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- Meteosat-P2 (Meteosat 3) was launched on June 15, 1988 from Kourou, French Guiana. Meteosat 3 is a refurbished protoype of Meteosat-2. In general, the design, the instrumentation, and the operation are similar to SMS/GOES. The cylindrically shaped spacecraft measures 210 cm in diameter and 430 cm in length, including the apogee boost motor. The primary structural members are an equipment platform and a central tube. The radiometer telescope is mounted on the equipment platform and views the earth through a special aperture in the side of the spacecraft. A support structure extends radially out from the central tube and is affixed to the solar panels, which form the outer walls of the spacecraft. These solar panels provide the primary source of electrical power. Located in the annulus-shaped space between the central tube and the solar panels are station-keeping and dynamics control equipment and batteries. Proper spacecraft attitude and spin rate (approximately 100 rpm) are maintained by jet thrusters mounted on the spacecraft and activated by ground command. The spacecraft uses both UHF-band and S-band frequencies in the telemetry and command systems. During launch, a lower power VHF transponder provides telemetry and command. After launch, the VHF transponder then serves as a backup for the primary subsystem once the spacecraft attains synchronous orbit. The spin-stabilized, geostationary spacecraft carries (1) a visible-IR radiometer to provide high-quality, day/night cloud-cover data and to take radiance temperatures of the earth/atmosphere system, and (2) a meteorological data collection system to disseminate image data to user stations, to collect data from various earth-based platforms, and to relay data from polar-orbiting satellites. Orbital Characteristics- Orbital Period: 1439.00 m Inclination: 0.50 degrees Eccentricity: 0.00110 Periapsis: 35796.00 km Apoapsis: 35889.00 km For information on the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Meteosat Program, see the URL: http://www.esrin.esa.it To view a 3D orbit, observe the J Track satellite tracking web page: http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/RealTime/JTrack/ ----------------- Entry taken from: Taken from the NSSDC System for Information Retrieval and Storage (SIRS). For more information contact the NSSDC Coordinated Request and User Support Office, 301-286-6695 (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 933.4, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA, http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/). Group: Platform_Details Entry_ID: METEOSAT-3 Group: Platform_Identification Platform_Category: Earth Observation Satellites Platform_Series_or_Entity: METEOSAT Short_Name: METEOSAT-3 End_Group End_Group
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