ESA - Venus Express

[bobw]

Very pretty. Here's hoping that everything goes OK from here. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[giofx]

ESA Television will broadcast it via satellite.<br /><br />Live webcast starting at 3.20 am GMT on Starsem website: http://www.starsem.com

 

[imran10]

0130 GMT (8:30 p.m. EDT Tues.)<br /><br />Fueling of the Soyuz rocket with its liquid propellants is underway for tonight's launch of the Venus Express orbiter for the European Space Agency. The State Commission met about four-and-a-half hours before the scheduled launch time to review the status of systems and give approval to begin the fuel loading process.<br /><br />Liftoff remains set for 0333 GMT (10:33 p.m. EST). <br /><br />T - 85 minutes

 

[imran10]

0233 GMT (9:33 p.m. EDT Tues.)<br /><br />Now one hour from launch. ESA says Soyuz fueling has been completed as planned. Next up in the countdown will be retraction of the service gantry from around the rocket in about 15 minutes.<br /><br />T - 53 minutes

 

[bobw]

Fueling complete. Gantry retract in about 10 minutes. It looks like starsem.com is the only game in town for me, thanks for the link GioFX. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[henryhallam]

'The Venus Express flight director in mission control has given the final "go" for launch.'

 

[imran10]

0327 GMT (10:27 p.m. EDT Tues.)<br /><br />The Venus Express flight director in mission control has given the final "go" for launch.<br /><br />T - 2 minutes!!

 

[henryhallam]

Liftoff!<br />Godspeed, Venus Express.

 

[imran10]

You can barely see it now.<br /><br />0334 GMT (10:34 p.m. EDT Tues.)<br /><br />T+plus 1 minute. A beautiful takeoff for the Soyuz! The vehicle has punched through a high, thin layer of clouds as the engines continue to fire.

 

[imran10]

0336 GMT (10:36 p.m. EDT Tues.)<br /><br />T+plus 3 minutes. The first stage strap-on boosters have been jettisoned. The second stage core is still running as planned. All system parameters are reported normal.

 

[flynn]

Great stuff. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#800080">"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring" - <strong>Chuck Palahniuk</strong>.</font> </div>

 

[imran10]

Lost my feed but looks like things are going well.

 

[jmilsom]

Yes. Excellent! I do not have access to TV coverage. So reading this thread is like watching the launch real time. Excellent. Thanks everyone! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[flynn]

Yeah, shame they couldn't keep the feed going until after the parking orbit burn. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#800080">"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring" - <strong>Chuck Palahniuk</strong>.</font> </div>

 

[imran10]

0348 GMT (10:48 p.m. EDT Tues.)<br /><br />T+plus 15 minutes. ESA says the first Fregat burn has been successful. The vehicle is now coasting in Earth orbit for more than an hour before the upper stage is re-started to propel the spacecraft to Venus.

 

[yurkin]

WooHoo<br /><br />Good Job ESA!!

 

[flynn]

Half hour until live coverage resumes <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#800080">"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring" - <strong>Chuck Palahniuk</strong>.</font> </div>

 

[bad_drawing]

Way to go ESA! Can't wait for the Venus Express to reach its destination!

 

[flynn]

<b>Venus Express en route to probe the planet's hidden mysteries</b><br /><br /> <i>9 November 2005</i><br />ESA PR 50-2005. The European spacecraft Venus Express has been successfully placed into a trajectory that will take it on its journey from Earth towards its destination of the planet Venus, which it will reach next April.<br /> <br />A virtual twin sister of the Mars Express spacecraft which has been orbiting the Red Planet since December 2003, Venus Express is the second planet-bound probe to be launched by the European Space Agency. <br />Venus Express will eventually manoeuvre itself into orbit around Venus in order to perform a detailed study of the structure, chemistry and dynamics of the planet's atmosphere, which is characterised by extremely high temperatures, very high atmospheric pressure, a huge 'greenhouse effect' and as-yet inexplicable 'super-rotation' which means that it speeds around the planet in just four days. <br /><br />The European spacecraft will also be the first orbiter to probe the planet's surface while exploiting the 'visibility windows' recently discovered in the infrared waveband. <br /><br />Full Story <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#800080">"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring" - <strong>Chuck Palahniuk</strong>.</font> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

I missed the launch, but fortunately KMSP's morning news ran a replay of it. Beautiful launch! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[giofx]

Launch video:<br /><br />Quicktime: http://a1862.g.akamai.net/7/1862/14448/v1/esa.download.akamai.com/13452/qt/ESA_VenusExpress_259K_Stream.mov<br /><br />Windows Media:<br /><br />http://a1862.g.akamai.net/7/1862/14448/v1/esa.download.akamai.com/13452/wmv/Venus_Express_launch_high.wmv<br /><br /><br />Windows Media (stream):<br /><br />http://mfile.akamai.com/14448/wmv/esa.download.akamai.com/13452/wmv/Venus_Express_launch_high.asx

 

[BReif]

Thanks for the video links. I've been looking everywhere for them.

 

[alokmohan]

Anyone brief on current lcation of Venus Express?

 

[n_kitson]

Here's the latest report from the ESA team:<br /><font color="yellow"><br />Report for period 9 November 15:30 - 10 November 15:30 UTC. <br /><br />Both the Venus Express spacecraft and ground segment continue to perform excellently. The highlight of this period was the successful planning and testing of the Trajectory Correction Manoeuvre (TCM-0). <br /><br />The Venus Express Launch and Early Orbit (LEOP) operations continue to run very smoothly with good support from the ESA and NASA DSN ground stations. <br /><br />Pass 2 Activities<br />Pass 2 activities encompassed loading of the On-Board Control Procedures (OBCPs), loading of the Service 12 and the dump of the Safe Guard Memory (SGM). The planned Reaction Wheels off-loading was not required. All foreseen Pass 2 activities were already completed about two hours after hand-over from Team A to Team B. The remainder pass activities were quiescent, in view of a well performing spacecraft and ground segment. <br /><br />Pass 3 Activities<br />Activities started with the preparation for testing the Trajectory Correction Manoeuvre (TCM-0). Given the slight over-performance from Soyuz-Fregat, the TCM-0 was conducted in the direction of Earth for minimal fuel use. <br /><br />The slew to position was enabled at 05:20 UCT, started 05:43 UCT and was completed 06:13 UCT. <br /><br />Subsequently, TCM-0 started at 06:38:52 UCT with a manoeuvre duration of 48 sec and a magnitude of 0.5 m/sec. Post manoeuvre assessment, based on Doppler data, indicated that the manoeuvre duration was about 1 sec less than commanded and revealed a negligible error in performance. <br /><br />By 07:33 UCT the spacecraft had been slewed back to the starting attitude. This completed the foreseen activities for pass 3. </font>/safety_wrapper>

 

[flynn]

<b>Venus Express performs flawlessly, LEOP complete</b><br /><br /><i>11 November 2005</i><br />Earlier today, ESA Ground Segment Manager Manfred Warhaut declared the critical Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) for Venus Express complete.<br /> <br />The spacecraft has successfully entered the Near Earth Commissioning Phase and is now on the exact trajectory required for Venus Orbit Insertion in five months' time. <br />Venus Express successfully completed LEOP at 9:48 CET today, 53:15 hours into the mission. At this time, Venus Express was 634 000 km from the Earth. <br /><br />"Overall, the spacecraft is performing flawlessly. It's a tribute to the many people from ESA, Alcatel Alenia Space and Astrium who devoted so much time to ensuring that the spacecraft was fully checked out before launch," said Philippe Sivac, a Venus Express Assembly, Integration and Verification Engineer from the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. <br /><br />Full Story <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#800080">"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring" - <strong>Chuck Palahniuk</strong>.</font> </div>