USA-214

USA-214 was launched by United Launch Alliance, using an Atlas V 531 carrier rocket flying from Space Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The launch occurred at 11:07 UTC on 14 August 2010,[4] and resulted in the spacecraft being deployed successfully into a geosynchronous transfer orbit with a perigee of 221 kilometres (137 mi), an apogee of 50,179 kilometres (31,180 mi), and 22.2° inclination.[5]

The spacecraft was intended to manoeuvre from the transfer orbit into which it was launched to its operational geosynchronous orbit by means of a Liquid Apogee Engine (LAE) and several Hall effect thrusters, a process which normally takes 105 days.[6][7][8] However, the satellite's Liquid Apogee Engine malfunctioned shortly after ignition on both its first burn on 15 August 2010 and a second attempt on 17 August,[9] and it was declared inoperable.[6][10]

To solve the problem, the perigee altitude was raised to 4700 km (2900 miles) using twelve firings of the smaller Reaction Engine Assembly thrusters, originally intended for attitude control during LAE maneuvers.[11] From this altitude, the solar arrays were deployed and the orbit was raised toward the operational orbit over the course of nine months using the 0.27 Newton Hall thrusters, a form of electric propulsion which is highly efficient, but produces very low thrust and is therefore very slow.

The problem with the Liquid Apogee Engine was later blamed on a piece of cloth accidentally left in a fuel line leading up to the engine while the line was taken apart for repair during the manufacture of the satellite. The cloth was likely placed in the line to prevent impurities from entering the fuel line and did not get removed when the line was put back together.[12]

• 2010 in spaceflight