January 27, 2023 - After an exciting and successful launch on October 7, 2022, Argos-4 has now completed yet another significant milestone—the Post Launch Acceptance Review (PLAR).
Under a joint agreement between NOAA and France’s National Centre for Space Studies (CNES), the Argos-4 instrument is a hosted payload on the General Atomics GAzelle commercial satellite.
The purpose of the review was to evaluate the in-flight performance of the host satellite and to determine its readiness to support the commissioning and operational phase of the Argos-4 hosted payload. At the review, General Atomics demonstrated that the spacecraft survived the launch environment, met the satellite orbit requirements, and that all components are confirmed in good health and satellite operations are functioning nominally. This was the last major milestone prior to the operational phase of the hosted payload contract.
After the successful completion of the PLAR, CNES began the commissioning phase of the Argos-4 instrument, which is expected to be completed during the 2nd Quarter of 2023. Once commissioning is complete, the instrument will be declared operational and join the Argos world-wide data collection system to provide a better understanding of Earth’s physical and biological environment.