Sven Grahn
The Ciel II satelite was launched by a Proton-M launch vehicle from Baikonur in Kazakhstan at 1343 UT on 10 December 2008. I picked up the news of the launch on www.spaceflightnow.com about two hours after launch and immediately set up the receiver on 1018.5 MHz. I checked now and then on 1020.5 MHz (the alternate telemetry frequency) but did not pick up any signals. This is not to say that "absence of evidence is evidence of absence"! However, I let my SDR-14 record the signal spectrum around 1018.5 during the evening of 10 December. The table below summarizes all receptions made.
For a more competet account of Briz-M tracking, check out an account of the first such reception here .
| Reception # | Date | Time (UT) | Notes | Time from lift-off | Adjacent mission event |
| 1 | 10 December 2008 | 1733-1744 | Single carrier | +3:50 to +4:01 | Briz-M shutdown of 4 th burn at +3:48 |
| 2 | 10 December 2008 | 1744-1748 | Two carriers, +/- 6 kHz | +4:01 to +4:05 | |
| 3 | 10 December 2008 | 1802-1810 | Single carrier | +4:19 to +4:27 | |
| 4 | 10 December 2008 | 1935-2022 | Single carrier | +5:52 to +6:39 | |
| 5 | 10 December 2008 | 2244-2358 | Two carriers, +/- 16 kHz | +9:01 to +9:15 | Spacecraft separation at +9:12 |
| 6 | 11 December 2008 | 0113-0119 | Two carriers, +/- 16 kHz | +11:30 to +11:36 |
It is instructive to compare these receptions with those made on 19 August 2008 during the transfer orbit of Inmarsat 4-F3. See the table here.
For clarity's sake I have filled in all signal traces with yellow colour.
The strange shapes of the spectrogram traces are explained in a previous article on Briz-M tracking.
