{"id":16449,"date":"2015-03-25T20:01:15","date_gmt":"2015-03-25T12:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/recap-story-new-bird-flies-for-gps-navigation-network\/"},"modified":"2015-03-25T20:01:15","modified_gmt":"2015-03-25T12:01:15","slug":"recap-story-new-bird-flies-for-gps-navigation-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/recap-story-new-bird-flies-for-gps-navigation-network\/","title":{"rendered":"Recap story: New bird flies for GPS navigation network"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Credit:
Credit: ULA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CAPE CANAVERAL \u2014 Climbing away from Earth on the power of its liquid hydrogen-fueled main engine and twin solid rockets, a Delta 4 booster successfully launched a new Global Positioning System satellite Wednesday to benefit U.S. military operations and civilian society as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis thing called GPS is such a treasure to humanity,\u201d said Lt. Col. Matthew Brandt, 2nd Space Operations Squadron ops director .<\/p>\n

Lifting off at 2:36 p.m. EDT, the 721,000-pound Delta rocket rapidly darted through fog hanging over pad 37B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and arced to the northeast to reach Plane B of the navigation network.<\/p>\n

It is in that orbital grouping that a once-retired, 22-year-old GPS satellite brought back to life is finally being replaced after Air Force ground controllers extracted all the useful out of the bird.<\/p>\n

The Delta 4 finished first stage in four minutes, then transitioned to its second stage and jettisoned the 13-foot diameter, 39-foot-long composite nose cone. The second stage\u2019s initial burn reached a preliminary orbit, concluding less than 16 minutes into flight over the North Atlantic.<\/p>\n

Coasting above Europe, the Middle East and Indian Ocean, a second burn by the second stage more than three hours after liftoff finished the powered phase of flight to reach the proper orbit, the 24th successful Delta 4 launch for the Air Force.<\/p>\n

\"Credit:
Credit: ULA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Deployment of the $245 million payload into an 11,000 nautical mile circular orbit, tilted 55 degrees to the equator occurred 3 hours and 14 minutes into flight.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my humble opinion we must protect and augment GPS to ensure it meets the user\u2019s needs,\u201d said Dr. Brad Parkinson, one of the founding fathers of GPS.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe signals are great, accuracies down to a millimeter, availability close to 100 percent and a GPS receiver costs about a dollar and a half.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new satellite will be checked out and enter service in a month\u2019s time, becoming the ninth Block 2F spacecraft in the constellation. The Boeing-built satellites feature improved accuracy, enhanced anti-jamming and longer design lives.<\/p>\n

GPS 2F-9 will replace the GPS 2A-22 satellite originally launched aboard Delta 222 on August 30, 1993.<\/p>\n

It previously was decommissioned from active service in 2009, hung around in orbit as a spare, then was set usable again in 2011. The satellite was declared unusable in 2013 and decommissioned a second time. It was tested yet again in 2014.<\/p>\n

Now, a fresh spacecraft is going up as a permanent replacement.<\/p>\n

There are 30 operational satellites today, including three GPS 2A, 12 GPS 2R, 7 GPS 2R-M and eight GPS 2F spacecraft.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, we\u2019re running a full GPS constellation,\u201d said Bill Causey, Aerospace Corp. senior project leader for spacecraft and system engineering. \u201cIt provides very accurate navigation and timing signals for customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The continuous navigation signals emitted by GPS satellites allow users to find their position in latitude, longitude and altitude and measure time. A GPS user receiver measures the time delay for the signal to reach the receiver, which is the direct measure of the apparent range to the satellite.<\/p>\n

\"Credit:
Credit: Aerospace Corp.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cGPS is very simple concept but very, very difficult to implement in its greatest detail,\u201d said Rita Lollock, Aerospace Corp. general manager of the navigation division.<\/p>\n

Measurements collected simultaneously from four satellites are processed to solve for the three dimensions of position, velocity and time.<\/p>\n

The constellation is comprised of six orbital groupings, or planes, that circle the planet at a tilt of 55 degrees inclination relative to the equator, allowing their paths to cover most of the populated globe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entire world now depends on GPS for navigation and for timing, and it\u2019s a signal you can trust,\u201d Causey said.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s launch was the 371st for a Delta rocket since 1960 and the 29th Delta 4 vehicle. It also marked the 69th GPS satellite launch, the 55th to use a Delta rocket and the sixth Block 2F on Delta. For United Launch Alliance, it was the company\u2019s 95th launch overall since 2006 and the fourth of 13 this year.<\/p>\n

ULA intends to phase out the Delta 4-Medium configurations, leaving only the triple-body Delta 4-Heavy rocket in service after 2019. The company will continue flying the less-expensive Atlas 5 rocket and develop its Next Generation Launch System vehicle with an American-made main engine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NGLS will have an American engine, it will be less expensive and it will have greater capability than our current fleet,\u201d said ULA President Tory Bruno.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are the world\u2019s premier provider of launch services. We build rockets and fly our rockets from LEO (low-Earth orbit) to Pluto. We launch our country\u2019s most important payloads and we touch your lives every single day. If you ever used a GPS to find where you are going, we helped you get there.\u201d<\/p>\n

As few as 15 Delta launches now remain through 2020. See our page with flight history and the remaining backlog of the Delta 4 rocket.<\/p>\n

See our earlier GPS 2F-9 coverage.<\/p>\n

And see our Delta archive for further information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Credit: ULA CAPE CANAVERAL \u2014 Climbing away from Earth on the power of its liquid hydrogen-fueled main engine and twin solid rockets, a Delta 4 booster successfully launched a new Global Positioning System satellite Wednesday to benefit U.S. military operations and civilian society as a whole. \u201cThis thing called GPS is such a treasure to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[437,670,1962,4085,1688,2015,4086,25],"class_list":["post-16449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-air-force","tag-boeing","tag-complex-37","tag-delta-371","tag-delta-4","tag-gps","tag-gps-2f-9","tag-launch"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16449"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}