A busy 13 hour period for Northrop Grumman (NG) that will see the launch of two NG-built satellites and use of the company’s Pegasus rocket to loft a NASA satellite into orbit is set to kick off Wednesday morning at 06:17 EDT (10:17 UTC) with the launch of a Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Commercially contracted and managed by International Launch Services (ILS), the mission is using a Proton rocket with a Briz-M upper stage to place both the Eutelsat 5 West B satellite and the Mission Extension Vehicle into a Geostationary Transfer Orbit.
Eutelsat 5 West B:
The new satellite for Eutelsat is a joint partnership between Northrop Grumman and Airbus Defence and Space, marking the first time the two organizations have teamed to build a spacecraft.
Under the terms of the build contract, Airbus Defence and Space was responsible for the communications payload while Northrop Grumman was responsible for the overall design, integration, and testing of the satellite as well as providing its main operational platform.
Eutelsat 5 West B will incorporate a European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service payload that will augment the U.S. Global Positioning System to improve accuracy and reliability of positioning information.
The satellite’s main purpose will be to serve video markets in Europe and Northern Africa over a 15-year operational life to replace the current Eutelsat 5 West platform.
All told, Eutelsat 5 West B carries a 2,740 kg launch mass and will operate on the GEOStar satellite bus from Northrop Grumman.
Two solar wings will provide power for the vehicle’s Lithium-ion batteries and its Ku-band communications system, including 35 active transponders and two deployable single offset antenna reflectors measuring 2.6 meters in diameter.
After being dropped off in Geostationary Transfer Orbit, the satellite will use its liquid bi-propellant engine to raise its orbit to the Geostationary (GEO) belt. Once there, it will use its monopropellant hydrazine thrusters to maintain station-keeping operations at the 5 Degrees West Longitude location.
Mission Extension Vehicle:
Hitching a ride to orbit with Eutelsat 5 West B is another Northrop Grumman property also built on the GEOStar satellite bus.
The Mission Extension Vehicle, or MEV, is a revolutionary offering from Northrop Grumman designed to increase an already on-orbit GEO satellite’s lifetime by five years or more.
Launch alertOur MEV-1 and the #NorthropGrumman-built @Eutelsat_SA 5 West B satellite will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard an @ILSLaunch Proton Rocket tomorrow at 6:17am ET. Tune in to the ILS website tomorrow at 6:00am ET to watch live! ms.spr.ly/6015TRnWz
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“This actually began for us in a previous company when we were ATK in the mid-2000s,” said Joe Anderson, Vice President of Business Development and Operation for Space Logistics LLC – a wholly-owned subsidiary of Northrop Grumman – in an interview with NASASpaceflight’s Chris Gebhardt.
“In 2009, we invested in our rendezvous, proximity, and docking laboratory and began developing our own internal concept for this Mission Extension Vehicle.”