The Advanced Research and Global Observation Satellite (ARGOS) was launched on 23 February 1999 carrying nine payloads for research and development missions by nine separate researchers. The mission terminated on 31 July 2003.
ARGOS was launched from
SLC-2W,
Vandenberg Air Force Base Vandenberg may refer to:
* Vandenberg (surname), including a list of people with the name
* USNS ''General Hoyt S. Vandenberg'' (T-AGM-10), transport ship in the United States Navy, sank as an artificial reef in Key West, Florida
* Vandenberg Sp ...
,
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, atop a
Boeing
The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and p ...
Delta II
Delta II was an expendable launch system, originally designed and built by McDonnell Douglas. Delta II was part of the Delta rocket family and entered service in 1989. Delta II vehicles included the Delta 6000, and the two later Delta 7000 ...
(7920-10)
launch vehicle
A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload ( spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pads, supported by a launch control center and ...
. Construction of the spacecraft bus and integration of the satellite's payloads was accomplished by Boeing at their
Seal Beach, California facility. The program was funded and led by the
DoD's
Space Test Program
The Space Test Program (STP) is the primary provider of spaceflight for the United States Department of Defense (DoD) space science and technology community. STP is managed by a group within the Advanced Systems and Development Directorate, a d ...
(STP) as mission P91-1 (the first STP mission contract awarded in 1991).
The US$220 million mission was operated by
Air Force Space Command
The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for ...
's
Space and Missile Systems Center
Space Systems Command (SSC) is the United States Space Force's space development, acquisition, launch, and logistics field command. It is headquartered at Los Angeles Air Force Base, California and manages the United States' space launch ...
's Test and Evaluation Directorate (then
Space Development and Test Wing, now SMC's
Advanced Systems and Development Directorate
The Advanced Systems and Development Directorate (SMC/AD) is a directorate of the United States Space Force's Space and Missile Systems Center, located at Kirtland Air Force Base. It has operating divisions at Los Angeles Air Force Base, Hill ...
) from their RDT&E Support Complex (RSC) at
Kirtland Air Force Base,
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ke ...
. ARGOS was the first mission operated 100% from the new state-of-the-art, commercial-off-the-shelf Kirtland facility; all previous SMC satellite missions had been operated in total or at least in part from the preceding center at
Onizuka Air Force Station
Onizuka Air Force Station or Onizuka AFS was a United States Air Force installation in Sunnyvale, California, at the intersection of State Route 237 and North Mathilda Avenue. It was operational from 1960 to 2010.
Its distinguishing feature was ...
, California.
Mission
Colonel Tom Mead, program manager of the DoD Space Test Program, said of the satellite:
The ARGOS had a design life of three years and was part of the DoD
Space Test Program
The Space Test Program (STP) is the primary provider of spaceflight for the United States Department of Defense (DoD) space science and technology community. STP is managed by a group within the Advanced Systems and Development Directorate, a d ...
(STP), which supports the
Air Force
An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an ...
,
Army
An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
,
Navy
A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It in ...
,
BMDO (now
MDA
MDA, mda, or ''variation'', may refer to:
Places
* Moldova, a country in Europe with the ISO 3166-1 country code MDA Politics
* Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (2018), ruling coalition government in the Indian State of Meghalaya led by National Pe ...
),
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
, and various international space agencies. The nine ARGOS payloads, addressing more than 30 research objectives, conducted upper atmospheric observations and technology demonstrations. These included sensor technology for the
International Space Station
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ( ...
(ISS), as well as three high-priority ultraviolet imaging experiments and an X-ray sensor. The remaining experiments investigate
ion propulsion
An ion thruster, ion drive, or ion engine is a form of electric propulsion used for spacecraft propulsion. It creates thrust by accelerating ions using electricity.
An ion thruster ionizes a neutral gas by extracting some electrons out of ...
, gas ionization physics, plume detection capabilities, and
orbital debris
Space debris (also known as space junk, space pollution, space waste, space trash, or space garbage) are defunct human-made objects in space—principally in Earth orbit—which no longer serve a useful function. These include derelict space ...
. As part of DOD STP, ARGOS served the need to fly Department of Defense payloads that cannot be flown on the
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program ...
or aboard small launch vehicles due to complexity, size, mission duration, or other constraints. The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense Command, Air Force Research Laboratory, and Office of Naval Research have provided payloads for the ARGOS mission.
Per the Kirtland AFB mission control center, "As of 1500 Zulu on 31 July 2003, support of all ARGOS operations has been terminated. Decaying inertial reference units has led to a tumble of the aircraft. As a result, communications with the spacecraft have been lost".
The satellite was designed to operate in a
Sun-synchronous orbit and many of the payloads required unique Sun-angles, and so the orbit was creatively designed by Robert Cleave to operate without the need for an on-board propulsion subsystem, which was later identified as a key winning strategy.
Payloads
Will Hampton, Boeing director of U.S. Air Force Delta Programs, wrote:
Experiment (DOD Selective Experiments Review Board Year-Rank/Sponsor):
* CERTO - Coherent Electromagnetic Radio Tomography Experiment (1996-18/NRL) instrumentation: developed by NRL's Plasma Physics Division, consists of a stable radio beacon transmitter on the satellite and a chain of receivers on the ground. Radio transmissions from the CERTO beacon are processed by the ground receivers to produce two-dimensional maps of the
electron
The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family,
and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no ...
densities in the
ionosphere. The CERTO measurement technique provides images of the ionosphere with 10 km vertical and horizontal resolution. In addition, ionospheric irregularities of 1 km or less in size can be determined by fluctuations in the CERTO radio waves. CERTO can also be used to calibrate the ionospheric densities obtained using the EUV instruments such as HIRAAS, GIMI, and EUVIP on ARGOS. The CERTO radio-based technique has the advantage of higher spatial resolution than provided by the EUV-based techniques, but requires ground-based receivers aligned under the satellite orbit. The two techniques together on the same satellite provide substantial improvements over each technique separately. CERTO principal investigator, Dr. Paul Bernhardt notes that the NRL instruments on ARGOS was the first demonstration combining EUV and radio sensors for enhanced imaging of the ionosphere.
* CIV - Critical Ionization Velocity Experiment (1990-9/AFRL-Kirtland AFB): Release of
xenon
Xenon is a chemical element with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas found in Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, it can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the ...
and
carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide ( chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is trans ...
gases from nozzles on the ARGOS orbiting with a velocity of about 7.4 km/s at an altitude of about 800 km is proposed. The releases have been conducted mostly in darkness over the
Maui telescope site. The vector sum of the satellite and gas velocities have exceeded the velocity requirement for the critical ionization velocity (CIV) process of xenon. It is feasible that the xenon gas will achieve critical velocity ionization.
Ion source
An ion source is a device that creates atomic and molecular ions. Ion sources are used to form ions for mass spectrometers, optical emission spectrometers, particle accelerators, ion implanters and ion engines.
Electron ionization
Electron ...
and collisional stripping will not occur for the xenon gas and there is no photo-ionization in darkness; ionization processes competing with CIV are absent. Neutral density, ambient magnetic field, and seed ionization effects on the xenon gas CIV will be discussed. Unlike xenon, carbon dioxide will not undergo CIV because of its higher velocity requirement. However, it is feasible that carbon dioxide colliding with the atmospheric species will form excited CO and OH molecules, which will radiate subsequently.
Optical
Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultravio ...
,
IR, and
UV observations on the satellite and at Maui Optical Telescope will provide diagnostic measurements for the experiment.
* ESEX - Electric Propulsion Space Experiment (1990-13/AFRL-Edwards AFB): an effort by the Air Force Research Laboratory's Propulsion Directorate (
Edwards Air Force Base, California) demonstrated a high-powered electric propulsion provided by a 26 kilowatt
ammonia
Ammonia is an inorganic compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . A stable binary hydride, and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinct pungent smell. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous wa ...
fueled arcjet. Its use in space and evaluate its performance and interactions with other experiments and spacecraft systems on board a satellite. Through the ionizing of ammonia, ESEX's electric propulsion was expected to double the payload-to-orbit capability of current space propulsion systems. The ammonia propellant consumed was four times less than the best performing chemical rocket engine in use at that time. For the team, the best information gathered was the validation that firing the highest powered electric propulsion system in space did not interrupt telemetry or affect other equipment on the spacecraft.
* EUVIP - Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Photometer Experiment (1990-8/Army Space & Strategic Defense Command): has established the behavior of the
upper atmosphere Upper atmosphere is a collective term that refers to various layers of the atmosphere of the Earth above the troposphere and corresponding regions of the atmospheres of other planets, and includes:
* The mesosphere, which on Earth lies between th ...
and
plasmasphere
The plasmasphere, or inner magnetosphere, is a region of the Earth's magnetosphere consisting of low-energy (cool) plasma. It is located above the ionosphere. The outer boundary of the plasmasphere is known as the plasmapause, which is defined ...
needed for Army secure communication systems design, prediction of
magnetic storms, and characterization of the
aurora
An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of bri ...
.
* GIMI - Global Imaging Monitor of the Ionosphere Experiment (1990-19/NRL): will obtain wide-field FUV/EUV images of ionospheric and upper atmospheric emissions simultaneously, covering large areas of the
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
from a
low Earth orbit
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...
. These images will be used to determine chemical densities
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,_suspected_"ice_comets",_rocket_exhausts_and_chemical_releases._In_between_the_atmospheric_observations,_GIMI_will_also_perform_an_all-sky_survey_of_stars_and_celestial_diffuse_sources_at_Ultraviolet.html" ;"title="Meteoroid.html" "title="Nitrogen_dioxide">N2.html" ;"title="Nitrogen_dioxide.html" ;"title="Oxygen">O2,_Nitrogen_oxide.html" ;"title="Oxygen.html" ;"title="+, nighttime Oxygen">O2, Nitrogen oxide">NO and Nitrogen dioxide">N2">Nitrogen_dioxide.html" ;"title="Oxygen">O2,_Nitrogen_oxide.html" ;"title="Oxygen.html" ;"title="+, nighttime Oxygen">O2, Nitrogen oxide">NO and Nitrogen dioxide">N2on a global basis and to detect disturbances in the
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A meteoroid () is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space.
Meteoroids are defined as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to objects up to a meter wide. Objects smaller than this are classified as mi ...
, suspected "ice comets", rocket exhausts and chemical releases. In between the atmospheric observations, GIMI will also perform an all-sky survey of stars and celestial diffuse sources at Ultraviolet">far-ultraviolet wavelengths. The GIMI instrument has two coaligned cameras for simultaneous observations of selected targets. Camera 1, which is sensitive in the 75-110 nm range, will primarily be used for observations of the dayside ionosphere, auroras, and stellar occultations, and for star field surveys. Camera 2 is sensitive in the 131-160 and 131-200 nm far-UV wavelength ranges and will be used for observations of the nightside ionosphere, airglow, stellar occultations, star field surveys, and also gas releases and rocket plumes at night.
* HIRAAS - High Resolution Airglow/Aurora Spectrograph Experiment (1990-5/NRL): is a multi-instrument experiment that will scan the edge of the Earth's atmosphere (called the limb) about every 90 seconds to measure naturally occurring airglow missions in the 50 to 340 nanometer (nm) wavelength range over a wide array of geophysical conditions and at varying local times. The instruments will perform continuous observations over several spectral bands with resolution up to ten times better than with previous experiments. These measurements will be used to infer the composition (O+, N
) and temperature. Data from the HIRAAS experiment will be used to explore new concepts in monitoring space weather from satellites, and to improve high frequency communications and over-the-horizon radar, which rely on propagation through the atmosphere. The measurements will also help researchers assess the long-term effects of the increases of atmospheric greenhouse gases on the upper atmosphere and ionosphere.
* HTSSE II - High Temperature Superconductivity Space Experiment (1992-2/NRL): developed by the Naval Research Laboratory will space qualify superconducting digital subsystems that could offer factors of 100 to 1000 in power reduction - more than ten times higher speed and similar weight reduction, than today's silicon or gallium arsenide (GaAs) based electronics. Spacecraft designers will evaluate the benefits for future systems.
* SPADUS - Space Dust Experiment (1990-33/Office of Naval Research): sponsored by the University of Chicago with funding by the Office of Naval Research, will measure velocity and impact of dust in space orbit.
* USA - Unconventional Stellar Aspect (1990-22/NRL): sponsored by Naval Research Lab, Space Science Division, the USA experiment was designed to observe bright
. In neutron stars, gravity has compressed matter down to densities larger than those found in the nucleus of an atom. In all of these types of binary systems, extraordinarily strong, relativistic gravitational forces and enormous magnetic fields act in concert to produce dramatic phenomena not observable from Earth-based laboratories. In addition to providing valuable new information for astrophysicists and particle physicists, USA has been designed to make significant contributions to
. It will use X-ray sources to test new approaches to
. It will also test new concepts for making spacecraft computers more reliable, an approach called fault-tolerant computing. Finally, a unique feature of USA is that
receiver allowing precise absolute time and location determination. USA operated from 1 May 1999, through 16 November 2000.
P91-1 ARGOS Mission Book.
* ARGOS Spacecraft mass:
* The ARGOS satellite could generate 2200 watts of electrical power from solar panels
* Data Rates for SV: 4 and 128 kbit/s; Experiments: 1.024, 4.096, and 5 Mbit/s
* Initial: Circular orbit altitude: 455 nmi (851 km), with inclination: 98.725°.
* Final, post second-stage depletion burn: 335 x 459 nautical miles (833 km) orbit inclined at 96.7°.
* Through the ESEX and CIV experiment operations, the mission orbit was lowered over two kilometers.
''After about six weeks stacked on the launch pad, and as long for mission crews to report only to replan activities for another night and slightly different time, the rocket and its satellites blasted away from Earth's pull''.
* 15 January 1999 - postponed launch 24 hours to complete testing of the link between the spacecraft and the ground telemetry station. "The spacecraft team observed noise intrusion on the telemetry signal sent from the spacecraft to the ground station. The spacecraft team has corrected the problem and validation testing is underway. The 24-hour delay allows the spacecraft team to finalize its testing prior to the launch vehicle upper stage fueling".
* 21 January 1999 - launch postponed due to weather (upper-level winds).
* 22 January 1999 - launch postponed due to weather (upper-level winds).
* 27 January 1999 - launch postponed due to weather (upper-level winds).
* 28 January 1999 - launch postponed — the Boeing launch team determined that a propellant valve on vernier engine number two failed to open on command. This caused the engine shutdown and initiation of the autosafe mechanism on the launch vehicle. During the engine start sequence, the two vernier engines are required to ignite prior to ignition of the main engine. The main engine and two vernier engines were automatically shut down at approximately T-0 when it was detected that one of the vernier engines had failed to ignite. All vehicle safing systems performed as designed and expected.
* 7 February 1999 - launch postponed due to weather (upper-level winds).
* 8 February 1999 - launch postponed due to weather (upper-level winds).
* 12 February 1999 - launch postponed due to weather (upper-level winds).
* 13 February 1999 - launch postponed due to an electrical problem in the first stage of the booster.
* 21 February 1999 - launch postponed due to weather (upper-level winds).
* 23 February 1999 - the rocket lifted off at 10:29 UTC from California's
As the launching of the ARGOS satellite did not require the full payload capacity of its launching rocket, Delta II, there was room left in the payload-mass-budget of the launch vehicle and thus two secondary satellites were added to, and launched on, the same rocket on 23 February 1999. NASA sponsored the secondary satellites,