Ikonos 2

Launch data: Designation: 25919 / 99051A Launch date 24 Sep 1999 Launch site: Va, SLC-6 Launch vehicle: Athena-2 (#6) Mission: Commercial: Remote sensing Sun-Synchronous LEO Earth orbit: Perigee / Apogee  677 x 682 km Eccentricity  3,55E-04 Inclination  98.1 deg Period  98.34 min

Spacecraft data: Prime contractor Lockheed Martin Missiles & Space Platform LM-900 Operator GeoEye Mass at launch 726 kg Mass in orbit   Dimension   Solar array   Stabilization   DC power   Design lifetime 7 years - still active

Photo at integration of the Ikonos-2 spacecraft at LMMS, Colorado Springs, CO (image credit: NASA)

Description:

• Equipped with a Kodak digital camera. This payload will enable the satellite to collect 1-meter resolution panchromatic (gray-scale) resolution and 4-meter resolution, four-band multispectral (red, green, blue, near infrared) imagery of the Earth.
• The camera is comprised of a Kodak-designed and -manufactured focal plane array and a lightweight telescope using a state-of-the-art mirror fabricated with Kodak's advanced ion figuring technology. To speed the downloading of data to Space Imaging EOSAT's ground receiving stations, the original 11-bit data will be compressed using Kodak's proprietary bandwidth compression technology.
• X-band downlink at 320 Mbps. 64 Gb onboard storage

Mission details:

• Athena-2 flight LM-007 took off from Space Launch Complex 6 at Vandenberg AFB on Sep 24 with Space Imaging Inc's Ikonos commercial imaging satellite. Ikonos flight satellite number 2 has apparently been named simply 'Ikonos' on orbit (satellite number 1 fell in the Pacific in a launch failure).
• If the launch profile was similar to that planned for the first Ikonos launch, the Orbus 21 third stage placed Ikonos and the OAM fourth stage on a suborbital trajectory. The first OAM burn would then place the stack in a 220 x 689 km x 98.2 deg transfer orbit 10 min after launch. 51 min after launch, the OAM fired again at apogee for 6 minutes, placing Ikonos in a 678 x 682 km x 98.1 deg sun-synchronous orbit with a 10:30am descending node.
• It then separated from Ikonos and fired again to lower its orbit for disposal. Space Command is tracking it in a 207 x 431 km x 98.2 deg orbit, but also cataloged a third object in a 137 x 630 km x 97.7 deg orbit. The orbit of this third object is very close to the quoted post-disposal orbit for the OAM intended for the Ikonos 1 launch. The lower inclination is odd if it's a piece that came off during the transfer orbit, although it might be the Orbus 21 stage if that overperformed and just reached orbit.
• Ikonos spacecraft 2 carries a 1-meter resolution black-and-white camera and a 4-meter resolution color camera, with a 13 km swath width. The spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin/Sunnyvale using the LM900 bus and carries 6 MR-103G 0.1N thrusters for attitude control.

External links:

• EOportal.org Satellite description