USA-293, also known as GPS-III SV02 or Magellan, is a United States

navigation satellite A satellite navigation or satnav system is a system that uses satellites to provide autonomous geo-spatial positioning. It allows satellite navigation devices to determine their location (longitude, latitude, and altitude/elevation) to high pre ...

which forms part of the

Global Positioning System The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

. It was the second

GPS Block III GPS Block III (previously Block IIIA) consists of the first ten GPS III satellites, which will be used to keep the Navstar Global Positioning System operational. Lockheed Martin designed, developed and manufactured the GPS III Non-Flight Sate ...

satellite to be launched.

Satellite

SV02 is the second

satellite to be launched. Ordered in 2008, technical delays to the first satellite in the program, SV01, pushed launch back to 2019. The spacecraft is built on the

Lockheed Martin A2100 The A2100 is a model of communications satellite spacecraft made by Lockheed Martin Space Systems. It is used as the foundation for telecommunications payloads in geosynchronous orbit, as well as GOES-R weather satellites and GPS Block IIIA satell ...

satellite bus, and weighs in at .

Launch

USA-293 was launched by

United Launch Alliance United Launch Alliance (ULA), legally United Launch Alliance, LLC, is an American spacecraft launch service provider that manufactures and operates a number of rocket vehicles that are capable of launching spacecraft into orbits around Earth, a ...

on 22 August 2019 at 13:06 UTC atop a

Delta IV Medium Delta IV is a group of five expendable launch systems in the Delta rocket family introduced in the early 2000s. Originally designed by Boeing's Defense, Space and Security division for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, the ...

. The launch was the final flight of the single-core Delta IV, with all subsequent flights being on the triple-core

Delta IV Heavy The Delta IV Heavy (Delta 9250H) is an Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, expendable heavy-lift launch vehicle, the largest type of the Delta IV family. It is the world's third highest-capacity launch vehicle in operation, behind NASA's Space L ...

. The launch took place from

Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 37 Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37), previously Launch Complex 37 (LC-37), is a launch complex on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Construction began in 1959 and the site was accepted by NASA to support the Saturn I program in 1963. The ...

, and deployed USA-293 directly into a

semi-synchronous orbit A semi-synchronous orbit is an orbit with a period equal to half the average rotational period of the body being orbited, and in the same direction as that body's rotation. For Earth, a semi-synchronous orbit is considered a medium Earth orbit, w ...

Orbit

As of 2021, USA-293 was in a 55.4 degree

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a Plane of reference, reference plane and the orbital plane or Axis of rotation, axis of direction of the orbiting object ...

orbit with a

perigee 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 ellip ...

of and an

apogee 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 ellip ...

of .

Delta IV GPS III Magellan rocket (48631124101)

References

{{Orbital launches in 2019 Spacecraft launched in 2019 GPS satellites USA satellites Spacecraft launched by Delta rockets