MUOS 5

Launch data: Designation  41622 / 16041A Launch date  24 June 2016 - 14:30 UT Launch site  CC, SLC-41 Launch vehicle  Atlas V-551 Mission  Communication Geosynchronous orbit: Perigee / Apogee  3880 x 35670 km Eccentricity   Inclination  19.1 ° Period   min

Spacecraft data: Prime manufacturer  Lockheed Martin (Prime), Boeing, General Dynamics Platform  A2100M Operator  US navy Mass at launch  6740 kg Dry Mass  3812 kg Basic shape   Dimension (m)   Equipment   Solar array  2 deployable solar arrays Stabilization   Propulsion  Japanese BT-4 main engine DC power   Design lifetime  15 yrs

MUOS 5 in the factory. Credit: Lockheed Martin

Description:

• MUOS 5 is designed to provide Ultra High Frequency communications to the U.S. military for the next 15 years over an area that extends from Africa to the Middle East to Asia.
• The first four MUOS satellites are in use today providing legacy communications services — MUOS 1 over the Pacific, MUOS 2 to the Americas, MUOS 3 above the Atlantic and MUOS 4 over the Indian Ocean.

Mission details:

• The US Navy Multiple User Object System's Space Vehicle 3 was launched on Jun 24 2016 as MUOS 5.
  The Atlas 5 rocket made three burns to 167 x 659 km x 28 deg, 191 x 32930 x 26 deg and then 3802 x 35786 km x 19 deg, and deployed MUOS which will use its Japanese BT-4 thruster to reach GEO over the Indian Ocean as an in-orbit spare for the system, whose 4 operational satellites are over the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Americas.
• July 2016: Trouble has befallen the U.S. Navy’s new communications satellite that was launched from Cape Canaveral two weeks ago, suspending orbit raising maneuvers and leaving the craft half-way between its rocket deployment orbit and a circular geosynchronous orbit.
• The most powerful version of the Atlas placed the 15,000-pound satellite into a customized high-perigee geosynchronous transfer orbit as planned, stretching from 2,379 by 22,219 miles at an inclination of 19.1 degrees.
  From that highly elliptical preliminary orbit, the Lockheed Martin-built satellite would perform 7 firings of its Liquid Apogee Engine to raise the low point to circularize the orbit and reduce its orbital tilt closer to the equator.
  But after an unspecified number of burns were completed, the trip to geosynchronous orbit was stopped, the Navy said.
• MUOS 5 currently resides in an orbit of 9,471 by 22,185 miles at an inclination of 9.8 degrees, according to hobbyist observers tracking the satellite. It hasn´t moved any higher in a week.
  To this point, MUOS 5 has completed 700 m/s out of the total approximately 1300 m/s velocity change required.
  
  

  Illustration of the MUOS orbit raising plan. Credit: Lockheed Martin