GOES-R Mission Overview (Post Launch Activities)

What happens once the GOES-R satellite is launched? This video from Lockheed Martin explains the process, from launch vehicle separation to solar array and antenna deployment to orbit raising maneuvers, transition to storage orbit and finally GOES-R normal operations.

RD-180 (rocket engine) Ignition

SRB (Solid Rocket Booster) burnout (About 125 seconds after launch and at an altitude of about 150,000 feet, the SRBs burn out and are jettisoned from the external tank)

SRB Jettison SRB #1 and #2 (The SRBs are jettisoned from the space shuttle at high altitude. SRB separation is initiated when the three solid rocket motor chamber pressure transducers are processed in the redundancy management middle value select and the head-end chamber pressure of both SRBs is less than or equal to 50 psi (340 kPa). A backup cue is the time elapsed from booster ignition.)

SRB Jettison SRB #3 and #4

Fairing Jettison (A payload fairing is a nose cone used to protect a spacecraft (launch vehicle payload) against the impact of dynamic pressure and aerodynamic heating during launch through an atmosphere. Outside the atmosphere the fairing is jettisoned, exposing the payload. At this moment mechanical shocks and a spike in acceleration might be observed)

BECO and A/C Sep

Centaur MES1 (Main Engine Start) [Centaur:  Fuel and oxidizer and the vehicle's "brains"; fires twice, once to insert the vehicle-spacecraft stack into low Earth orbit]

3D Trace and Boost Events

Centaur MECO1 (first main engine cutoff)

Centaur MES2

Centaur MECO2 (begin 2.75 hour coast) 

Passive Thermal Control (PTC) Roll (Passive thermal control systems for launch vehicles and spacecraft use engineered materials to control the amounts of energy radiated and absorbed. High emittance materials are used to radiate heat energy into space and cool the spacecraft. These materials may be used to radiate energy that has been concentrated by an active thermal control system.)

Centaur MES3

Centaur MECO3

Spacecraft Separation 

Spacecraft Separation Attitude (Attitude is the angular orientation of a spacecraft body vector with respect to an external reference frame.)

Communication via Hemi Antennas

First-Stage Solar Array Deployment

Begin Attitude Acquisition 

Transition to Bicone Antenna (broad-bandwidth antenna made of two roughly conical conductive objects, nearly touching at their points)

Orbit Raising (the use of propulsion systems to change the orbit of a spacecraft)
	Liquid Apogee Engine (LAE 1)

Orbit Raising and Circularization

Solar Array Stage 2 Deployment

Sun Pointing Platform (SPP) Deployment

Checkouts prior to slew  (turn in another direction very quickly) to nadir (earth-pointing)

Slew to Nadir Pointing

X-Band Antenna Deployment 

Antenna Wing Deployment

Magnetometer Deployment

Four HBT (Hydrazine bi-propellant thruster) Drift-Stop Maneuvers 

After 5.5 Months of Post Launch Testing (PLT) the satellite will transition from 89.5 degrees W to 105 degrees West for Storage
Storage Orbit

When the Satellite comes out of storage it will begin GOES-R Normal Operations

GOES-R Safe Hold Modes (SHM)
	Orbit Raising SHM
	Operations SHM

End of video