An Atlas 5 rocket fired off pad 41 at Cape Canaveral at 4:18 p.m. EDT (2018 GMT) Thursday. Credit: United Launch Alliance
The sixth and final satellite in the U.S. military’s most secure satellite communications fleet lifted off from Cape Canaveral Thursday aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, extending the network’s expected lifetime beyond 2030.
The 197-foot-tall (60-meter) Atlas 5 rocket fired off pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 4:18 p.m. EDT (2018 GMT) Thursday. The fiery start to the mission was delayed more than an hour for ULA teams to troubleshoot a problem with a ground hydraulics controller, which triggered a last-minute hold in the day’s first countdown.
The technical concern was cleared before the end of Thursday’s two-hour launch window, and the countdown resumed for another launch attempt. At T-minus 2.7 seconds, the rocket’s kerosene-fueled RD-180 engine flashed to life, followed seconds later by ignition of five strap-on solid rocket boosters.
The Atlas 5 climbed away from the launch pad with some 2.6 million pounds of thrust, turning east over the Atlantic Ocean with the U.S. military’s sixth Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite.
The launcher’s boosters — made by Aerojet Rocketdyne — burned out and jettisoned less than two minutes after liftoff, followed by separation of the Atlas 5’s Swiss-made payload fairing. Four-and-a-half minutes into the mission, the Atlas 5’s first stage Russian-built main engine shut down, and stage separation occurred seconds later.
The Atlas 5’s Centaur upper stage ignited its RL10C-1 engine for the first of three burns to inject the AEHF 6 satellite into a unique, high-altitude transfer orbit on the way to a final operating post more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator.
Thursday’s mission marked the 500th production RL10 engine to be flown. RL10 engines, which burn liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants, have flown on Atlas, Saturn and Titan rockets, sending spacecraft toward every planet in the solar system.
After the Centaur’s second burn — around a half-hour after liftoff — the rocket released a small suitcase-sized CubeSat secondary payload named TDO 2.
Sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory and produced at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the TDO 2 spacecraft is based on a 12U CubeSat design. Its mission will support “space domain awareness” through optical calibration and satellite laser ranging, according to the U.S. Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center.
After deploying the TDO 2 payload, the Centaur coasted for five hours before reigniting the RL10 engine for a third time to reshape the rocket’s orbit. The final RL10 burn occurred at an altitude of around 22,000 miles (35,000 kilometers).
The planned 88-second burn raised the orbit’s perigee, or low point, and reduced its inclination. The maneuver placed the AEHF 6 spacecraft closer to its operating orbit, reducing the satellite’s expected fuel usage and extending its usable lifetime.
At 9:59 p.m. EDT (0159 GMT), the Centaur stage released the AEHF 6 spacecraft. Minutes later, satellite-builder Lockheed Martin confirmed ground teams were receiving signals from the new satellite.
“We are thrilled to accomplish this important milestone on the last AEHF satellite,” said Col. John Dukes, senior materiel leader for the geosynchronous orbit division of SMC’s production corps. “The combined integrated team worked diligently to ensure the success of this mission. The satellite is operating as expected and is ready to undergo orbit raising and on-orbit testing for the next several months after which it will provide mission critical capabilities to our warfighters.”
The AEHF 6 satellite was encapsulated inside the Atlas 5 rocket’s payload fairing in February ahead of Thursday’s launch. Credit: United Launch Alliance
The successful launch Thursday marked the first deployment of a U.S. Space Force payload since the formal establishment of the new military service in December. The AEHF satellites were previously managed the Air Force, and the first five launched on Atlas 5 rockets from Cape Canaveral beginning in August 2010.
The Space Force remains part of the Air Force, but the new service took over units formerly under the authority of Air Force Space Command.
“Congratulations to the U.S. Space Force on liftoff of your first mission,” said Tory Bruno, ULA’s president and CEO, in a statement. “We are proud to be your partner for this historic mission and honored to have launched the entire Lockheed Martin produced AEHF constellation on Atlas 5 rockets. We understand the critical importance of delivering protected communications to strategic command and tactical warfighters operating on ground, sea and air.”
U.S. military satellite tracking data indicated the AEHF 6 spacecraft separated from the Centaur upper stage in an elliptical transfer orbit ranging between 6,767 miles (10,891 kilometers) and 21,492 miles (35,313 kilometers), with an inclination of 13.7 degrees to the equator.
Those orbit figures were very close to pre-launch predictions. The RL10’s final burn before deploying the AEHF 6 satellite was programmed to continue until sensors detected a low propellant level on the Centaur stage, ensuring the payload reached the best orbit possible.
The AEHF 6 satellite will use its own engine and plasma thrusters to maneuver into a circular geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator, where the craft’s speed will match the rate of Earth’s rotation. That will allow AEHF 6 to remain over the same part of the world 24 hours per day.
Military officials have not disclosed the geographic coverage area for AEHF 6.
Designed to operate at least 14 years, the AEHF satellites are follow-ons to the Air Force’s Milstar satellite network.
Each of the AEHF satellites, which are spread around the world to enable global coverage, provides more capacity than the entire five-satellite Milstar constellation, which launched in the 1990s and 2000s. The AEHF satellites are cross-linked with one another, allowing the network to beam signals around the world without going through a ground station.
AEHF 6 will go straight into operations once it passes post-launch tests, Space Force officials said.
The AEHF satellites provide connectivity at different specified data rates between 75 bits per second to 8 megabits per second. Those data rates are slow by modern standards, but what distinguishes the AEHF satellites is their ability to resist jamming and continue operating, even in the event of nuclear war.
Each satellite also carries gimbaled dish antennas to reach users on-the-move, phased array antennas with beams can be steered electronically rather than mechanically, and nulling antennas to provide “extremely high anti-jam capability to in-theater users,” according to Northrop Grumman, supplier of the AEHF communications payload.
“AEHF, if we were to have to operate in (the highest bandwidth) mode, will enable the President of the United States, national leaders and four international allies to be able to communicate in voice-recognizable communication, even through any event,” Dukes said.
The governments of Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have joined the AEHF program.
“Across the globe, we have numerous Army, Navy, Air Force, and joint international partner terminals with the AEHF constellation online,” Dukes said. “We have enough bandwidth to service all the terminals in our concept of operations. So by upgrading from the Milstar to the AEHF constellation, we’re able to provide that capability from now to beyond 2030.”
Thursday’s launch went ahead amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced delays in many upcoming launches.
But the launch of the AEHF 6 satellite was deemed critical by military leaders.
“There are critical things or mission-essential things that the U.S. Department of Defense does every day, regardless of what the current global situation is,” said Lt. Gen. John “JT” Thompson, commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base. “So even in the face of a global pandemic like the COVID-19 crisis, we must continue to perform mission-essential tasks.
“One of those mission-essential tasks, one of those things that we have to do for the warfighter and for the United States of America is launch AEHF 6,” Thompson said. “It is designated mission-essential, and it’s because the AEHF constellation supports the President of the United States, other national leaders and the joint forces with critical strategic communications around the planet.
“This particular launch extends that capability out into the timeframe beyond 2030,” Thompson said.
ULA says its next Atlas 5 launch is scheduled for May, when the next flight of the military’s X-37B spaceplane is scheduled for takeoff from Cape Canaveral.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
