re: Cassini timeline
Richard Clark (rclark@LPL.Arizona.EDU)
Thu, 16 Oct 97 03:28:31 MST
Tony Beresford was inquiring about the Cassini launch timeline.
I extracted this sequence from my tape of the NTV coverage. Times are
from my framecounter.
But first some comments. There were two voices providing comentary. During
most of the launch the main voice was male. Periodically the launch
progress was given as height/downrange/speed. I believe the units were
sm/sm/mph. From time to time a female voice was heard in the background
giving similar information in what I believe were nm/nm/knots. When
listening to NTV one often has to worry about the units. The numbers here
are from the male commentary except where noted. The times should be good
to +- 5 sec although there is uncertainty over the instant the
accompanying report refers to.
0:00 launch
2:25 SRB seperation
2:45 44/57/4400
3:30 68/125/5400
4:00 83/193/6650
5:00 106/372/10350
5:15 1st stage burnout
6:45 126/669/11900
8:20 130/872/13200
9:15 132/1147/15000
9:30 2nd stage burnout
9:50 Centaur start
11:00 127/1600/16000
11:40 MECO 1
During the coast the female voice reported some of the orbital paramaters:
91x241.3, inc=28.67, e=.0207
25:30 equator crossing 108/5376/17000
26:45 hydraulic recirculation start in preperation for 2nd Centaur burn
28:++ no data through TDRS
31:00 telemetry received, burn in progress
31:15 126/7000/17930
33:40 --/7617/19900
34:50 --/8287/23000
35:55 now hyperbolic
36:15 255/--/--
36:40 MECO 2, 302/8886/24816
43:10 SC/Centaur seperation
48:45 2000/--/21220
50:10 2165/11882/20980
52:00 'Should be comming over the horizon at Canbarra any time now...'
52:15 DSN Canbarra acquisition
Oh, the launch time... What launch time? Dammm!! I hate it when that
happens! I recall it was mentioned sometime during the coast but I didn't
write it down and I don't have a copy of the launch announcement handy.
I believe it was 0843 UT.
There was no mention of any change of inclination during the 2nd Centaur
burn. It looks as though perigee was shortly before equator crossing.
Richard Clark
rclark@lpl.arizona.edu