Saturday, March 6, 2010

A Successful AMF-7 Burn!

A successful Apogee Motor Firing #7 continued the string of smooth Main Engine burns since we removed the structural filter and lengthened the settling burn. AMF-7 raised our perigee altitude to approximately 25000 km, giving SDO an orbital period of about 19.2 hours. This sets SDO for one last trip "around the world" before Monday's AMF-8 actually moves SDO into a nearly geosynchronous orbit. After AMF-8, there will be three additional Trim Motor Firings (TMFs) to fix our operational orbit over White Sands.