Wed, Nov 02, 2011
Liftoff Planned For December 16
Preparations for Arianespace's second Soyuz mission from French
Guiana are moving forward as assembly and checkout of the vehicle
continue at the Spaceport.
Its basic three-stage launcher is now taking shape in the MIK
integration hall at the Soyuz launch site, located in the
Spaceport's northwestern sector near the town of Sinnamary. This
process began with the horizontal mating of the second-stage
central core's upper and lower sections, using jigs aligned in the
MIK facility's floor-level rail system.
The activity cleared the way for installation of the launcher's
four first-stage boosters, of which the first two were mated to its
core center stage during the weekend. Its remaining two boosters
will be added in the next step, to be followed by integration of
the in-line third stage - completing the vehicle's build-up in the
horizontal integration process used for all Soyuz launchers. Also
in the MIK facility, the Soyuz' Fregat upper stage continues to
undergo its checkout, which includes validation of data
communications.
Once the Fregat's preparations are complete, this stage will be
moved to the Spaceport's S3B clean room, where it will be
integrated with the mission's payload and fairing - creating the
launcher's upper composite section. The upper composite is to be
installed atop the Soyuz once the vehicle is rolled out to the
launch pad and erected in the vertical position, protected by a
purpose-built mobile service gantry.
For this no. 2 flight of Soyuz from French Guiana - which is set
for December 16 - the medium-lift launcher will carry a
multi-passenger payload composed of the French CNES space agency's
Pleiades optical Earth observation satellite, accompanied by four
French Elisa micro-satellite demonstrators for defense-related
electronic intelligence gathering (ELINT), and the Chilean SSOT
(Sistema satelital de Observacion de la Tierra) optical satellite
for civilian and defense Earth observation.
Arianespace introduced Soyuz at the Spaceport with a highly
successful inaugural flight on October 21, which placed two Galileo
navigation satellites into circular medium-Earth orbit. (Photo
Courtesy Arianespace)
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