All news

First manoeuvre to place Yamal-402 satellite on orbit successful

The next firing of the satellite’s thruster is scheduled for the night from December 10 to 11
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, December 10 (Itar-Tass) — The first manoeuvre to place the Yamal-402 satellite on the target orbit has been successful. It was carried out at 02:00 MSK, Monday.

“The Yamal-402 spacecraft thruster firing began at 02:00 MSK on December 10 and lasted for about 1.5 hours. All the tasks of the first thruster firing were fulfilled successfully,” the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) told Itar-Tass.

“The next firing of the satellite’s thruster is scheduled for the night from December 10 to 11,” the source said.

The Yamal-402 satellite was to enter the target orbit on Sunday, December 9 at 02:28 MSK. However, during the spacecraft's orbiting manoeuvre a contingency occurred: the satellite separated from the Briz-M upper stage four minutes earlier than planned.

Immediately after that the experts assessed the orbit of the Yamal-402 spacecraft. They calculated that two additional firings of the satellite's thruster are needed to place the satellite into the designated point of orbit.

Gazprom Space Systems (GSS) reported that due to the additional fuel use the service life of Yamal-402 will be several years shorter. This type of satellites usually has service life of 15 years.

The Yamal-402 satellite, built by Thales Alenia Space, is equipped with 46 Ku-band transponders providing for the coverage zone over the most part of the territory of Russia, the CIS, Europe, Middle East and Africa. This is the second Yamal-class telecoms satellite launched for GSS this year. The Yamal-300K telecoms satellite, built by Russia’s Reshetnev space company, was orbited on November 3. Its service zone covers 95 percent of the Russian territory.