IPM 5 (Dummy Sat 2)

Spacecraft nº:

Russian spacecraft nº:

Launch data:

Spacecraft data:

Description & Mission:

• A new Russian rocket designed as a successor to the workhorse Proton booster lifted off Sep 23, 2014 on a maiden test flight that could signify Russia's shift away from launching satellites at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
• The 180-foot[54.9-m]-tall Angara 5 rocket ignited five kerosene-fueled RD-191 booster engines and lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, a military-run spaceport 500 miles [805 km] north of Moscow-at 0557 GMT (12:57 a.m. EST) Tuesday, according to the Russian Federal Space Agency.
• The RIA Novosti news agency reported the Angara 5 rocket's lower stages-comprising the new technologies to be tested on Tuesday′s flight-performed as designed and released a Breeze M upper stage 12 minute after liftoff to begin a series of engine firings to put a dummy satellite into geostationary orbit 22,300 miles [35,888 km] over the equator.
• The rocket's Breeze M upper stage reached geostationary orbit about nine hours after liftoff.
  Weighing 773 metric tons (852 tons) when filled with kerosene, liquid oxygen and hypergolic propellants, the Angara 5 is the biggest Russian launcher to debut since the Energia rocket for the Soviet Union's Buran space shuttle flew in the late 1980s.
• The rocket's kerosene-fueled RD-191 engines, made by NPO Energomash of Khimki, Russia, generated roughly 2 million pounds [8.9 million N] of thrust at maximum throttle to drive the launcher into the sky. Engineers derived the single-chamber RD-191 engine from the four-nozzle RD-171 and dual-chamber RD-180 engines flying on the Zenit and Atlas 5 launchers.
• The five engines were supposed to fire in unison for more than three minutes, when four of the outboard boosters were expected to shut down and fall away from the launcher. The core RD-191 engine-operated at a partial thrust throttle setting in the first phase of the flight-was programmed to ramp up to full power and continue burning until it consumed all of its kerosene and liquid oxygen propellant supply.
• A second stage RD-0124A engine and a Breeze M upper stage-borrowed from Russia's Soyuz 2-1b and Proton rockets-were to finish the job. The Angara 5's five-meter (16-foot) diameter payload shroud was also armed to jettison once the rocket flew out of the dense lower layers of the atmosphere.
• The end of the test flight was scheduled for 1457 GMT (9:57 a.m. EST) with a simulated separation of the mock-up payload, according to RIA Novosti. Such orbits are commonly used by military and commercial communications satellites.
• There was no separation of the dummy satellite, as designed, and the Breeze M stage conducted two more maneuvers to transfer to a ′graveyard′ orbit away from operational satellite traffic, according a press release from Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, the Angara program's prime contractor.

Mission details:

• The Khrunichev Angara-A5's first stage consists of four strapon URM-1 rockets, powered by RD-191 engines, clustered around the second stage, another URM-1 acting as the vehicle core. After launch at 0557:25 UTC Dec 23, 2014 the strapon URM-1 boosters separated at 0600:55 UTC at an altitude of 82 km; the core URM-1 shut down and separated at 0602:55 UTC at an altitude of 148 km, reentering downrange near Tomsk. The nose fairing was jettisoned 10 seconds later.
• The third stage is a URM-2, powered by the RD-0124A engine; it reached a marginally suborbital trajectory and, after separating from the upper composite section, reentered in the Philippine Sea at a range of 2320 km from the launch site. Meanwhile, the fourth stage, a standard Briz-M (S/N 88801) propelled the stack into a 250 km, 63 deg parking orbit with a burn starting at 0611 UTC. After coasting to the equator, two perigee burns at 0703 and 0926 UTC boosted the apogee to 5000 km and 35800 km respectively, reducing inclination to 60.6 deg. The Briz-M's additional propellant tank (DTB), now empty, was jettisoned into a 433 x 35808 km x 60.6 deg orbit and cataloged as 40355. The payload on this flight was a dummy satellite called the IPM (acronym unknown, but probably meaning something like Test Payload Model). The stack coasted to apogee and at 1444 UTC began the 4th burn to enter circular geosynchronous orbit. At 1457 UTC the Briz sent a simulated separation command, but the payload remained attached to the stage as intended. After a few more hours, two burns of the Briz stage's SOZ auxiliary engines moved the stack to a graveyard orbit a few hundred km above GEO. This was the first GEO mission ever launched from Plesetsk.

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