[JSR] Jonathan's Space Report, No. 654
Jonathan McDowell
jcm at planet4589.org
Sat Feb 18 15:35:06 EST 2012
Jonathan's Space Report
No. 654 2012 Feb 18 Somerville, MA USA
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Space Station
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Expedition 30 continues with Soyuz TMA-22 docked at Poisk and Soyuz
TMA-03M docked to the Rassvet module. At about 0h on Feb 12 a switching
unit reset on the truss cut off power to solar array 3B and to one of
the Z1 control gyros; the systems were restored later that day.
Flight Engineer-3 Kononenko and FE-1 Shkaplerov made a spacewalk from
the Pirs module on Feb 16 using suits Orlan-MK No. 4 and No. 6
respectively. They relocated the `Strela' GStM-1 crane from Pirs to
Poisk and installed the Vinoslivost materials exposure experiment.
Installation of some SMDP space debris protection panels on Zvezda was
deferred to a later occasion because the crane move took longer than
expected. The Pirs airlock was depressurized from 1408 to 2049 UTC
(6hr41min) and the hatch was open from 1431 to 2046 UTC (6h15min). At
1904 UTC the MLI cover for the Poisk Strela baseplate was jettisoned
into orbit; it has not yet been cataloged.
Book Note - "Rockets and People"
----------------------------------
The fourth and final volume of Boris Chertok's memoirs, with a
NASA-sponsored English translation edited by Asif Siddiqi, has now been
published. This volume covers the Soviet side of the race to land humans
on the Moon, with inside stories of the N-1/L-3 launch attempts.
All four volumes are highly recommended.
Iranian satellite
------------------
Iran reports that it has launched the Navid-e Elm-o Sanat satellite into
low orbit on Feb 3. It carries a panchromatic imager, possibly developed
by the Iranian Univ. of Sci. and Technology (IUST, or in Persian,
Daneshgah Elm-o Sanat Iran), Tehran. Another report says that the
satellite was built by Tehran's Sharif University of Technology
(Daneshgah-e Sanati-ye Sharif).
The satellite's name means something like "Promise (Herald, Gospel, Good
News, Harbinger) of Science and Technology".
Orbital data from US tracking shows Navid and the Safir second stage
rocket in a 275 x 374 km x 56.0 deg orbit, and analysis indicates
a launch at around 0004 UTC on Feb 3.
Vega
----
ESA's new small satellite launch vehicle, Vega, made its first flight
successfully on Feb 13.
Vega has three solid motor stages, P80FW, Zefiro 23, and the Zefiro 9A
third stage. The Zefiro stages are built by Avio spA of Colleferro,
Italy. Avio's main space motor plant was originally the Bombrini Parodi
Delfino explosives factory (1912-1994) and later part of Fiat
(1994-2003); I believe their first space motor was a communications
satellite apogee motor built for the Europa rocket and later used for
ESA's Geos-1. A Ukrainian-built RD-869 engine is used in the Avio fourth
stage, the Attitude and Vernier Upper Module (AVUM), which uses liquid
propellants (UDMH/N2O4). P80FW is developed by the Europropulsion joint
venture (Avio plus France's SNECMA). The overall launch vehicle is
produced by ELV SpA, a joint venture of Avio and the Italian space
agency ASI.
The LARES 'Laser Relativity Satellite' is the primary payload. The 390
kg, 0.38m dia. tungsten sphere studded with 92 laser retroreflectors
will be used as a test particle to probe relativistic effects in the
Earth's gravitational field. Stefan Barensky informs me that LARES is
claimed to have the lowest ballistic coefficient of any satellite
launched to date (this means its orbit will be very stable); I estimate
the BC is around 0.0011 m**2/kg but would be interested to hear other
estimates.
The next largest payload is AlmaSat-1, a 12.5 kg student satellite
from the University of Bologna, which will test a cold gas microthruster system
and the platform for a future Earth observing satellite.
The Lares Support System, attached to the AVUM, can be considered an
additional payload, as it includes extensive instrumentation to monitor
the launch. It also deployed seven 1U Cubesats from three P-POD
deployers. P-POD 1 contained XaTcobeo, from the University of Vigo;
`e-st at r' from the Politecnico di Torino; and ROBUSTA from the
Universite' de Montpellier 2. P-POD 2 ejected MaSat-1 from the Budapest
University of Technology and Economics; Goliat from the University of
Bucharest; and PW-Sat-1 from the Warsaw Inst. of Technology
(Politechnika Warszawska). P-POD 3 carried UNICubeSat-GG, from U. Roma
La Sapienza, which has a gravity gradient experiment.
The Vega booster took off from the Ensemble de Lancement Vega (ELV) at
Kourou and headed northeast. The Zefiro 9A third stage burnt out at 1005
UTC and entered a marginal orbit (one estimate is around -30 x 775 km;
another solution from the limited data available is around 50-60 km x
250-500 km; I asked ESA but they haven't responded yet). The stage
probably reentered at first perigee at around 1112 UTC south of New
Zealand, and has not been cataloged. The AVUM stage first burn was
completed at 1008 UTC and probably reached an orbit of around 180 x 1450
km (ESA have not annouced the details of the ascent trajectory). At 1048
UTC the AVUM second burn began and resulted in a 1435 x 1452 km x 69.5
deg orbit; LARES was released into this orbit at 1055 UTC. At 1106-1110
UTC AVUM's third burn lowered the perigee resulting in an orbit of
around 310 x 1441 km. At 1110 UTC the three P-PODs released their
cargo. Finally at 1111 UTC AlmaSat was ejected, and the AVUM vented its
remaining propellant, ending up in a 272 x 1431 km x 69.5 km orbit.
SES-4
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The SES-4 satellite was launched on Feb 14 aboard an ILS Proton from
Baykonur. The 6180 kg Loral-1300 spacecraft will replace NSS 7 at 22 West.
The satellite is owned by SES Satellite Leasing (UK) and will be transferred
to SES World Skies (based in the Hague) once in its target orbit.
The Briz-M stage reached a 3640 x 35762 km x 24.5 deg orbit; by Feb 17
SES-4 was in an 8946 x 35759 km x 13.4 deg.
Suborbital launches
-------------------
Armadillo Aerospace launched its LOX/ethanol STIG-A rocket from New Mexico's
Spaceport America on Jan 28, reaching the edge of space at 82 km.
The Swedish SSC agency's MASER 12 microgravity payload
made a suborbital flight from the ESRANGE site at Kiruna, Sweden,
using a Brazilian VSB-30 rocket launched from the old Skylark launch
tower first used in 1968.
Table of Recent (orbital) Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
Jan 9 0317 ZY-3 ) Chang Zheng 4B Taiyuan Imaging 01A
Vesselsat 2 ) Comms 01B
Jan 13 0056 FY-2(07) Chang Zheng 3A Xichang Weather 02A
Jan 20 0038 WGS 4 Delta 4M+(5,4) Canaveral SLC37B Comms 03A
Jan 24 2318 Chibis-M - PM-13M, LEO Science 62C
Jan 25 2306 Progress M-14M Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 04A
Feb 3 0004? Navid Safir Semnan Imaging 05A
Feb 13 1000 LARES ) Vega Kourou ELV Geodesy 06A
Almasat ) Tech 06B
XaTcobeo ) Tech 06
ROBUSTA ) Tech 06
e-st at r ) Tech 06
Goliat ) Tech 06
PWSat-1 ) Tech 06
MaSat-1 ) Tech 06
UNICubeSat-GG ) Tech 06
LARES Support Sys) Tech 06K
Feb 14 1936 SES-4 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 07A
Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches
----------------------------------
Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km
Jan 11 1325 NASA 12.074GT Terrier Malemute Wallops Test 500?
Jan 12 1451 S-520-26 S-520 Uchinoura Atm Sci 298
Jan 28 1815 STIG-A-III STIG-A Spaceport America Test 82
Feb 10 0440 Target Prithvi Chandipur Target 100
Feb 13 0932 MASER 12 VSB-30 ESRANGE Micrograv 260
.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail |
| USA | jcm at cfa.harvard.edu |
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