ExoMars 2016: on its way to Mars!

[Windspren]

2 hours ago, Camacha said:

Russians really do know how to build a rocket that looks like it does not mess around. A Falcon 9 is pretty neat, but these pictures look like they are taken on a Bond movie set.

Female voice sounds through speakers: "Raising the rocket".

Alarms blare, tension mounts, popcorn gets eaten.

It's the red text. Replace a Falcon 9's blue insignia with a red one and it also gets the "Bond" style. The fairing looks like one of my old 0.90 structural panel ones.

[Camacha]

2 minutes ago, Laythe Dweller said:

It's the red text. Replace a Falcon 9's blue insignia with a red one and it also gets the "Bond" style. The fairing looks like one of my old 0.90 structural panel ones.

That helps a bit, but just look at that stocky tower of power with more boosters than you can shake an emergency checklist at. Even the support equipment looks menacing.

[Windspren]

True. SpaceX needs to design a completely new rocket, just to make it look cooler!

[Hcube]

Why do they roll it out so early ??

[Robotengineer]

Hopefully they put the angular velocity sensors in the correct position.

 

[sgt_flyer]

here's the link for ESA's upcoming livestream for Exomars launch. 

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/ExoMars/Watch_ExoMars_launch

The livestream will begin at 8:30AM GMT on monday march 14th.

2:30PM Local Time (at baikonur) 4:30AM EST, 12:30AM PST, 9:30AM CET)

the launch is currently planned at 9:31AM GMT on march 14th.

3:31PM Local Time, 5:31AM EST, 1:31AM PST, 10:31AM CET

current weather predictions for march 14th at baikonour for the launch:

http://www.accuweather.com/en/kz/baikonur/225174/hourly-weather-forecast/225174?hour=33

at 3PM(LT) : mostly cloudy, 4⁰C, 48% humidity, 0% chance of precipitation, surface winds 15km/h SW.

at 4PM(LT) : mostly cloudy, 4⁰C, 42% humidity, 0% chance of precipitation, surface winds 13km/h WSW.

Edited March 13, 2016 by sgt_flyer

[Hcube]

Dang it, i have a (boooring) biotech class during the launch  

Looks cloudy anyway

[Frida Space]

Current situation in Baikonur, with 23.5 hours to go...

[ModZero]

That's some really nice weather (said person from Eastern Europe).

[Frida Space]

3 hours ago, ModZero said:

That's some really nice weather (said person from Eastern Europe).

As long as the winds hold, it should be fine... after all, delays or abort on Russian rockets are pretty rare (except for yesterday)

[ModZero]

1 hour ago, Frida Space said:

As long as the winds hold, it should be fine... after all, delays or abort on Russian rockets are pretty rare (except for yesterday)

Why abort when you can point the rocket back at the ground?

(I kinda like Russian rockets, actually, but that particular crash was way too pretty to ever forget).

[Frida Space]

From RussianSpaceWeb.com:

The liftoff of the Proton-M rocket with a Briz-M upper stage is scheduled on March 14, 2016, at 12:31:42 Moscow Time (09:31 GMT, 5:31 a.m. EDT) from Pad 39 at Site 200 in Baikonur Cosmodrome. The launch vehicle will be carrying the Trace Gas Orbiter, TGO, and the Schiaparelli lander for theExoMars-2016 project.

During the initial phase of the powered flight, the three booster stages of the Proton rocket will follow a standard flight path to match an orbit with an inclination 51.55 degrees toward the Equator. The first stage propelled by six engines will separate around two minutes into the flight, followed by thesecond stage five and a half minutes after launch.

The payload fairing will split in two halves and drop off five minutes 45 seconds into the flight, during the operation of the third stage.

Nine minutes 42 seconds after launch, the Briz-M upper stage with the TGO/Schiaparelli combo will separate from the third stage of the launch vehicle, still flying on a ballistic suborbital trajectory. One minute 34-seconds after separation, Briz-M will fire its engine for the first time over Siberia. The maneuver lasting nearly four and a half minutes will insert the stack into an initial parking orbit.

The spacecraft will then fly passively for more than an hour, almost completing a revolution around the Earth before restarting its engine over Southern Russia. The maneuver extending over most of Asia will push the spacecraft into an intermediate elliptical (egg-shaped) orbit. The spacecraft will pass an apogee (highest point) over the Pacific Ocean around three hours after launch and will then begin accelerating back toward its home planet for another hour.

Around four hours into the flight, as the vehicle crosses the coast of Portugal, Briz-M will initiate its third firing. This time, the maneuver will send the stack into a transfer orbit. Shortly after completing the third firing, Briz-M will jettison its doughnut-shaped external tank.

To reach its new, much higher apogee, Briz-M with ExoMars will coast passively for nearly three hours until the Earth's gravity pulls it back yet again.

Finally, more than 10 hours after leaving Baikonur, Briz-M will initiate its fourth and final engine firing to break itself from the Earth's gravitational field and enter a Mars-bound trajectory. The maneuver will be taking place, while the spacecraft crosses the Great Lakes, Eastern Canada and the Atlantic Ocean. Less than 14 minutes later, the TGO/Schiaparelli stack will separate from the Briz-M upper stage more than 5,000 kilometers away from Earth.

The nearly empty upper stage will then perform two small braking maneuvers to make sure it never crosses path with its former passengers.

In the meantime, the TGO spacecraft should attain a stable orientation relative to the Sun and begin the deployment of its two solar panels. The deployment of the high-gain antenna is expected within first 24 hours after launch, however its use is not expected until more than two weeks after launch.

According to ESA, the 4.3-ton TGO/Schiaparelli stack would be the heaviest spacecraft launched on a path to Mars, however the claim probably counts only successful missions. The ill-fated Mars-96 and Phobos-Grunt probes, which never left the Earth's orbit, had a mass of 6.8 and 13.5 tons respectively.

[Frida Space]

A useful blog post from ESA: blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2016/03/13/why-exomars-ride-to-space-takes-the-time-it-does

Main info:

Separation of the first, second and third stage will occur, respectively, at 43 km, 1716 m/s; 129 km, 4503 m/s; and 153 km, 7230 m/s.

The first and second stages and the payload fairing will all fall back to Earth, less than 2000 km downrange from launch site. The third stage will crash into the Pacific, 8000 km downrange.

The first Briz-M manouvre will transform the suborbital ballistic trajectory into a preliminary, circular parking orbit at 175 x 175 km of height, 51.55° of inclination. The second burn will raise it to 250 x 5000 km, period of 2 hours. The third burn will further raise it to an apogee of over 21000 km, period of 6 hours. Fourth and last burn will achieve Earth escape.

After TGO separation, Briz-M will perform two manoeuvres to avoid colliding with the probes.

[sgt_flyer]

mmh,

Proton fueling started at 3:31 GMT, was completed at 6:30 GMT.

greenlighted for launch at 3:50 GMT, with weather prediction ok.

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/ExoMars/ExoMars_launch_updates

 

meteo update at T-1h10 (taken from 3PM and 4PM LT):

http://www.accuweather.com/en/kz/baikonur/225174/hourly-weather-forecast/225174

cloudy, around 50% humidity, temperature 3⁰C, chances of rain between 22% an 43%, 17% for snow, wind groundspeed 7 km/h W

 

edit : livestream up.

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/ExoMars/Watch_ExoMars_launch

 

Edited March 14, 2016 by sgt_flyer

[Cirocco]

Hey all,

just a thread to let you all know that ExoMars (joint venture of ESA and Roscosmos) is launching today. Launch is scheduled at 9:31 a.m. GMT (which is one hour from posting of this thread). You can watch the webcast here:

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/ExoMars/Watch_ExoMars_launch

arrival on the red planet is scheduled for 2018.

cheers,

Cirocco

just noticed that there's already a thread for this, my bad. Mods, feel free to kill/lock/merge this one.

[Frida Space]

Check here

 

[Frida Space]

A few minutes ago:

[totalitor]

I am watching livestream. Do you notice that everything seems to be different than NASA launching? Different somehow. Maybe it is European style vs. American style. Anyway, go for Mars.

[Cirocco]

21 minutes ago, totalitor said:

I am watching livestream. Do you notice that everything seems to be different than NASA launching? Different somehow. Maybe it is European style vs. American style. Anyway, go for Mars.

European webcasts are indeed different from american ones. NASA has been televising their launches and operations for a lot longer than ESA, so they have a lot more experience with it. American broadcasts are usually commentated by PR people, ESA more often puts engineers and scientists directly in front of the camera. US broadcasts also tend to give more concise, bite-sized bits of information. ESA wants to say everything correctly and with all the explanations around it, which means it comes across as much more stuffy and forced.

It's also a difference in style I suppose but personally, I prefer the American style of broadcasts. This, in my view as a European, is a field where we can definitely learn a thing or two from our American colleagues.

 

Although the French do have an awesome word for "liftoff" in my opinion

 

EDIT: looks like a successful liftoff

Edited March 14, 2016 by Cirocco

[Frida Space]

Edited March 14, 2016 by Frida Space

[Frida Space]

Separation of the Briz-M upper stage on a balistic suborbital trajectory, now approx. 90 seconds to S5.98 ignition.

[sgt_flyer]

6 minutes ago, Cirocco said:

European webcasts are indeed different from american ones. NASA has been televising their launches and operations for a lot longer than ESA, so they have a lot more experience with it. American broadcasts are usually commentated by PR people, ESA more often puts engineers and scientists directly in front of the camera. US broadcasts also tend to give more concise, bite-sized bits of information. ESA wants to say everything correctly and with all the explanations around it, which means it comes across as much more stuffy and forced.

It's also a difference in style I suppose but personally, I prefer the American style of broadcasts. This, in my view as a European, is a field where we can definitely learn a thing or two from our American colleagues.

 

Although the French do have an awesome word for "liftoff" in my opinion

 

EDIT: looks like a successful liftoff

Kourou launches for Arianespace commercial customers is less stuffy generally  - for most commercial launches (most of the streams ;)) and even 'repeat' missions like iss launches, there's much less to explain

when it's a one shot science mission, even nasa streams are a bit more stuffy

now, there's also the opposite end of the spectrum with waay too much, with spaceX personnel cheering for every single phase of the launch, while other companies only cheer on mission success

[Frida Space]

Briz-M first burn is successful! Now more than an hour of passive coasting before second burn.

[InsaneDruid]

32 minutes ago, Cirocco said:

Although the French do have an awesome word for "liftoff" in my opinion

 

EDIT: looks like a successful liftoff

Décollage!

[Frida Space]

Exactly an hour to second burn start (11:09 UT).