Astronomy and Space

C/NOFS

C/NOFS, or Communications/Navigation Outage Forecasting System was a USAF satellite developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Space Vehicles Directorate to investigate and forecast scintillations in the Earth's ionosphere. It was launched by an Orbital Sciences Corporation Pegasus-XL launch vehicle at 17:02:48 UTC on 16 April 2008 and decayed on 28 November 2015. The satellite, which was operated by the Space Test Program (STP), allowed the U.S. military to predict the effects of ionospheric activity on signals from communication and navigation satellites, outages of which could potentially cause problems in battlefield situations. C/NOFS had a three-axis stabilization system equipped with seven sensors. It was placed into low Earth orbit with an orbital inclination of 13.00°, a perigee of 405 km (252 mi) and an apogee of 853 km (530 mi). It carried the CINDI experiment for NASA. Launch had been scheduled for 2003, but was delayed for a number of reasons.

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See also

• ▸Beagle 3
• ▸Chaga people
• ▸Airglow

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