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Intelsat II F-3
Intelsat II F-3, also known as Canary Bird was a communications satellite operated by Intelsat. Launched in 1967 it was operated in geostationary orbit, spending most of its operational life at a longitude of 15 degrees west. The third of four Intelsat II satellites to be launched, Intelsat II F-3 was built by Hughes Aircraft around the HS-303A satellite bus. It carried two transponders, which were powered by body-mounted solar cells generating 85 watts of power. The spacecraft had a mass of at launch, decreasing through expenditure of propellant to by the beginning of its operational life. Intelsat II F-3 was launched atop a Delta E1 rocket flying from Launch Complex 17B at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The launch took place at 01:30:12 on March 23, 1967, with the spacecraft entering a geosynchronous transfer orbit. It fired an SVM-1 apogee motor to place itself into its operational geostationary orbit. The spacecraft was operated at a longitude of 15°&nbs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Communications Satellite
A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth. Communications satellites are used for television, telephone, radio, internet, and military applications. Many communications satellites are in geostationary orbit above the equator, so that the satellite appears stationary at the same point in the sky; therefore the satellite dish antennas of ground stations can be aimed permanently at that spot and do not have to move to track the satellite. Others form satellite constellations in low Earth orbit, where antennas on the ground have to follow the position of the satellites and switch between satellites frequently. The high frequency radio waves used for telecommunications links travel by line of sight and so are obstructed by the curve of the Earth. The purpose of communications sate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transponder
In telecommunications, a transponder is a device that, upon receiving a signal, emits a different signal in response. The term is a blend word, blend of ''transmitter'' and ''responder''. In air navigation or radio frequency identification, a Transponder (aeronautics), flight transponder is an automated transceiver in an aircraft that emits a coded identifying signal in response to an interrogating received signal. In a communications satellite, a Transponder (satellite communications), satellite transponder receives signals over a range of uplink frequencies, usually from a satellite ground station; the transponder amplifies them, and re-transmits them on a different set of downlink frequencies to receivers on Earth, often without changing the content of the received signal or signals. Satellite/broadcast communications A communications satellite’s Communication channel, channels are called transponders because each is a separate transceiver or repeater. With digital video d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hughes Aircraft
The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting pilot, engineer, film producer, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most influential and richest people in th ... in Glendale, California, as a division of Hughes Tool Company. The company was known for producing, among other products, the Hughes H-4 Hercules ''Spruce Goose'' aircraft, the atmospheric entry probe carried by the Galileo (spacecraft), ''Galileo'' spacecraft, and the AIM-4 Falcon guided missile. Hughes Aircraft was founded to construct Hughes' Hughes H-1 Racer, H-1 Racer world speed record aircraft, and it later modified aircraft for his transcontinental and global circumnavigation speed record flights. The company relocated to Culver City, California, in 1940 and began manufacturing aircraft parts as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intelsat Satellites
Intelsat S.A. (formerly INTEL-SAT, INTELSAT, Intelsat) is a multinational satellite services provider with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg and administrative headquarters in Tysons Corner, Virginia, United States. Originally formed as International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (''ITSO'', or INTELSAT), from 1964 to 2001, it was an intergovernmental consortium owning and managing a constellation of communications satellites providing international telecommunications and broadcast services. As of June 2022, Intelsat operated a fleet of 52 communications satellites which was then one of the world's largest fleets. In 2020, the company announced plans to procure, build and launch seven C-band satellites over the next several years. These C-band satellites will contribute to the acceleration of America's 5G buildout. In early 2022, the company announced contracts for four GEO software defined satellites (SDS), two in partnership with Airbus and two in partnership ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orbital Period
The orbital period (also revolution period) is the amount of time a given astronomical object takes to complete one orbit around another object. In astronomy, it usually applies to planets or asteroids orbiting the Sun, moons orbiting planets, exoplanets orbiting other stars, or binary stars. For celestial objects in general, the sidereal period ( sidereal year) is referred to by the orbital period, determined by a 360° revolution of one body around its primary, e.g. Earth around the Sun, relative to the fixed stars projected in the sky. Orbital periods can be defined in several ways. The tropical period is more particularly about the position of the parent star. It is the basis for the solar year, and respectively the calendar year. The synodic period incorporates not only the orbital relation to the parent star, but also to other celestial objects, making it not a mere different approach to the orbit of an object around its parent, but a period of orbital relations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orbital Inclination
Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Earth directly above the Equator, the plane of the satellite's orbit is the same as the Earth's equatorial plane, and the satellite's orbital inclination is 0°. The general case for a circular orbit is that it is tilted, spending half an orbit over the northern hemisphere and half over the southern. If the orbit swung between 20° north latitude and 20° south latitude, then its orbital inclination would be 20°. Orbits The inclination is one of the six orbital elements describing the shape and orientation of a celestial orbit. It is the angle between the orbital plane and the plane of reference, normally stated in degrees. For a satellite orbiting a planet, the plane of reference is usually the plane containing the planet's equator. For pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apsis
An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any elliptic orbit. The name for each apsis is created from the prefixes ''ap-'', ''apo-'' (), or ''peri-'' (), each referring to the farthest and closest point to the primary body the affixing necessary suffix that describes the primary body in the orbit. In this case, the suffix for Earth is ''-gee'', so the apsides' names are ''apogee'' and ''perigee''. For the Sun, its suffix is ''-helion'', so the names are ''aphelion'' and ''perihelion''. According to Newton's laws of motion, all periodic orbits are ellipses. The barycenter of the two bodies may lie well within the bigger body—e.g., the Earth–Moon barycenter is about 75% of the way from Earth's center to its surface. If, compared to the larger mass, the smaller mass is negligible (e.g., f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocco. They are the southernmost of the autonomous communities of Spain. The islands have a population of 2.2 million people and they are the most populous special territory of the European Union. The seven main islands are (from largest to smallest in area) Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, La Palma, La Gomera, and El Hierro. The archipelago includes many smaller islands and islets, including La Graciosa, Alegranza, Isla de Lobos, Montaña Clara, Roque del Oeste, and Roque del Este. It also includes a number of rocks, including those of Salmor, Fasnia, Bonanza, Garachico, and Anaga. In ancient times, the island chain was often referred to as "the Fortunate Isles". The Canary Islands are the southernmost region of Spain, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ground Station
A ground station, Earth station, or Earth terminal is a terrestrial radio station designed for extraplanetary telecommunication with spacecraft (constituting part of the ground segment of the spacecraft system), or reception of radio waves from astronomical radio sources. Ground stations may be located either on the surface of the Earth, or in its atmosphere. Earth stations communicate with spacecraft by transmitting and receiving radio waves in the super high frequency (SHF) or extremely high frequency (EHF) bands (e.g. microwaves). When a ground station successfully transmits radio waves to a spacecraft (or vice versa), it establishes a telecommunications link. A principal telecommunications device of the ground station is the parabolic antenna. Ground stations may have either a fixed or itinerant position. Article 1 § III of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Radio Regulations describes various types of stationary and mobile ground stations, and their interre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maspalomas Station
Maspalomas Station is an INTA-operated, ESTRACK radio antenna ground station for communication with spacecraft located at the southern area of Gran Canaria island, on the INTA campus. It is situated on the Montaña Blanca hill and is visible from the coastal resort of Meloneras, close to Maspalomas. It was originally established in the 1960s to support NASA's nascent human spaceflight program. History From the 1950s the momentum was growing in the Space Race to develop spaceflight. A need arose for an international network of tracking stations around the globe to communicate with satellites and crewed space capsules and to control their flight trajectory. On 18 March 1960, the Spanish and US Governments signed an agreement to establish a NASA satellite ground station on Gran Canaria, the first in Spain. The location was chosen because Maspalomas is on the same latitude as Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, with the two locations separated only by the Atlantic Ocean. The origi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe and Asia from the "New World" of the Americas in the European perception of the World. The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Europe and Africa to the east, and North and South America to the west. As one component of the interconnected World Ocean, it is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean, to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south (other definitions describe the Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica). The Atlantic Ocean is divided in two parts, by the Equatorial Counter Current, with the North(ern) Atlantic Ocean and the South(ern) Atlantic Ocean split at about 8°N. Scientific explorations of the A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apogee Motor
An apogee kick motor (AKM) is a rocket motor that is regularly employed on artificial satellites to provide the final impulse to change the trajectory from the transfer orbit into its final (most commonly circular) orbit. For a satellite launched from the Earth, the rocket firing is done at the highest point of the transfer orbit, known as the apogee. An apogee kick motor is used, for example, for satellites launched into a geostationary orbit. As the vast majority of geostationary satellite launches are carried out from spaceports at a significant distance away from Earth's equator, the carrier rocket often only launches the satellite into an orbit with a non-zero inclination approximately equal to the latitude of the launch site. This orbit is commonly known as a "geostationary transfer orbit" or a "geosynchronous transfer orbit". The satellite must then provide thrust to bring forth the needed delta v to reach a geostationary orbit. This is typically done with a fixed onboa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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