Design
The Intelsat VI satellite was designed as a spinning satellite as had previous satellite designs. The main body of the spacecraft was spun at 30 revolutions per minute (rpm) to impart gyroscopic stability to the satellite in the Earth's gravitation field. A section of the spacecraft supporting the communications payload and antenna was de-spun to allow the antenna to point at the desired location on the earth.
The Intelsat VI series combined two design features of previous HAC satellites, larger solar array and wide body design. The HS376 extended power spinner satellite had an extra concentric cylindrical solar array which deployed after launch to increase the power generating capability of the satellite, and allow for a larger communications payload. The U.S Government's Wide-body Spacecraft was a larger diameter satellite designed to be launched by the Space Transportation System (STS, US Space Shuttle). Thus the Intelsat VI satellite were of a wide body spinning design with a larger solar array, due to the deploy-able array. The later HS393 series of satellites also used the wide body and extended solar array design.
This resulted in a spacecraft that was 3.6 meters (11 ft 10 in) in diameter and approximately 5.2 m (17 ft 1 in) tall as configured for launch on an Ariane 4 rocket. When the spacecraft had arrived at its assigned orbital location, the concentric solar array would be extended (deployed), along with deployment of the communications antenna. The spacecraft would then be 11.7 m (38 ft 5 in) in length.
The Intelsat VI series of satellite were designed to be launched by either Ariane 4 rockets or the U.S. Space Shuttle.
Read more about this topic: Intelsat VI
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.”
—Miguel De Cervantes (1547–1616)
“For I choose that my remembrances of him should be pleasing, affecting, religious. I will love him as a glorified friend, after the free way of friendship, and not pay him a stiff sign of respect, as men do to those whom they fear. A passage read from his discourses, a moving provocation to works like his, any act or meeting which tends to awaken a pure thought, a flow of love, an original design of virtue, I call a worthy, a true commemoration.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I begin with a design for a hearse.
For Christ’s sake not black—
nor white either—and not polished!
Let it be weathered—like a farm wagon—”
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)