ESA Satellite Recovers: Total Loss To Geostationary

Posted by timothy on Wednesday February 19, 2003 @05:58AM from the falling-forward-all-the-time dept.

Slimbob writes "About 2 years ago an Ariane 5 rocket malfunctioned and left a very expensive Artemis satellite in an unusable orbit. Well, over the course of 18 months, the European Space Agency actually managed to push the satellite into a usable orbit using measly 15mN ion thrusters! They managed the feat by reprogramming about 20% of the original control software and uplinking the patches to the satellite! See the ESA press release . Achievements include the first first major reprogramming of a telecommunications satellite, the first orbital transfer to geostationary orbit using ion propulsion, and the longest ever operational drift orbit."

1 of 47 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Expect more ions in the future by TheSHAD0W · 2003-02-19 07:46 · Score: 4, Interesting

The results of this botched lofting actually bode well for future satellite installations. Admittedly, using ion thrusters for final delivery would take much longer than using standard rocket technology, but it would also be enormously less expensive. The weight savings would be large, at a stage where weight is the most expensive part of the flight.