Themis Demonstrator | T1H-1
European Space Agency launches Themis Demonstrator carrying T1H-1 from Launch Complex 3B, Esrange Space Center, Sweden at 2026-12-31 00:00:00Z. The operator has not published how precise that target time is. The date is still provisional and can move.
COUNTDOWN
FLIGHT PLAN
The window is instantaneous: the vehicle flies at T-0 or stands down to the next opportunity. Current date is a placeholder or rough estimation based on unreliable or interpreted sources.
FIELD KIT / OPTICS
Where to start if the plan is a real telescope in a real back garden.
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Celestron Travel Scope 70 mm Refractor
70 mm of aperture on a light tripod that packs into its own backpack, which is the whole argument for it: a scope that travels gets used. Shows lunar craters, Jupiter's four bright moons and Saturn's rings as a shape rather than a smudge. The tripod is the weak part of the package — expect to steady it.
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Beginner Dobsonians
The category most experienced observers point a beginner at: aperture on a simple rocker mount, with no motors to fail. A starting point for browsing rather than a specific pick — compare 130 mm and 150 mm before buying.
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Beginner refractors
Lighter and quicker to set up than a Dobsonian, weaker on faint deep-sky objects. Worth browsing if the scope has to live in a cupboard and come out on a whim.
BROWSE opens an Amazon search, not a specific recommendation.
LINKS AMAZON.COM
MISSION BRIEF
First low-altitude hop test of a Themis demonstrator, with a targeted altitude up to 100 m.
SOURCE: LAUNCH LIBRARY 2 // THE SPACE DEVS
LAUNCH CORRIDOR
- Due east
- The lowest orbit inclination a direct launch from here can reach — 67.9°, which is this pad’s own latitude. It also collects the most free speed from Earth’s rotation.
- Due south
- The polar and sun-synchronous corridor: 90° inclination, passing over both poles. It gets no help from Earth’s spin, which is why it costs more payload.
Drag the globe to turn it. The shading is the real terminator, and it moves.
A globe of the Earth centred on Launch Complex 3B at latitude 67.88 degrees north, longitude 21.17 degrees east. Two curved lines leave the pad. The solid gold line runs due east and marks the lowest orbital inclination a direct launch from this site can reach, 67.9 degrees, equal to the pad’s latitude of 67.9 degrees. The dashed cyan line runs due south and marks the polar corridor at 90 degrees inclination. The darkened part of the globe is the night side.
LAUNCH SITE
Launch Complex 3B
Esrange Space Center, Sweden
Minimum direct inclination 68°. From 68° north of the equator, a direct ascent cannot enter an orbit inclined less than 68°, because an orbit of inclination i never passes over latitudes beyond ±i. Reaching an equatorial plane — what a geostationary transfer ultimately needs — therefore costs a plane change of 68° somewhere in the flight, while inclinations of 68° and above are available straight off the pad. The ground here is carried eastward at about 175 m/s (465 m/s at the equator, falling with the cosine of latitude), and a due-east launch keeps that head start.
DATUM WGS-84 // EQUIRECTANGULAR PROJECTION // ORBIT FIGURES DERIVED FROM THE PUBLISHED LATITUDE
PAD CONDITIONS
NO STATION DATA FOR THIS PAD
WEATHER SERVICE DID NOT ANSWER FOR THESE COORDINATES
Weather is only ever one input anyway. Launch-commit criteria are written per mission by the operator and the range, and are published by them alone. Nothing here is a go or no-go call, and no operator figure was published for this attempt.