Orbital Sciences Corporation announced Wednesday that the eight new Orbcomm data communications satellites launched on December 23, 1997 have completed approximately one-half of their planned orbital check-out and test operations.
The company anticipates that testing will be completed and the satellites placed into commercial service by its Orbcomm Global, L.P. affiliate during March.
At this point in the in-orbit check-out process, several satellites are
generating lower than expected solar power levels, though the design power
margins on the satellites are sufficient to allow all planned service and
lifetime requirements to be met.
In a recent development, one of the eight new satellites has experienced an anomaly in one of its radio transmitters. Satellite operations engineers are investigating this problem in an attempt to restore the transmitter to normal operation or to implement alternative actions to bypass the problem. All other satellite functions appear to be performing very well, with spacecraft bus and communications system testing proceeding as planned.
When they are operational, these new satellites will increase Orbcomm’s
communications availability in the U.S. from about 90 minutes per day to over 10 hours per day.
Orbital plans to launch two more Orbcomm satellites in February as secondary payloads on its Taurus rocket, followed over the next several months by two additional groups of eight Orbcomm satellites each on two Pegasus launch vehicles.
As a result, by mid-1998 Orbcomm’s satellite network will provide real-time commercial monitoring, tracking and messaging services to customers in the transportation, oil and gas, utility, heavy equipment and defense industries.
