Airmen with the 3rd Space Operations Squadron and Boeing Corporation contractors took over early-orbit operations on Wideband Global SATCOM Satellite Vehicle 1 from a Boeing facility in El Segundo, Calif., Oct. 10, approximately 30 minutes after it launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
The teaming gives 3rd SOPS Airmen an opportunity to become acquainted with WGS during its initial stages, said Col. Clinton Crosier, the 50th Operations Group commander.
"This is a better way of doing business," Colonel Crosier said. "It won't be a cold handoff. When we do the handover we'll have a team that has hands-on experience working with the WGS satellite on orbit."
Boeing will transfer Satellite Control Authority to 3rd SOPS in about 90 days after completing a rigorous series of tests on WGS SV-1's systems.
SV-1's final orbit will be in the geosynchronous belt, approximately 23,000 miles above the Earth. Its orbit shortly after launch was highly elliptical, with a closest approach of less than 250 miles and an apogee of more than 36,000 miles.
Boeing and 3rd SOPS will fire maneuvering thrusters on the satellite over the next two weeks to nudge it into a circular orbit, said Maj. Tracy Patton, a 3rd SOPS member.
Once the satellite is in its proper orbit, operators will test the satellite's functionality to ensure it suffered no damage through the vibration and G-forces of liftoff.
WGS SV-1 launched at 8:22 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time from Space Launch Complex 41 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. It the first in a planned constellation of six $300-million vehicles, each of which will have communications capabilities equal to 12 Defense Satellite Communications System-III satellites. WGS is the successor to DSCS-III, recapitalizing a fleet whose first satellite launched Oct. 30, 1982.
Airmen with 3rd SOPS will control the WGS platform, according to a ULA SV-1 fact sheet. Soldiers at four Army wideband satellite operations centers will conduct payload command and control.
The WGS SV-1 mission is the 11th flight of an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral AFS and extends Air Force Space Command's string of consecutive successful launches to 52.
The Air Force originally planned to deploy five WGS satellites but expanded the program to six through an agreement with the Australian Defence Force. The $707-million partnership encompasses the sixth satellite, associated ground infrastructure and upkeep, according to a report in the Oct. 4 Wall Street Journal.
by Staff Sgt. Don Branum
50th Space Wing Public Affairs
Wideband Global SATCOM Satellite Launched This mission also marked the 11th flight of an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral AFS, and extends the string of consecutive successful operational launches to 52 for Air Force Space Command.
Satellite-Jamming Threats The 26th Space Aggressor Squadron is the oldest squadron in the Air Force Reserve and one of the oldest in the Air Force. Founded in 1915 by Capt. Raynall Bolling as the Army Signal Corps' 1st Aero Company, part of the New York National Guard, the squadron flew its first combat missions in punitive actions against Francisco Pancho Villa. When the United States entered World War I, the 1st Aero Company was federalized as the 1st Aero Reserve Squadron. In May 1917, it was redesignated the 26th Aero Squadron and sent to France to train American combat aviators.
Electronic Warfare Amplifier Technology BAE Systems will build a 160-watt solid-state, gallium nitride (GaN) power amplifier for communications, electronic warfare, and radar applications. The solid-state technology will replace older vacuum tubes, called traveling wave tubes, currently used to produce high-power radio frequency signals.
The Air Force launched the first of a next generation of military communications satellites from here Oct. 10 at 8:22 p.m. EDT, when a United Launch Alliance Atlas V booster carried a Wideband Global SATCOM satellite into space.
WGS is the nation's next-generation wideband satellite communications system. The launch begins the process of augmenting and eventually replacing the aging Defense Satellite Communications System which has been the Department of Defense's backbone satellite communications for the last two decades.
Celebrating the 10th anniversary of its launch from Cape Canaveral, the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn is once again at the center of scientific attention. Its latest discoveries about the ringed planet are a leading topic of conversation among the nearly 1,500 scientists gathered this week at a major astronomy conference in Orlando, Fla.
A new-concept radio telescope devoted equally to galactic astronomy and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence will be dedicated today (Thursday, Oct. 11) by the University of California, Berkeley, and the SETI Institute at a ceremony in northern California.
Located in an arid valley near the town of Hat Creek, just north of Lassen Volcanic National Park, the first 42 of a planned 350 radio dishes of the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) recently started collecting scientific data from the far reaches of the universe, opening a new era of radio astronomy research. The ATA also is the largest telescope devoted to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).
Less than a year since beginning the prime science phase of its mission, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has passed a mission-success milestone for the amount of data returned.
The data-volume target of 26 terabytes, which was surpassed this week, is equivalent to about 5,000 CD-ROMs full and exceeds the total from all other current and past Mars missions combined.
Dawn spacecraft successfully completed the first test of its ion propulsion system over the weekend. The system is vital to the success of Dawn's 8-year, 1.6 billion-kilometer (3-billion-mile) journey to asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres.
"Dawn is our baby and over the weekend it took some of its first steps," said Dawn project manager Keyur Patel of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We have two months more checkout and characterization remaining before Dawn is considered mission operational, but this is a great start."