17 September
The ESOC Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, reports that the MSG-1 satellite is currently drifting toward its position at 10 degrees West, which it is expected to reach by tomorrow morning (all times are local Darmstadt).
ESOC plans to execute the two-stage drift-stop manoeuvre tomorrow, at 8:00 and 20:00, once the satellite has reached the 10 degrees west. These manoeuvres are expected to bring MSG-1 up to the geostationary altitude of 36 000 km.
Prior operations completed successfully include the decontamination of the Seviri optical systems on 12 September, which lasted approximately 24 hours. On 11 September at 8:00, the cooler cover was released, followed one hour later by the spin-up manoeuvre that increased the satellite’s spin rate from 58 to 99 revolutions per minute.
Official handover of the satellite to Eumetsat is still planned for sometime next week.
10 September
The ESOC Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, reports the final MSG-1 orbit manoeuvre using the main apogee engines was successfully executed on 5 September at 14:30 (local time), putting the satellite in a near-synchronous orbit with an apogee height of 35 763 km and a perigee height of 35 566 km.
The spin-axis erection manoeuvre to bring the satellite into its final attitude was successfully executed on 6 September in two steps, one starting at 10:30, the second following at 11:55 (local time). Each manoeuvre lasted 1 hour 10 min. The helium tanks were disconnected on the 6 September at 14:40 (local time). The first cover of the radiometer was released on 9 September at 17:30 (local time).
The satellite is now in a drift orbit about 200 km below the geostationary ring in the in-orbit storage phase.
Upcoming manoeuvres include the release of the cooler cover planned for tomorrow at 8:00 (local time), followed by a spin-up manoeuvre from 58 to 99 revolutions per minute one hour later.
The satellite will then be manoeuvred to its geostationary position at 10 degrees West by the end of next week.
The hand-over of the satellite to Eumetsat is planned for the end of September.
5 September
Low Earth orbit phase operations continue on MSG-1, reports the ESOC Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany.
The final orbit manoeuvre using the main apogee engines was successfully executed today at 14:30 (local time) for a duration of nine minutes.
The satellite is now in a near-synchronous orbit with an apogee height of 35 763 km and a perigee height of 35 566 km.
The next operations activities include a spin-axis erection manoeuvre to bring the satellite into its final attitude, planned for 6 September at approximately 9:00, and the release of the two covers of the radiometer, planned for 9 September.
3 September
The ESA's Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, reports launch and early orbit phase operations on MSG-1 are progressing. The third apogee engine firing took place today at 8:00 (local Darmstadt time) for a duration of five minutes raising the perigee to 21 625 km. The dynamic behaviour of the spacecraft has been analysed and completely understood. The last orbit manoeuvre using the main engines is now planned for Thursday, 5 September at 14:25 (local time).
2 September
The ESA's Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, reports the second apogee engine firing took place on Saturday, 31 August at 16:00 (local time) for a duration of 17 minutes, raising the perigee of the satellite to 16 661 km. The last orbit manoeuvre using the apogee engine originally planned for Monday, 2 September, has been postponed to allow further investigation of a slightly unexpected dynamic behaviour of the spacecraft.
29 August
Lift-off the MSG-1 spacecraft occurred at 00:45, central European summer time, on Thursday, 29 August, and separation from the launcher occurred 36 minutes later, reports ESA's Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany.
Early operations on MSG-1 are proceeding nominally, with telemetry acquired at one hour, seven minutes, that confirmed nominal satellite performance in all subsystems.
Attitude and orbit sensors were activated at one hour, 48 minutes, central European summer time.
The first apogee boost motor firing is scheduled for Friday, 30 August, at approximately 13:45 local Darmstadt time, ESA's Operations Centre said.
28 August
Arianespace Flight 155 has been postponed 24 hours after exceeding the launch window tonight.
The countdown was stopped when a problem was detected in the computer dialogue between the control center and the launcher.
This difficulty was resolved, and a decision to restart the countdown was taken. By that time, the authorized launch window for the MSG-1 satellite had been exceeded and the decision was taken to postpone the launch.
The new launch date is set for Wednesday, 28 August at 7:30 p.m. local Kourou, French Guiana time.
Launch window:
The Ariane 5 launcher lift-off for Flight 155 is scheduled during the night of 28/29 August, 2002 as soon as possible
within the following launch window :
Kourou time
Between 7:30 pm and 8:15 pm on 28 August, 2002
GMT Launch opportunity
from 10:30 pm to 11:15 pm on 28 August, 2002
Paris time
00:30 am to 01:15 am on 29 August, 2002
01:07 CET
The countdown for Arianespace Flight 155 was stopped at approximately 3 minutes before liftoff due to a problem between one of Ariane 5's three onboard computers and the ground-based computer.
27 August 10:00 CET
Arianespace's Flight 155 has been cleared for launch, and the Ariane 5 vehicle was moved out to the launch zone, yesterday 26 August.
Arianespace announces that all is on schedule for this evening's liftoff with dual payload MSG-1 and Atlantic Bird 1.
