Air Force Attempts to restore the U.S. Air Force’s newest weather satellite to service have ended, a military spokesperson said Wednesday, cutting a planned five-year mission short less than two years after it launched. The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Flight 19, or DMSP F19, spacecraft…
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Engineers lose control of U.S. military weather satellite
Artist’s concept of a DMSP weather satellite in orbit. Credit: Lockheed Martin The U.S. Air Force has been unable to send commands to the service’s newest weather satellite for nearly a month, and engineers are trying to determine if the spacecraft can be salvaged, officials said last week. The polar-orbiting Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Flight…
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DMSP satellite’s break-up linked to battery failure
Artist’s concept of a DMSP satellite in orbit. Credit: U.S. Air Force Investigators have traced the cause of an in-space disintegration of a U.S. Air Force weather satellite in February to a battery fault and identified six other spacecraft in orbit prone to the same failure. Engineers originally suspected the polar-orbiting satellite’s power system was…
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DMSP satellite debris expected to remain in orbit for decades
This rendering shows the spreading of the DMSP F13 fragmentation cloud to form a band of debris. The debris is represented in exaggerated size. Credit: University of Southampton Satellite shards scattered by the explosion of an aging U.S. military weather spacecraft in February will remain in orbit for many decades, according to researchers who specialize…
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Power system failure likely cause of military satellite explosion
Artist’s concept of a DMSP weather satellite in orbit. Credit: U.S. Air Force The U.S. Air Force says a temperature spike in the power system of a nearly 20-year-old weather satellite may have led to the spacecraft’s explosion in orbit, scattering more than 40 fragments of debris that could be flying around Earth for decades.…