Lutsch (satellite)

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Lutsch satellite in the Popov Communication Museum in St. Petersburg

Lutsch ( Russian Луч for beam , also in the English spelling Luch ) is a series of Russian communications satellites .

Development and use

Similar to the American TDRS satellites, they transmit signals between spacecraft (e.g. the ISS ) and Earth. They were originally developed for communication between the Mir space station and the Buran space glider , which were equipped with appropriate systems for communicating with the Lutsch satellites.

A military version of the relay satellites called Geyzer flew on May 18, 1982 under the cover name Kosmos-1366 . In the same year the development of the later Lutsch satellites began. These were equipped with three antennas with a diameter of 1.6, 3 and 4.5 meters, which were folded in at the start, and which had been developed by the Materials Science Institute in Kiev. The unique grid material used for this required highly specialized machines for large-scale production, which were acquired by NPO PM in the Federal Republic of Germany.

The first generation was sucking on the basis of KAUR-4 - satellite bus built and was with the Arion transponder equipped by NPO Radiopribor (Ryazanskiy). The satellite had a three-axis control and solar panels of 40 square meters, which delivered an output of 1800 watts. The basic structure was the same as that of KAUR-3 , but it was equipped with completely new systems, such as a digital computer, plasma thrusters for position control and hydrazine thrusters for orbit control. The antennas had an alignment accuracy of 0.5 degrees, the satellite itself 0.1 degrees. Each satellite was equipped with three transponders and had a nominal life of five years. The modernized Lutsch-2 model allowed the simultaneous operation of two data channels with high bandwidth and enabled real-time television transmission from the Mir space station.

System configuration

So far, the Lutsch system consists of four different types of satellites:

Satellites of the first type were launched on October 25, 1985 ( Kosmos 1700 ), November 26, 1987 (Kosmos 1897), December 27, 1989 (Kosmos 2054) and on December 16, 1994 ( Lutsch-1 ). The second type, developed from 1993, started once on October 11, 1995 ( Lutsch-2 ) and on December 11, 2011 the first satellite of the third type ( Lutsch-5A ) followed. The fourth type, Lutsch-4 , has not yet been launched.

The two satellites of the Lutsch 5 series were built on the basis of the Ekspress 1000A satellite bus from the Russian company Reschentnjow. They were ordered in 2005 by Roskosmos, which after the end of the Cold War was able to fall back on non-Russian components, for example Japanese electronic components. They have a launch mass of only around 1.1 t and transmit data with a total of seven transponders at 5 Mbit / s in the S and around 150 Mbit / s in the Ku band. Their life expectancy is 10 years. Both satellites can also receive and forward signals from the COSPAS-SARSAT search and rescue system . The SDKM correction signals for the satellite navigation systems GLONASS and GPS are also distributed via Lutsch-5A / B / W and Lutsch-4 .

Start list

Surname Type Start date Launcher Starting place Dimensions Satellite bus orbit Remarks
Kosmos 1700 / Altair 11L 11F669 October 25, 1985 Proton -K / Block-DM-2 Baikonur 2400 kg KAUR-4 GEO 16 ° West First communication tests with Mir on March 29, 1986, failed in September 1986
Kosmos 1897 / Altair 12L 11F669 November 26, 1987 Proton-K / Block-DM-2 Baikonur 2400 kg KAUR-4 GEO 95 ° East for the Buran test flight briefly moved to position 12 ° East, abandoned at the end of 1991
Kosmos 2054 / Altair 14L 11F669 December 27, 1989 Proton-K / Block-DM-2 Baikonur 2400 kg KAUR-4 GEO 160 ° West
Lutsch-1 / Altair 13L 11F669 December 16, 1994 Proton-K / Block-DM-2 Baikonur 2400 kg KAUR-4 GEO 95 ° East 1997 moved to position 16 ° west
Lutsch-2 / Gelios 12L 14F30 October 11, 1995 Proton-K / Block-DM-2 Baikonur 2400 kg KAUR-4 GEO 77 ° East Failed in 1998
Lutsch-5A December 11, 2011 Proton-M / Bris-M Baikonur 1148 kg Ekspress-1000A GEO 167 ° East Malfunction of two of the three star sensors
Suck-5B November 2, 2012 Proton-M / Bris-M Baikonur 1100 kg Ekspress-1000N GEO 16 ° West
Suck-5W April 28, 2014 Proton-M / Bris-M Baikonur 1148 kg Ekspress-1000N GEO 95 ° East
Kosmos-2501 / Lutsch-4 September 27, 2014 Proton-M / Bris-M Baikonur 3000 kg Ekspress-2000 GEO 167 ° East Ka-band transponder

Web links

Commons : Lutsch  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b russianspaceweb.com: Luch satellite
  2. ↑ Luch in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
  3. ↑ russianspaceweb: Luch-5A
  4. ↑ Raumfahrer.net: Lutsch 5B and Jamal 300K started with Proton , Günther Glatzel, November 3, 2012