#deimos2

[for-all-mankind]

PyeongChang Olympic venues spotted from orbit.

Friday, February 9 marks the start of the 23rd Olympic Winter Games held this year in the PyeongChang region of South Korea.

Deimos 2 recently overflew the region and captured the main Olympic venues from orbit. The 35,000 seat pentagonal Olympic stadium, dominates the first image, followed by the Olympic Village where the 2,920 athletes participating reside.

Venues for hockey, curling, ice skating and speed skating are located in the Gangneung Olympic Park, seen in the third image.

The Ski Jumping Center hosts downhill skiing events while Bokwang Phoenix Park hosts freestyle skiing and snowboarding. The final image shows the 2,018 meter-long Olympic Sliding Center track where the luge, bobsleigh and skeleton events are held.

P/C: Deimos Imaging.

[for-all-mankind]

Deimos-2 captured Expo 2017 under construction in Astana, Kazakhstan. 110 countries participated in the world’s fair, the first in central Asia. With a theme of ‘Future Energy’, the 62-acre fairgrounds welcomed 3,997,545 visitors during its three-month run from June 10 - September 10. At the center of the exposition grounds is the 330-foot sphere of Nur Alem, the central structure of the exposition. Four main structures housing 110 international pavilions encircle the sphere like a wheel, and the new Mega Silkway shopping and entertainment center branches out on the west.

[for-all-mankind]

60 years ago, the space race began from a desolate launch site in the Kazakh SSR of the Soviet Union when an R7 rocket lofted Sputnik-1 into orbit and the history books. The first artificial satellite was the first of many historic feats that Launch Complex-1 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome would host. Four years later, in April of 1961, Yuri Gagarin boarded his Vostok spacecraft atop the pad and became the first human to travel into space. From them on, LC1 became known as Gagarin’s Start and has seen over 500 launches including nearly all manned flights as well as numerous interplanetary and Lunar probes. Deimos-2 captured Gagarin’s Start on September 5, 2016, as it overflew the cosmodrome. Vehicle support facilities can be seen adjacent to the pad complex on either side of the launch mount, and the pad’s numerous clamshell-like umbilical towers are in the vertical position. The massive flame trench where the vehicle’s exhaust flames are directed to during ignition can be seen extending to the right.

[for-all-mankind]

Less than 2 hours after launching the OTV-5 mission for the US Air Force September 7, the Deimos-2 satellite photographed Falcon 9′s boost stage at LZ-1. The rocket successfully lofted the X-37b mini space shuttle into orbit before returning to Cape Canaveral for landing. Although Deimos-2 has imaged multiple other Falcon 9 rockets in the past, this is the first time that it captured the vehicle after it landed. P/c: Deimos Imaging

[for-all-mankind]

Just a few days after rolling out of its hangar for the very first time, Deimos-2 captured the Stratolaunch mothership aircraft on the tarmac at the Mojave Air and Spaceport June 2. The aircraft has the largest wingspan of any plane in the world at 384 feet - wider than the International Space Station. Stratolaunch will carry up to three Pegasus XL rockets in between its twin fuselages before deploying them mid-flight for launch. Stratolaunch Systems will begin ground tests of the vehicle in the coming weeks before aerial flights begin mid-2018.

P/c: Deimos Imaging

[for-all-mankind]

Inmarsat-5 F4 Falcon 9 seen atop LC-39A from space.

Deimos-2 did it again! The orbital imagery company once again captured SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket atop LC-39A this time ahead of the Inmarsat-5 F4 mission’s static fire May 11. The rocket can be seen atop its Transporter/Erector at LC-39A without a payload fairing, which is standard practice for the static fire tests. Adjacent to the vehicle is the Fixed Service Structure and Rotating Service Structure. Both are holdovers from the Shuttle program and the RSS is currently being dismantled by SpaceX.

Leading away from the rocket on the left is the former crawlerway and the tracks leading to the Falcon 9′s assembly hangar. The pad’s water tower, seen to the lower right of the vehicle, is used in conjunction with nozzles on the pad as part of the water suppression system.

Deimos-2 captured the NROL-76 mission atop LC-39A April 29 as well as other rockets on the launch pad in recent months. The satellite has a resolution of  one meter for panchromatic images and four meters for multispectral images. Deimos-2 - along with DigitalGlobe’s WorldView fleet -  is one of the only high-resolution Earth imaging satellites not under government control. Liftoff is scheduled for 7:20pm EDT. Watch the launch LIVE via SpaceX’s webcast here.

The NROL-76 mission is seen atop LC-39A in late April in an image taken by the Deimos-2 satellite.

P/c: Deimos Imaging.

[for-all-mankind]

Taking yet another stunning image of a rocket on its launch pad, the Deimos-2 satellite flew over Kennedy Space Center April 29 and captured the NROL-76 Falcon 9 atop LC-39A. The Earth imaging satellite also captured the SES-9 Falcon 9 in February 2016 on SLC-40 and its accompanying droneship in the Atlantic Ocean. With a new fleet of commercial Earth Observation satellites in orbit, photography of launch sites has increased in recent years. WorldView-2 saw its companion satellite, WorldView-4, launch into space mid-flight last November, and Deimos-2 saw the CRS-10 Falcon 9 atop LC-39A in February.

P/C: Deimos Imaging.

[for-all-mankind]

Earth-imaging company Deimos Imaging took this astounding image of LC-39A February 16 showing the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket ahead of the CRS-10 mission. While the Falcon 9 was traveling from the Horizontal Integration Facility to the launch mount, the company’s Deimos-2 satellite flew overhead. CRS-10 is scheduled to launch at 10:01am EST, February 18. Back in March, 2016, the satellite also captured the SES-9 Falcon 9 atop SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral.

P/C: Deimos Imaging.