Scott Nicholas
The U.S. Navy will consider alternate orbit adjustment options, calculate mission impact and investigate options to address a propulsion system failure that occurred on the service branch’s communications satellite launch, Space News reported Tuesday.
Mike Gruss writes the fifth Lockheed Martin-developed Mobile User Objective System has not transferred to geosynchronous orbit as a result of a orbit raising propulsion system failure on day five of a 10-day climb to push the satellite from its initial elliptical launch orbit.
MUOS-5 lifted off June 24 via a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket to act as an on-orbit spare system to provide smartphone-like communications to mobile forces at a faster rate than the Navy’s legacy satellites.
The service branch halted the transfer process to its geosynchronous Earth orbit test facility in July because of the discovered anomaly.
