Really Rocket Science

AMC-14 to Lift Off on Friday Night

 

 

 

SES-AMERICOM’s AMC-14 launches from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard a Proton M rocket on Friday night.

Local time for the launch is 5:18 a.m. on Saturday 15 March 2008 — or 23:18 GMT on Friday the 14th of March.

What that means is you can watch the launch live in the United States — but if you’re on the East Coast, you may wish to start feeding the kids at 6 o’clock.

The live webstream will be available here, or watch on on C-band: AMC-1, transponder C17, 4040 Horiz., NTSC, analog, in the clear or on DISH channel 101.

The last update from the launch blog (on March 11) tells us:

The roll-out of the fully assembled Proton Breeze M launcher, carrying the AMC -14 spacecraft, to Launch Pad 39 commenced early in this morning (at 6:30 a.m. Baikonur time). By 10 a.m. the rocket was erected in vertical position. Once installed onto the pad, the Proton was enclosed inside a mobile service tower.

 

 

 

AMC-14 was originally part of a grand plan for direct-to-home services. 8.2 KW of power, the spacecraft has an active phased array (APA) payload consisting of a receive mode APA antenna, and the highest levels of redundancy on core components such as amplifiers, receivers, commanding beam and computer control systems. This means coverage can be reshaped while in orbit.

Developed primarily by Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems, the APA will be a key satellite technology for future missions.

From the get-go, AMC-14 will provide AMERICOM2Home® services in the United States for EchoStar Communications’ DISH Network.

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 10:19 am and is filed under Around the Blogs, Astronomy, NASA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

17 Comments

• Rocco Fanucci says:

  June 9, 2008 at 7:04 am

  Via Space News:

  The AMC-14 commercial telecommunications satellite that was placed into the wrong orbit in March following a Proton rocket failure has been sold to the U.S. Defense Department for about $15 million by insurance underwriters, who took title to the spacecraft following a settlement with satellite fleet operator SES of Luxembourg, industry officials said.

  One industry official familiar with the insurance sale to the Pentagon said it was conditioned on a guarantee by U.S. defense authorities that the satellite would not be purposely destroyed in orbit.

  While there was no indication that U.S. defense authorities intended to do such a thing, this official said the companies involved in the sale wanted to protect themselves against any future allegations that they had contributed to orbital debris.

  The demand that the transfer of title to the satellite include a no-shootdown clause illustrates the nervousness of satellite underwriters and fleet operators in the wake of two events: the Chinese anti-satellite missile test in January 2007, in which China destroyed one of its retired weather satellites; and the U.S. Defense Department’s destruction of an out-of-control spy satellite in February using a sea-based missile.

  SES officials made a brief reference to the AMC-14 sale during June 3-4 investor presentations in London and New York, saying the company’s SES Americom division of Princeton, N.J., assisted the underwriters in closing the deal.

  SES spokesman Yves Feltes said June 6 that the company would have no comment on the transaction beyond confirming that it had been completed.

  The premature shutdown of the upper stage of a Russian Proton-M rocket in March left AMC-14 in an orbit with an apogee of about 28,000 kilometers and a perigee of some 6,250 kilometers.  SES officials declared the satellite a total loss after concluding that any attempted salvage on their part would be risky, and likely not worth the time and expense given the amount of satellite fuel that would be used in the process.

  SES filed a total-loss claim and expects to receive its $151 million share of the settlement by the end of June. EchoStar Corp. of Englewood, Colo., owned a minority stake in AMC-14 and will receive a payment of around $40 million.

  In addition to its commercial payload of 32 high-powered Ku-band transponders, AMC-14 carried an experimental active phased array antenna designed by prime contractor Lockeed Martin Commercial Space Systems to enable SES to create different beams according to business demand over the satellite’s life.

• Rocco Fanucci says:

  April 21, 2008 at 8:33 pm

  That was quick, via SpaceflightNow.com:

  The Russian State Commission investigating the AMC-14 failure of a Proton Breeze M launch has traced the cause to the rupture of the gas duct between the gas generator and the propellant pump turbine in the Breeze M main engine.

  This led to the Breeze M upper stage engine shutting down 2 minutes before the end of the second Breeze M burn on March 15. As a precaution, the AMC-14 satellite payload was released into a lower-than-planned orbit. Owner SES AMERICOM announced that it is declaring AMC-14 a total loss. The mission was managed by International Launch Services (ILS), which markets commercial missions on the Proton vehicle.

  The Russian investigative commission said that the most probable cause of the gas duct rupture was due to the combined effects of duct wall erosion, high temperatures and prolonged low frequency pressure fluctuation in the duct. The Commission recommended corrective actions to comprehensively address each of the contributing factors. Khrunichev, which manufactures both the Proton 3-stage booster and the Breeze M upper stage, was further directed to perform corrective action to improve the reliability of the Breeze M main engine. These corrective actions must be taken before the Breeze M can be returned to flight, according to Russian procedure.

• Rocco Fanucci says:

  April 23, 2008 at 7:06 am

  Reminds me of a brilliant Ernest Hemingway short story he was purported to have submitted to a literary magazine, after repeated requests from the editor.  Hemingway wasn’t interested, so he sent this: "For sale: wedding dress; never used."

  That’s what I call a short story.

  Thought the AMC-14 story was over. Do we see another scoop by Space Daily? Funny, no mention of the spacecraft being exposed to an inordinate amount of radiation since launch:

  Sources have told SpaceDaily that a US Department of Defense agency is negotiating to buy the AMC-14 satellite from SES directly with a loss adjustment then to be paid out by the underwriters. The US government would then move AMC-14 to a geostationary orbit inclined at roughly 10 degrees to the equator.

  Sources warned "the government is being had. SES is selling them an inferior mission. SES is purposefully downplaying the other options to protect themselves."

  As reported earlier in SpaceDaily SES is reluctant to pursue a rescue that uses a Lunar flyby due to a legal dispute with Boeing involving several issues including a patent that lays claim to the lunar flyby process.

  At the same time, there are other issues with such a purchase.

  A government purchase and use of this spacecraft may be a violation of the Commercial Space Act of 1998, which prohibits US government agencies from owning spacecraft to produce products they can buy commercially.

  "Any capability available on AMC-14 can be purchased commercially. If the government needs this sort of service, they must buy it from commercial providers as the 1998 Commercial Space Act requires." an industry expert requesting anonymity told SpaceDaily.

  Meanwhile, the lunar flyby rescue option continues to be dismissed by SES to their potential government customer and to the underwriters.

  "The last thing they want is for that option to be proven out. They told the underwriters that only an inclined orbital profile was available. It would look bad if someone were to salvage the spacecraft and perform the lunar transfer mission."

  While the underwriters may have been misled, they are more worried about offending SES than they are about paying out. SES is the biggest player in the GEO market and an endless source of rich insurance premiums.

  Further complicating the situation is the entry of several other commercial entities that are negotiating with the underwriters to buy the satellite and then use the lunar flyby process to recover the satellite into GEO.

  Despite claims by SES that "the numbers didn’t work" for even a two to three year mission lifetime, experts have mapped out a mission profile similar to the 1998 HGS-1 trajectory that produces more than five years of operational lifetime in a GEO orbit.

  Of critical concern for SES at this stage is preventing negotiations between the underwriters and these other entities from coming to fruition. SES would like to both get the payoff from the underwriters and to prevent the spacecraft from ending up in the hands of competitors.

  "They would specifically like to prevent the vehicle from being bought by Echostar, the customer that originally intended to lease AMC-14 from SES," sources told SpaceDaily.

• Dar says:

  February 24, 2012 at 1:53 pm

  Let us make these supposition clearer. There are few actions to do this.