FLTSATCOM-3

Last updated June 21, 2019

FLTSATCOM-3^[1] or (FSC-3) was the third vehicle in the Navy's FLTSATCOM communications satellite constellation, which were used by the United States Navy for communications between aircraft, ships, submarines and ground stations. Fltsatcom 3 prorided 28 5-kHz and 11 20-kHz communications channels simultaneously in the UHF band. The UHF up-link was in the 290 to 320 MHz range while down-link was in the 240 to 320 MHz range. A number of channels were reserved for high priority communications by the United States Air Force. These were ground to air communications between SAC aircraft, the E-3A airborne warning and control system and elements of the presidential command structure. FSC-3's life officially ended in September 1995.

The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most capable navy in the world and it has been estimated that in terms of tonnage of its active battle fleet alone, it is larger than the next 13 navies combined, which includes 11 U.S. allies or partner nations. with the highest combined battle fleet tonnage and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, and two new carriers under construction. With 319,421 personnel on active duty and 99,616 in the Ready Reserve, the U.S. Navy is the third largest of the U.S. military service branches in terms of personnel. It has 282 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of March 2018, making it the third-largest air force in the world, after the United States Air Force and the United States Army.

The United States Air Force (USAF) is the aerial and space warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the five branches of the United States Armed Forces, and one of the seven American uniformed services. Initially formed as a part of the United States Army on 1 August 1907, the USAF was established as a separate branch of the U.S. Armed Forces on 18 September 1947 with the passing of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the youngest branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, and the fourth in order of precedence. The USAF is the largest and most technologically advanced air force in the world. The Air Force articulates its core missions as air and space superiority, global integrated intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control.

FSC 3 was launched on 18 January 1980 at 01:26 UTC on an Atlas-Centaur rocket. The launch took place at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The initial transfer orbit was at an inclination of 26.2 degrees. It had a periapsis of 171 km and an apoapsis of 3,524 km and an orbital period of 619 minutes.^[2] The orbit was circularized at the operational geosynchronous altitude by a solid propellant apogee kick motor (AKM).

The Atlas-Centaur was an American expendable launch system derived from the SM-65 Atlas D missile. Launches were conducted from Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Cape Canaveral, from the Spanish Cabo Cañaveral, is a cape in Brevard County, Florida, United States, near the center of the state's Atlantic coast. Known as Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973, it lies east of Merritt Island, separated from it by the Banana River. It was discovered by the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León in 1513.

Florida is the southernmost contiguous state in the United States. The state is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, and to the south by the Straits of Florida. Florida is the 22nd-most extensive, the 3rd-most populous, and the 8th-most densely populated of the U.S. states. Jacksonville is the most populous municipality in the state and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. The Miami metropolitan area is Florida's most populous urban area. Tallahassee is the state's capital.

The satellite's main body was 1.7 meters high by 2.7 meters in diameter and a hexagonal shape. The FLTSATCOM satellites had a 5.3 meter wire mesh parabolic transmit antenna with a 2-meter solid center section. The receive antenna was a helical coil mounted on a deployed boom off to one side. They were triaxial stabilized satellites, utilizing a reaction control wheel instead of spin stabilization. The satellites produced 1.1 kW DC, using 2 three-section solar panels mounted on booms extending from the satellite. The craft used Nickel–cadmium batteries for power during solar eclipses. When they were originally launched, the FSC satellites were the heaviest communications satellite used by the United States military, exceeding TacSat-1 by over 100 kg.

The nickel–cadmium battery is a type of rechargeable battery using nickel oxide hydroxide and metallic cadmium as electrodes. The abbreviation NiCd is derived from the chemical symbols of nickel (Ni) and cadmium (Cd): the abbreviation NiCad is a registered trademark of SAFT Corporation, although this brand name is commonly used to describe all Ni–Cd batteries.

A solar eclipse occurs when an observer passes through the shadow cast by the Moon which fully or partially blocks ("occults") the Sun. This can only happen when the Sun, Moon and Earth are nearly aligned on a straight line in three dimensions (syzygy) during a new moon when the Moon is close to the ecliptic plane. In a total eclipse, the disk of the Sun is fully obscured by the Moon. In partial and annular eclipses, only part of the Sun is obscured.

TacSat-1 was an experimental satellite built by the Naval Research Laboratory on behalf of the United States Department of Defense (DOD) Office of Force Transformation (OFT). The second satellite in the series, TacSat-2, has already been launched. It was the planned payload of the sixth launch of the SpaceX Falcon 1.

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This is a timeline of Solar System exploration ordered by date of spacecraft launch. It includes:

Venera 1, also known as Venera-1VA No.2 and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 8 was the first spacecraft to fly past Venus, as part of the Soviet Union's Venera programme. Launched in February 1961, it flew past Venus on 19 May of the same year; however, radio contact with the probe was lost before the flyby, resulting in it returning no data.

Skynet is a family of military communications satellites, now operated by Airbus Defence and Space on behalf of the UK Ministry of Defence, which provide strategic communication services to the three branches of the British Armed Forces and to NATO forces engaged on coalition tasks. The satellites were operated by Paradigm Secure Communications until October 2012 when the organisation was rebranded to Astrium Services.

The Mars Climate Orbiter was a 338-kilogram (745 lb) robotic space probe launched by NASA on December 11, 1998 to study the Martian climate, Martian atmosphere, and surface changes and to act as the communications relay in the Mars Surveyor '98 program for Mars Polar Lander. However, on September 23, 1999, communication with the spacecraft was lost as the spacecraft went into orbital insertion, due to ground-based computer software which produced output in non-SI units of pound-force seconds (lbf·s) instead of the SI units of newton-seconds (N·s) specified in the contract between NASA and Lockheed. The spacecraft encountered Mars on a trajectory that brought it too close to the planet, and it was either destroyed in the atmosphere or re-entered heliocentric space after leaving Mars' atmosphere.

Pioneer 5 was a spin-stabilized space probe in the NASA Pioneer program used to investigate interplanetary space between the orbits of Earth and Venus. It was launched on March 11, 1960 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 17A at 13:00:00 UTC with an on-orbit dry mass of 43 kg. It was a 0.66 m diameter sphere with 1.4 m span across its four solar panels and achieved a solar orbit of 0.806 × 0.995 AU.

<i>Pioneer 6</i>, <i>7</i>, <i>8</i>, and <i>9</i>

Pioneer 6, 7, 8, and 9 were space probes in the Pioneer program. They were a series of solar-orbiting, spin-stabilized, solar cell- and battery-powered satellites designed to obtain measurements on a continuing basis of interplanetary phenomena from widely separated points in space. They were also known as Pioneer A, B, C, and D. The fifth was lost in a launch accident, and therefore did not receive a numerical designation.

Nozomi was a planned and launched Mars-orbiting aeronomy probe. It did not reach Mars orbit due to electrical failures. The mission was terminated on December 31, 2003.

<i>Lunar Prospector</i> Third mission of the Discovery program; polar orbital reconnaissance of the Moon

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Helios-A and Helios-B are a pair of probes launched into heliocentric orbit for the purpose of studying solar processes. A joint venture of West Germany's space agency DFVLR and NASA, the probes were launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on December 10, 1974, and January 15, 1976, respectively. Built by the main contractor Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm, they were the first spaceprobes built outside both the United States and the Soviet Union to leave Earth orbit.

Explorer 52 was an American satellite launched on June 3, 1974 from Vandenberg Air Force Base on a Scout booster.

Explorer 49 was a 328-kilogram satellite launched on June 10, 1973 for long wave radio astronomy research. It had four 230-meter-long X-shaped antenna elements, which made it one of the largest spacecraft ever built.

FLTSATCOM was a satellite communication system of the U.S. Navy which was used for UHF radio communications between ships, submarines, airplanes and ground stations of the Navy.

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The European Retrievable Carrier (EURECA) was an unmanned 4.5-tonne satellite with 15 experiments. It was a European Space Agency (ESA) mission and the acronym was derived from Archimedes' bathtub revelation "Eureka!".

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SECOR was a series of small United States Armed Forces satellites launched in the 1960s for geodesy measurements that precisely determined the locations of points on the Earth's surface, particularly of isolated islands in the Pacific. This data allowed for improved global mapping and precise positioning of ground stations for other satellites.

LOFTI-1 was an American satellite which was launched in 1961 and operated by the United States Navy and Naval Research Laboratory. It was used to conduct research into the propagation of very low frequency radio signals in the ionosphere, and to investigate if these signals could be received by submarines. A 136.17 MHz transmitter was used for this investigation.

Explorer 28 was a satellite launched in May 1965 to study Space physics. It was powered by chemical batteries and Solar panels. There were 7 experiments on board, all devoted to particle studies. Performance was normal until mid-April 1967, when intermittent problems began. It stayed in contact until May 12, 1967, when contact was lost. The orbit kept going lower and lower until it re-entered on July 4, 1968.

Explorer 22 was an American satellite launched as part of Explorers program of the NASA.

References

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[1] ttp://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=1980-004A NSSDC ID: 1980-004A

[2] ttp://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftOrbit.do?id=1980-004A