Under an implementing arrangement, the agencies may use each other’s ground stations for telemetry, tracking and command functions.
Yay for international cooperation!
ESA’s European Space Tracking (Estrack) network has a core of six stations in six countries, including three deep space antennas, while the agreement will open access to the Korea Deep Space Antenna in Yeoju. This cooperation will boost resilience for missions by filling gaps in coverage and providing back-up tracking stations should the main facility not be available because of environmental reasons or congestion.
I didn’t even know there was an antenna in Yeoju. Cool stuff.
I find it quaint that so much of the Deep Space Network is essentially “shout really loudly at the spacecraft with giant radio dishes”. Future missions will probably make use of laser relay networks, but since there are still so many currently operating missions which use radio, it seems like these dishes will be with us for a long time.
Hold up, it’s only 23 m tall? That’s like 1/3 the height of Starship, and 1/27 the mass and volume. Does the Starship architecture even work at that scale?
SpaceX are having enough challenges as it is getting a useful payload fraction out of the 9 m wide Starship, which they have stretched once and plan to stretch again.
“EU to Commission Mobile Responsive Launch System Studies” is not quite as exciting as “EU to Commission Mobile Responsive Launch System” would have been, but who knows? Perhaps one day one of these studies will lead somewhere… :)
Orbit data for the Ariane launch is now available. Here’s the Ariane trajectory to the disposal area in the Indian Ocean with impact around 0320 UTC Aug 13 on its second orbit. (Note the earlier pass southbound over Western Australia on its first orbit, about 0140 UTC)
On the other side of the planet, we see the launch trajectory north from French Guiana over the Atlantic and Labrador, circa 0040 UTC, and then on the second orbit over Colombia, Cuba, the eastern US and Ontario circa 0225-0240 UTC. The deorbit burn was at 0235 UTC, 800 km above Lake Superior
The deorbit burn of the Ariane 6 upper stage occurred at 0235 UTC Aug 13 (10.35 pm EDT Aug 12). Spinup and propellant dump at about 0245 UTC was widely observed in the eastern US and Canada as Ariane 6003 headed north and downhill for reentry over the Indian Ocean half an orbit later