Trajectory & orbital insertion
Ascent path is a representation — true ascent telemetry isn’t public.
Provider
United States Air Force
Provider type
Government
Orbit
SSO
Mission type
Earth Science
Launch site
United States of America
Date
Fri, 20 May 2005 10:22:01 GMT
Orbital launch #
#4712 ever
Mission
NOAA-18, known before launch as NOAA-N, is a weather forecasting satellite run by NOAA. NOAA-N (18) was launched on May 20, 2005, into a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 854 km above the Earth, with an orbital period of 102 minutes. It hosts the AMSU-A, MHS, AVHRR, Space Environment Monitor SEM/2 instrument and High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) instruments, as well as the SBUV/2 ozone-monitoring instrument. It is the first NOAA POES satellite to use MHS in place of AMSU-B. NOAA-18 also hosts Cospas-Sarsat payloads.