Complex Jobs

Every part of this has to work. The launch must be successful, followed by the rocket stages. Once it’s parked the solar cells and antennas must deploy properly and all the electronics have to work. It’s hope that it won’t be hit by anything large enough to harm it over its fifteen year lifespan.

No guarantees. No repairs.

Nimiq6 reached orbit tonight. Is that a big deal anymore? Probably not.

There are launches all-the-time and unless you’re geekier than me (unlikely) you never hear of them.

Nimiq6 is a Canadian communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit. It’s their equivalent of Dish Network or DirecTV.

Spaceflightnow quotes the man ultimately in charge.

“It takes more than a million man hours and hundreds of engineers and technicians working together as a team to build a satellite like Nimiq 6,” said John Celli, president of Space Systems/Loral. “

A million and a half pounds of rocket and payload are launched to position a 9,900 pound satellite!

Every part of this has to work. The launch must be successful, followed by the rocket stages. Once it’s parked the solar cells and antennas must deploy properly and all the electronics have to work. It’s hope that it won’t be hit by anything large enough to harm it over its fifteen year lifespan.

No guarantees. No repairs.

Geosynchronous satellites become less efficient close to the poles. Canada’s tough to serve.

Dishes must be pointed lower and lower in the sky until finally the satellite is below the horizon and can’t be seen!

This bird uses strongly directional antennas. They concentrate power where it’s needed without wasting any where it’s not!

Which is more amazing, that all this can be done, or that we accept these exceptional achievements as no big deal.

5 thoughts on “Complex Jobs”

  1. I’m old enough to remember the glory days of American spaceflight, and am a rather rabid consumer of all things concerned with space, from books to documentaries, from manned spaceflight history to backyard astronomy to the ham radio satellites and moon bounce (been looking at that backyard radio astronomy stuff lately, too).

    It just saddens me that we have no significant space exploration program in America today. It’s wrong on so many levels. And many people to blame.

    No vision, no blue chips.

    73

  2. And yet we still have no cure for the common cold…..all the science and knowledge ….methinks a conspiracy exists…

  3. I thought Dish actually used some of this bird for its use as well… maybe not.

    A virus (common cold) is difficult to “undo” if it wasn’t we wouldn’t have HIV today either.

    great – write up!

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