Post a Comment On: SatTrackCam Leiden (b)log

The website Spaceflight.com has broken the news that something has gone wrong with the orbit raising manoeuvres of MUOS 5. They have therefore been halted for the moment. A formal statement by the US Navy on this all is here.

So MUOS 5 at this moment appears to be stuck in the aproximately 15240 x 35700 km Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) in which Paul Camilleri and me observed it between July 3 and 5 (see my previous post).

It is the white orbit in the plots below (replaced with new versions July 9):

[Image]
[Image]

Orbit in TLE form:

MUOS 5 15242 x 35703 km 1 41622U 16041A 16186.93646397 0.00000000 00000-0 00000+0 0 08 2 41622 9.8319 324.4682 3211964 178.4686 182.8307 1.52727671 09 rms 0.003 from 14 observations Jul 3.46 - Jul 5.57 (arc 2.1 days)