Still more Ciel 2 testing going on at 138° West at this time. Looks like they are working on transponders 31 and 32.
Ciel 2 Tracking
- Thread starter nelson61
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I had no idea ancient Chinese had satellites
well, they did invent the rocket didnt they? ya just never know what'll be dug up next....
After the absurdly long dropout of E5 that I just experienced at about 11:50am today, I sure hope they get Ceil 2 tested and moved into the 129 slot very soon!
Hopefully they have been working through the transponders sequentially.
Hopefully they have been testing the transponders sequentially and this is not the first set that have worked ...
Hopefully they have been working through the transponders sequentially.
Unfortunately they have been jumping all over the place. No pattern that I can see.
Epoch: Approximately 7:00 AM Central Time 1/20
No movement
Perigee: 35,784.7 km
Apogee: 35,802.7 km
No movement
Perigee: 35,784.7 km
Apogee: 35,802.7 km
If you've read this thread, you know the end of January was a target date according to things Ergen has said in the past. In reality, no one here knows for sure and I'm not sure anyone at E* knows for sure as Ciel and SES are the owner/operators and E* is the lessee awaiting delivery to the 129W slot.
Nimiq4 didn't have spotbeams to throw in the mix. That's what is taking so much time.
Has anyone did a search on old threads around here to see how long it took E10 from launch and to traffic transfer? Even E10 would have been quicker since they were launched on SeaLaunch too.
According to this post it took 60 days from launch to operation:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/1445362-post32.html
The E-10 satellite was also tested at 138 W so it had to be moved from there to 110 W, 28 degrees. Ciel-2 will only have to be moved 9 degrees from 138 W to 129 W. Even at a fairly quick 1.5 degrees a day it would have taken E-10 18 - 19 days to move as opposed to Ciel-2 requiring only 6 days. Recognize that Ciel-2 has both CONUS and spotbeams over 32 TPs while E-10 has only spotbeams on 10 different TP frequencies.
So, 60 days for E10. Take of 12 days extra travel time to 110, but add, say, 3 days as it was a 19 degree inclined GTO, rather than a Sea Launch 0 degree GTO. Also add 4 days for the holidays. So maybe 55 days. Its been 42. Maybe 13 more days? Maybe first week of Feb? It has full week to start moving to meet that date. I see no "delay."
Of course, that includes a lot of speculation.
Of course, that includes a lot of speculation.
Someday "soon", they'll move it. Until then, we still get to suffer with the wreck that is E5...
