Arianespace lansira drugi satelit za daljinsko zaznavanje Pléiades Neo

A European Vega rocket launched from French Guiana Monday night with Airbus’s second Pléiades Neo remote sensing satellite, two European Space Agency CubeSats to track space weather, a student-built nanosatellite from Italy, and a small maritime surveillance payload from the French company Unseenlabs.

The Vega rocket’s solid-fueled booster stage ignited and vaulted the 98-toot-tall (30-meter) launcher off the pad at the Guiana Space Center in South America at 9:47:06 p.m. EDT Monday (0147:06 GMT Tuesday).

Heading north from the tropical spaceport, the Vega rocket exceeded the speed of sound in less than 30 seconds and shed its spent first stage about two minutes after liftoff. Two more solid-fueled motors fired in succession to send the mission’s five payloads into space.

The rocket’s Swiss-made payload shroud jettisoned after the initial climb above Earth’s atmosphere.

A liquid-fueled upper stage, known as the Attitude and Vernier Upper Module, ignited two times to maneuver the Pléiades Neo 4 spacecraft into its targeted polar orbit at an altitude of roughly 388 miles (625 kilometers). The satellite separated from the AVUM upper stage about 54-and-a-half minutes after liftoff.

Liftoff of a Vega rocket from French Guiana, hauling Airbus’s Pléiades Neo 4 Earth observation satellite and four European CubeSats into polar orbit. https://t.co/cc7v8fPmiC pic.twitter.com/xMBAGijFfg

- Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) Avgust 17, 2021

Two more burns by the AVUM upper stage reduced the rocket’s altitude to around 344 miles (554 kilometers) for separation of four smaller rideshare payloads more than an hour-and-a-half into the mission.

Arianespace, the French company that oversees launches from the Guiana Space Center, declared the mission a success. It was the 17th successful flight of a Vega rocket in 19 launches since 2012.

The 2,032-pound (922-kilogram) Pléiades Neo 4 atellite will take a position in a similar orbit as the Pléiades Neo 3 spacecraft that launched in April, but will fly in a slot 180 degrees from its counterpart to begin enabling repeat coverage of the same location on Earth.

Sateliti Pléiades Neo so izboljšani v primerjavi s prvo generacijo Airbusovih satelitov za opazovanje Zemlje Pléiades, ki so bili izstreljeni leta 2011 in 2012. Zadnja dva satelita Pléiades Neo bosta leta 2022 izstreljena skupaj z raketo Vega C – nadgrajeno različico lansirne naprave Vega.

Airbus pravi, da je v celoti financiral razvoj satelitov Pléiades Neo z namenom komercialne prodaje posnetkov zasebnim podjetjem in vladnim uporabnikom. Podjetje je leta 2016 napovedalo program Pléiades Neo, Airbus pa sestavlja vesoljsko plovilo Pléiades Neo v svojem obratu v Toulousu v Franciji.

Program štirih satelitov Airbus stane približno 600 milijonov evrov ali približno 700 milijonov dolarjev.

The Pléiades Neo satellites can produce optical imagery of Earth’s surface with a resolution of 11.8 inches, or 30 centimeters, according to Airbus. That’s good enough to resolve features such as vehicles and road markings.

“Pléiades Neo will offer a truly best-in-class capability to our customers and will strongly enhance our position in the very high-resolution market” said François Lombard, head of intelligence at Airbus Defence and Space. “The first images from Pléiades Neo 3 are outstanding and confirm that we took the right decision in terms of design and performance to address the increasingly demanding requirements of the geospatial sector.”

Ločljivost slikanja štirih Airbusovih satelitov Pléiades Neo je primerljiva z ločljivostjo Maxarjevih šest-satelitskih nadzornih satelitov WorldView Legion, ki naj bi se začeli izvajati prihodnje leto. Podjetja so konkurenca in ponujajo posnetke Zemlje z najvišjo ločljivostjo na svetovnem komercialnem trgu.

Po podatkih Airbusa se bodo sateliti Pléiades Neo s pomočjo laserskih medsatelitskih komunikacijskih povezav hitro odzvali na zahteve za naloge v 30 do 40 minutah.

En sam satelit Pléiades Neo, ki uporablja novo zmogljivost agilnega usmerjanja, ki ga omogočajo žiroskopi krmilnega momenta, se lahko obrne od ene do druge, da opazuje isto lokacijo vsaka dva dni. Ko bodo vsi štirje sateliti v orbiti, bo ozvezdje lahko dvakrat na dan posnelo katero koli lokacijo na Zemlji.

Vsako vesoljsko plovilo Pléiades Neo je zasnovano za delovanje vsaj 10 let.

En satelit Pléiades Neo lahko vsak dan zbira slike, ki pokrivajo površino skoraj 200,000 kvadratnih milj (500,000 kvadratnih kilometrov), pravi Airbus.

Airbus je maja objavil prve slike satelita Pléiades Neo 3. Podjetje načrtuje, da bodo komercialni posnetki s Pléiades Neo 3 na voljo strankam pozneje v tem letu.

One of the rideshare payloads launched Monday night is a briefcase-sized six-unit CubeSat for a French startup company named Unseenlabs founded in 2015.

Majhno vesoljsko plovilo, imenovano BRO-4, je četrti satelit v rastoči konstelaciji podjetja, namenjeno zagotavljanju storitev pomorskega nadzora. Prejšnji trije sateliti so bili izstreljeni na krovu misije Rocket Lab.

Unseenlabs pravi, da bo njihova flota nanosatelitov sposobna locirati in identificirati ladje po vsem svetu, zagotavljati storitve sledenja za pomorske operaterje in pomagati varnostnim silam pri opazovanju piratov in tihotapcev. Podjetje načrtuje, da bo do leta 20 zgradilo floto 25 do 2025 nanosatelitov.

Three small CubeSats sponsored by the European Space Agency also launched on the Vega rocket.

Vesoljsko plovilo RadCube je CubeSat s tremi enotami, ki ga je razvilo madžarsko podjetje C3S. Zasnovan kot tehnološka predstavitvena misija, RadCube nosi instrumente za merjenje sevanja in magnetnih polj v nizki zemeljski orbiti ter zbira pomembne podatke za napovedovanje vesoljskega vremena.

ESA-in SunStorm CubeSat, ki ga je razvil Reaktor Space Lab na Finskem, bo testiral miniaturni sončni monitor rentgenskega toka, ki bo meril rentgenske misije zaradi izbruhov koronalne mase, ogromnih izbruhov s površine sonca, ki lahko povzročijo vesoljske vremenske nevihte, ki vplivajo na delovanje satelitov, in moč omrežja in komunikacijska omrežja na Zemlji.

Instrument, ki ga je treba testirati na nanosatelitu SunStorm, je podoben senzorju, s katerim namerava ESA leteti na prihodnji operativni misiji spremljanja vesoljskega vremena.

The third ESA-supported CubeSat on Monday night’s launch was LEDSat, a small spacecraft developed by students at Sapienza University of Rome. The mission is designed to investigate the performance of Light Emitting Diodes as a way of tracking satellites in low Earth orbit, according to ESA.

ESA je izbrala misijo LEDSat za priložnost za izstrelitev skupnega prevoza prek agencije “Flight Your Satellite!” izobraževalni program.

E-pošta Avtor.

Sledite Stephenu Clarku na Twitterju: @ StephenClark1.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/08/17/arianespace-launches-second-pleiades-neo-remote-sensing-satellite/