DISH files SEC form 8-K with AMC-14 Comments

[goaliebob99]

This is good news and what I have been saying all along as it shouldn't be all doom and gloom for the bird. What we do now now "officially" is that the bird is in great health and responding to commands, although more testing will be needed. We also know that the bird is in a stable orbit controlled by Boeing. Now, we wait for lunar cycles and to see what the engineers to come up with.

Now with that said, I'm only speculating, It sounds like the insurance isn't covering the launch because the bird is in perfectly working order, or They are working out a deal for lost life of the bird with the insurance, or they are honoring their agreement at a loss, or they dont want their insurance to go up! Which ever one its good news that AMC 14 may have some life left in it!

 

[Smith P.]

Well either way lets all hope that they use better engines on all of their next planed launches. I hope to see them use U.S. made engines instead of 3rd party stuff but again they need to have back up engines installed or something..

I see you still complain about foreigners, but lets face the facts:

"To date, Proton has proven no more or less reliable than Briz M.

The Briz M upper stage has flown atop 26 Proton launch vehicles (22 Proton M and 4 Proton K). Four of the launches failed. Two of the failures involved Proton (one stage 2, one stage 1/2). Two involved Briz M.

By comparison, the Ariane 5G series has flown 24 times to date and suffered three failures. One of those failures involved the upper storable propellant stage. Zenit 3SL has flown 25 times and failed three times, including one Block DMSL upper stage failure. Atlas V has flown 13 times and suffered one upper stage failure. Ariane 5 ECA has flown a dozen times with one failure of the core stage engine.

The old Proton K/DM-2M system flew 42 times and failed twice. Both failures involved the Block DM-2M upper stage.

Such is the state of the world's premiere commercial GTO launchers.

- Ed Kyle".

I wouldn't find any more reliable source of such vehicle.

 

[rglore]

I'm curious to here how long it will take to get AMC14 to it's proper orbit using it's own power.

Once they start the engines, not long. The launch vehicle needed another two minutes to get to altitude and another nine minute burn to change to an equatorial transfer orbit. I'm sure the sat's engines aren't as powerful but should be in the hours range. How long it takes to get ready to fire is a guess, maybe a week? If they try a lunar assist, which I don't think they will, it could take six months.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Those engines are not as powerfull as the one that was supposed to get the bird in the proper orbit, it could be a few months before its parked in its proper orbit.

 

[Smith P.]

rglore, those sat's thrusters is totally different type - it cannot provide same impulse, I would say it 10x less powerful at least.

 

[Poke]

Yeah well here of late it seems that there have been allot of issues come up on these launches. I see now that the D11 been delayed due to possibly a tech issue as well..

 

[goaliebob99]

I see you still complain about foreigners, but lets face the facts:

I totally agree with P Smith, the launch history shows that the launch vehicle is one of the best out there. Just because it came from Russia doesn't mean that it was deliberately botched. I don't believe it as I know Russians are the hardest at work and take pride in this stuff. Now if the vehicle came from china that would be different as they deliberately make cheap sh*t! Some of the best stuff made I have seen has came from Russia and Japan. It goes to show a pride and craftsmanship in their work.

We all agree that China and Taiwan's products are crap.

PSmith are you hearing anything from the ILS guys?

 

[goaliebob99]

Yeah well here of late it seems that there have been allot of issues come up on these launches. I see now that the D11 been delayed due to possibly a tech issue as well..

Thats just the nature of the beast. Rocket technology is still very young. While it has come leap's and bounds from where it was, but it only has been around for maybe 100 years, if that. Also you got to remeber that we are working with highly volitile explosives, so anything can go wrong with it at a flick of a switch.

 

[rglore]

rglore, those sat's thrusters is totally different type - it cannot provide same impulse, I would say it 10x less powerful at least.

I said it would take hours, not minutes like the launch vehicle would.

 

[Jerryinvirginia]

If you would take the time to examine the labels on hardware offered by "Dish", you will find "made in China". The LNB used on the 1000.2 & the DPP Twin are prime examples.....

 

[Smith P.]

If you seen my other posts - there is other questions to that maneuver - sustaining time for one impulse, I know it cannot be fired for long period, so it will require many start and cooling periods. Well there are a lot technical thing what we shouldn't dig.

EDIT. See ? Scott is now commenting.

 

[Smith P.]

If you would take the time to examine the labels on hardware offered by "Dish", you will find "made in China". The LNB used on the 1000.2 & the DPP Twin are prime examples.....

I have a few old DP LNBFs "Made in Japan" .

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I said it would take hours, not minutes like the launch vehicle would.

While I guess they could do it that way, they are going to do it in a way that uses the least amount of fuel as possible.

Instead of a jet burst non stop pushing it into orbit, you will instead probably have little engine squirts, enough to keep it moving forward to where it has to go, when it starts to slow down it gets another squirt of gas to give it more thrust.

I think its going to take awhile to get there.

 

[jayn_j]

I'm curious to here how long it will take to get AMC14 to it's proper orbit using it's own power.

I don't think anyone knows at this point, including the engineers at SES who are doing the calcs.

Most engineering problems have a range of solutions that tradeoff different parameters. The original launch likely had an optimal combination of minimizing g forces and time at the expense of some fuel. The new calc is likely to have fuel usage as its primary factor. I don't expect any firing for weeks, or even months, and I also expect they will do several small burns that will get rid of the elliptical orbit, correct the tilt, and put it into the correct slot and orbit. If I were Charlie, I would seriously consider putting it right at 61.5 and doing the in-orbit testing there using the 4 free transponders. It will take longer, but save fuel. My guess is operational in September, but I have a lousy record as a psychic.

Someone earlier mentioned that they needed to save some fuel on E8 because they would need to move it out-orbit. Note that it requires fuel to de-orbit as well. They don't just put on the brakes (well they do, but the brakes are rockets)

To those that are still mentioning the Shuttle, especially that precious comment on using the shuttle's second stage booster:

The shuttle has an operating altitude of about 250 miles. The highest it has ever gone was about 350 miles to service the Hubble. That mission was VERY controversial and considered quite risky. AMC-14 is currently at 20,000 miles, hoping to get up to 22,800 miles. The moon is around 250,000 miles up.

The shuttle doesn't use a second stage booster, although technically I suppose you could consider the solid boosters a first stage booster and the main engines a combination 1/2 stage. The shuttle operating altitude is about the same the one where the second stage would be initiated (I'm rounding off a lot here)

 

[Jerryinvirginia]

The point that should be viewed is regardless of where any piece of electronic hardware is "made", or whether a rocket engine is domestic or foreign, failures are going to happen. Thank goodness AMC14 has made it where it is. GO AMC14

 

[Poke]

Yeah like I said lets hope they get all the bugs fixed before any other launches. But yeah all we can do is keep are fingers crossed that it can make it to it's orbit..

 

[navychop]

Once they start the engines, not long. The launch vehicle needed another two minutes to get to altitude and another nine minute burn to change to an equatorial transfer orbit. I'm sure the sat's engines aren't as powerful but should be in the hours range. How long it takes to get ready to fire is a guess, maybe a week? If they try a lunar assist, which I don't think they will, it could take six months.

The Breeze-M not only shut down early, it separated prematurely. so there's no restart of those engines.

The satellite "engines" are just station keeping thrusters. They run at much lower impulse levels, as you state, and have limited run times.

Let us all remember, that AsiaSat that went around the moon was damaged by the trip. One of the solar arrays did not deploy, probably due to the extended temperature cycles. Much safer to try something else, and get a new one launched.

 

[goaliebob99]

Check this out... StreetInsider.com - SES AMERICOM Confirms AMC-14 Satellite Launch Anomaly

"We are confident that the engineering teams at Lockheed Martin and SES will find a way to place AMC-14 into the correct orbit in a manner that our customer's requirements can be met," said Edward Horowitz, President and CEO of SES AMERICOM. "We cannot, at this time, speculate on the impact of the orbit raising activities on both the in-service date and the service life of AMC-14. We will provide additional information in due time."

 

[cforrest]

The Breeze-M not only shut down early, it separated prematurely. so there's no restart of those engines.

The satellite "engines" are just station keeping thrusters. They run at much lower impulse levels, as you state, and have limited run times.

Let us all remember, that AsiaSat that went around the moon was damaged by the trip. One of the solar arrays did not deploy, probably due to the extended temperature cycles. Much safer to try something else, and get a new one launched.

Good point, no one knows what condition AMC14 will be, if & when they finally get it into position. Then all fingers have to be crossed when solar arrays are ordered to be deployed & tests are run on the bird.

 

[dlsnyder]

Thats just the nature of the beast. Rocket technology is still very young. While it has come leap's and bounds from where it was, but it only has been around for maybe 100 years, if that. Also you got to remeber that we are working with highly volitile explosives, so anything can go wrong with it at a flick of a switch.

The rocket has been around an awful lot longer than that. Way longer than the satellite technology that they are launching in any case. The satellites seem to work pretty well. Nothing designed by humans is perfect and we do not have a perfect understanding of all of the physics involved in how these rockets actually work. Certainly a better understanding than 100 years ago, but not perfect. Accidents happen, and hopefully we learn from them, and the technology improves.