IronRain
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A rocket-transporting railroad car ferried a Proton booster to its launch pad Friday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for final checkouts and testing before the vehicle’s scheduled June 21 liftoff with the Russian-German Spektr-RG X-ray telescope.
The Proton rocket began the trip to the Complex 81 launch pad Friday at around 6:30 a.m. local time in Kazakhstan. After pulling up to the pad, a hydraulic lift raised the rocket vertical, and ground crews moved a mobile gantry around the launcher to provide access for workers to complete inspections, testing and closeouts before next week’s launch.
Liftoff is scheduled for 1217:14 GMT (8:17:14 a.m. EDT; 5:17:14 p.m. Baikonur time) on June 21 to send the Spektr-RG astronomy observatory toward the L2 Lagrange point, a gravitationally neutral point about a million miles (1.5 million kilometers) from the night side of Earth.
Proton rockets are usually rolled out to the launch pad a few days before liftoff, but ground teams transferred the Proton launcher with Spektr-RG to the pad a week before liftoff. According to Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, workers will complete checks on the spacecraft, the Proton booster, and the rocket’s Block DM upper stage, and carry out “comprehensive tests” on the control system of the launch vehicle.
Ground teams will also inspect ground equipment at the launch pad before next Friday’s launch, Roscosmos said in a statement.
The launch of Spektr-RG will mark the first flight of a Block DM upper stage with a Proton rocket since September 2015. Recent Proton missions have typically launched with the newer-design Breeze M upper stage to place their payloads into high-altitude orbits.
Sources:
- http://launchlibrary.net/
- https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/06/...man-astronomy-satellite-arrive-at-launch-pad/
The Proton rocket began the trip to the Complex 81 launch pad Friday at around 6:30 a.m. local time in Kazakhstan. After pulling up to the pad, a hydraulic lift raised the rocket vertical, and ground crews moved a mobile gantry around the launcher to provide access for workers to complete inspections, testing and closeouts before next week’s launch.
Liftoff is scheduled for 1217:14 GMT (8:17:14 a.m. EDT; 5:17:14 p.m. Baikonur time) on June 21 to send the Spektr-RG astronomy observatory toward the L2 Lagrange point, a gravitationally neutral point about a million miles (1.5 million kilometers) from the night side of Earth.
Proton rockets are usually rolled out to the launch pad a few days before liftoff, but ground teams transferred the Proton launcher with Spektr-RG to the pad a week before liftoff. According to Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, workers will complete checks on the spacecraft, the Proton booster, and the rocket’s Block DM upper stage, and carry out “comprehensive tests” on the control system of the launch vehicle.
Ground teams will also inspect ground equipment at the launch pad before next Friday’s launch, Roscosmos said in a statement.
The launch of Spektr-RG will mark the first flight of a Block DM upper stage with a Proton rocket since September 2015. Recent Proton missions have typically launched with the newer-design Breeze M upper stage to place their payloads into high-altitude orbits.
Sources:
- http://launchlibrary.net/
- https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/06/...man-astronomy-satellite-arrive-at-launch-pad/
