{"id":16662,"date":"2015-01-17T19:35:37","date_gmt":"2015-01-17T11:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/preview-navy-craft-to-ride-milestone-atlas-centaur-launching\/"},"modified":"2015-01-17T19:35:37","modified_gmt":"2015-01-17T11:35:37","slug":"preview-navy-craft-to-ride-milestone-atlas-centaur-launching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/preview-navy-craft-to-ride-milestone-atlas-centaur-launching\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview: Navy craft to ride milestone Atlas-Centaur launching"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Credit:
Credit: ULA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CAPE CANAVERAL \u2014 The 200th Atlas-Centaur rocket, history some 52 years in the making, will blast off Tuesday from Cape Canaveral to deliver a U.S. Navy mobile communications satellite into orbit.<\/p>\n

It is the most-powerful United Launch Alliance Atlas-Centaur configuration available, the 551 varient that will feature five strap-on solid-fuel boosters.<\/p>\n

Liftoff is targeted for 7:43 p.m. EST at the opening of a 44-minute window.<\/p>\n

First paired in 1962 for AC-1, the Atlas booster and the NASA-developed Centaur was the high-energy answer to unlock a pathway to the planets.<\/p>\n

The liquid hydrogen-liquid oxygen upper stage has launched spacecraft to every planet in our solar system, and Pluto, too. That distinction is earned, in part, thanks to Centaur\u2019s usage aboard Titan rockets as well, launching the twin Voyager probes in 1977.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s launch will be the 223rd Centaur, the 200th Atlas-Centaur and the 52nd Atlas 5 rocket flight. The 100th Atlas-Centaur occurred in 1996.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, it will be the third in a series of five Mobile User Objetive System (MUOS) spacecraft that will form the Navy\u2019s rugged cellphone network to span the globe.<\/p>\n

MUOS 1 was launched Feb. 24, 2012 aboard an Atlas 5 and MUOS 2 launched July 19, 2013 aboard another Atlas 5.<\/p>\n

The Atlas-Centaur rocket has been the expendable launch vehicle of choice for the Navy\u2019s narrowband UHF communications satellites dating back several spacecraft generations to the 1970s, exclusively carrying the entire Fleet Satellite Communications System, Ultra High Frequency Follow On series and now MUOS.<\/p>\n

A variety of Atlas-Centaur versions have been employed on the previous 21 Navy flights since 1978, all from Cape Canaveral.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Air Force launch patch.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt takes a special group of people to be in this business, and I am truly humbled to work among dedicated individuals who have exhibited a total focus on precision, a passion for the science of rocketry and space, and a deep commitment to our purpose,\u201d said Tory Bruno, ULA CEO.<\/p>\n

This launch begins a 13-launch manifest for ULA in 2015, following a 14-flight schedule successfully executed last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat ULA has accomplished (last) year, in support of our customers\u2019 missions, is nothing short of remarkable,\u201d said Bruno. \u201cWhen you think about every detail \u2013 all of the science, all of the planning, all of the resources \u2013 that goes into a single launch, it is hard to believe that we successfully did it at a rate of about once a month, sometimes twice.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 15,000 pounds, MUOS satellites are the heaviest Atlas-Centaur payloads ever launched.<\/p>\n

The Launch Readiness Review was held Friday morning and gave concurrence to proceed with the planned Tuesday evening liftoff. Final closeouts of the vehicle compartments were underway Friday and Saturday.<\/p>\n

The 206-foot-tall rocket, riding aboard its mobile launch platform, will be rolled out from the assembly building to the Complex 41 pad Monday morning.<\/p>\n

Atlas clocks begin ticking at lunch-time Tuesday for the seven-hour countdown. Fueling starts about two hours before liftoff.<\/p>\n

Weather forecasters are predicting a 60 percent chance of acceptable launch conditions. Cloud thickness is the primary worry.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"MUOS3_MOB_ART.pdf\"<\/p>\n

With five powerful solid rocket motors mounted to the first stage, the Atlas 5 will thunder skyward in its most energetic configuration, which has been employed only four times before to launch the first two MUOS satellites and to hurl NASA space probes to Jupiter and Pluto.<\/p>\n

The Atlas 5 is a modular launcher that enables mission designers to mix and match the number of solids and various nose cone selections to meet the needs of a given payload. The highly sophisticated and hefty MUOS series takes all the power.<\/p>\n

The spacecraft is packaged atop the rocket for a three-hour climb into its preliminary orbit, a highly elliptical dropoff point that requires three firings by the Centaur upper stage to achieve.<\/p>\n

From there, controllers will spend about eight days maneuvering the craft into a circular geosynchronous orbit 22,300 miles above the planet, then three days commanding the craft to spread its power-generating wings and unfurl two giant antennas on the ends of extension booms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis third MUOS launch is another major step toward achieving a fully operational MUOS end-to-end capability by 2016,\u201d said Navy Capt. Joseph Kan, the MUOS program manager.<\/p>\n

At the heart of the MUOS satellite\u2019s communications payload are two gold mesh, umbrella-like antenna reflectors, one to provide the same type of UHF communications like previous Navy spacecraft and the other offering modernized capabilities that the new system will create.<\/p>\n

Coverage to legacy users will transmit through a 17.7-foot-diameter reflector on the bottom of the MUOS craft and the advanced, multi-beam features of MUOS to significantly increase the transmission capacity over the Navy\u2019s previous satellites will use a large 46-foot reflector atop MUOS.<\/p>\n

All U.S. military forces rely upon Navy satellites for Ultra High Frequency narrowband communications. UHF offers small, portable units that forces can carry into battle and the frequency enables communications in urban canyons and mountainous terrain, penetrating foliage and transmitting through bad weather.<\/p>\n

\u201cMUOS is a game changer in communications for our warfighters and will allow them to have high-fidelity voice conversations, networked team calls and data exchange, including video, with anyone connected to a secure terminal around the world,\u201d said Iris Bombelyn, vice president of Narrowband Communications at Lockheed Martin. \u201cThe launch of MUOS 3 will increase our network coverage to about three-quarters of the globe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Credit:
Credit: Lockheed Martin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Each MUOS satellite has 16 times the capacity of the aging UHF satellite constellation.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the new satellites not only support the current user terminals in operation but also creates a new \u201crugged smartphone\u201d network to provide 3G-like cellular telephone and data services across the globe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Navy, in close collaboration with the Army, Air Force and our industry partners, is bringing the future of worldwide mobile satellite communications into reality for the United States and potentially allied nations,\u201d said Kan.<\/p>\n

The MUOS craft were built on Lockheed Martin\u2019s A2100 satellite design used by dozens of previous communications spacecraft. All five MUOS craft are clones to each other, with four slated to be operational satellites in the constellation and one considered an on-orbit spare.<\/p>\n

MUOS 4 is targeting a launch in August, followed by MUOS 5 next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the launch of the third satellite in the constellation, to be followed later in 2015 by the fourth, MUOS will be in place to provide pole-to-pole and global, secure communications for the warfighter,\u201d said Bombelyn.<\/p>\n

See our earlier MUOS 3 coverage.<\/p>\n

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

Credit: ULA CAPE CANAVERAL \u2014 The 200th Atlas-Centaur rocket, history some 52 years in the making, will blast off Tuesday from Cape Canaveral to deliver a U.S. Navy mobile communications satellite into orbit. It is the most-powerful United Launch Alliance Atlas-Centaur configuration available, the 551 varient that will feature five strap-on solid-fuel boosters. Liftoff is […]<\/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":[724,725,4183,4162,1695,257,4163,750],"class_list":["post-16662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-atlas-5","tag-atlas-5-551","tag-atlas-centaur","tag-av-052","tag-cape-canaveral","tag-military-space","tag-muos-3","tag-united-launch-alliance"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16662"}],"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=16662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}