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| Double Star Status Report - March 2008 |
| Mission Status
Contact with TC-2 (the polar spacecraft), which was lost early August 2007 was successfully re-established in November. The spacecraft is in good shape and the European instruments (FGM magnetometer, PEACE electron sensor, and NUADU Neutral Imager) were switched on successfully. |
| Date: 18 Mar 2008 |
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| Double Star Status Report - November 2007 |
| Contact was lost with the TC2 (the polar) spacecraft in early August 2007. Up to date all attempts to re-establish were unsuccessful. One should note, however, that problems were expected on the spacecraft during this summer since the slow drift of the spin axis toward the sun would increase the temperature inside the spacecraft. After the failure of the attitude computer a few weeks after launch, the spin axis could not be kept perpendicular to the ecliptic anymore. The spacecraft, after almost 3 years of operations, was well beyond its nominal life-time of 6 months. |
| Date: 19 Nov 2007 |
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| Double Star Status Report - May 2007 |
| Mission Status The two spacecraft and the instruments are operating nominally. |
| Date: 23 May 2007 |
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| Double Star Status Report - November 2006 |
| Mission Status The two spacecraft and the instruments are operating nominally. TC-2 has started the eclipse season and TC-1 will follow in November. The nominal mission ends at the end of December 2006 but a 2nd extension is being proposed from 1 January 2007 to October 2007 (10 months). On 10 October 2007, TC-1 will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and operations on this spacecraft will be finished. |
| Date: 10 Nov 2006 |
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| Double Star Status Report - May 2006 |
| Mission Status
The two spacecraft and the instruments are operating nominally. |
| Date: 22 May 2006 |
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| Double Star Status Report - February 2006 |
| Mission Status The two spacecraft and the instruments are operating nominally. The drift of the spin axis is continuing as predicted, TC-1 spin axis is about 3.5 from the ecliptic pole and TC-2 around 16°. It should not cause problems before July 2006 for TC-2 and December 2006 for TC1. TC-1 has entered the eclipse season that will last 7 months and payload operations will be reduced during eclipses longer than one hour. |
| Date: 15 Feb 2006 |
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| Double Star Status Report - November 2005 |
| Mission Status The two spacecraft and the instruments are operating nominally. The drift of the spin axis is continuing as predicted and should not cause problems before July 2006 for TC-2 and December 2006 for TC1. The batteries have been degrading and the payload has to be switched off when the eclipses last longer than 50 min. |
| Date: 28 Nov 2005 |
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| Double Star Status Report - April 2005 |
| Mission Status
The two spacecraft and the instruments are operating nominally. The magnetometer data are used to derive the attitude of the spacecraft. The satellite manufacturer, CAST, has made a model of the evolution of the attitude of the two spacecraft. The spin axis of TC-1, the equatorial spacecraft, will have drifted by about 9° at the end of 2006. On the other hand TC-2 spin axis is drifting faster and will reach 30° by July 2006. There will therefore be enough power up to the end of mission (end of July 2005) and an extension up to end 2006 will be proposed. |
| Date: 09 May 2005 |
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| Double Star Status Report - February 2005 |
| During the largest geomagnetic storm of 2004, the redundant attitude computer failed on TC-1 spacecraft. Now both spacecraft have non functioning attitude computers. The consequences are no attitude control of the spacecraft. Fortunately, both spacecraft are spinning at 15 rpm and are therefore stable. A slow drift of the spin axis is observed about 0.9 degrees per month on TC-1 and 1.5 degrees per month on TC-2. This means that we should not have problems up to end of nominal mission lifetime (31 July 2005). |
| Date: 10 Mar 2005 |
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| No. 4 - TC-2 Starts Operations |
| The second satellite in the China-ESA Double Star project was declared ready to study the Earth's magnetosphere. The Double Star project consists of two spacecraft that orbit the Earth and study the Earth's magnetosphere, in concert with ESA's four spacecraft Cluster mission. The Double Star spacecraft are known as TC-1 and TC-2, or translating to English, as Explorer-1 and Explorer-2. |
| Date: 15 Oct 2004 |
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| No. 3 - TC-2 Ready to Roll |
The second Double Star spacecraft, TC-2, has been declared ready for shipment to the launch pad by the Chinese and ESA review board. |
| Date: 29 Jun 2004 |
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| No. 2 - First Double Star spacecraft declared ready for operations |
| The China-ESA Double Star project is designed to use two spacecraft to study the Earth's magnetosphere, in concert with ESA's four spacecraft Cluster mission. The Double Star spacecraft are known as TC-1 and TC-2, or translating to English, as Explorer-1 and Explorer-2. |
| Date: 18 Mar 2004 |
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| No. 1 - Instrument Commissioning Started |
| The first Double Star spacecraft was successfully launched from Xichang, Southern China, on 29 December 2003 at 19:06 UT. The final operational orbit is 570 by 78 970 km, with an inclination of 28.5 degrees. Due to an over-performance of the upper stage the apogee is about 12 000 km more than expected. |
| Date: 26 Jan 2004 |
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