[JSR] Jonathan's Space Report, No. 659

Jonathan McDowell jcm at planet4589.org
Fri May 25 13:59:11 EDT 2012


Jonathan's Space Report
No. 659                                        2012 May 25  Somerville, MA USA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Space Station
-------------

The undocking of Soyuz TMA-22 marked the start of ISS Expedition 31. The
current Ex 31 crew are commander Oleg Kononenko, flight engineer 5 Andre
Kuipers, and flight engineer 6 Don Pettit (Note that the flight engineer
numbers I gave in JSR 658 were incorrect).

At 0301 UTC on May 15 Soyuz TMA-04M (spacecraft 11F732A47 No. 705) was
launched from Baykonur on a Soyuz-FG rocket carrying Gennadiy Padalka,
Sergey Revin and Joe Acaba. It docked with the ISS' Poisk module on May
17 at 0436 UTC.

At 0744:38 UTC on May 22 SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 vehicle from Cape
Canaveral carrying the Dragon COTS 2+ DEMO mission. The Dragon C2+
spacecraft was placed in a 297 x 346 km x 51.6 deg orbit. Dragon
consists of a pressurised cabin with cargo and an unpressurized trunk
section with solar panels, which deployed just after orbit insertion.
The robot cargo vehicle is designed to deliver cargo to the Station
and return cargo to Earth.

SpaceX are being secretive about the properties of the Dragon vehicle -
they have not released the mass of the spacecraft. The claimed capacity
of Falcon 9 to LEO is around 10 metric tons, but my guess is that
Dragon C2+ is more like 5 to 7 metric tons at stage 2 separation (comments
and information solicited).

A Celestis space burial capsule (with cremated human remains) is attached
to the Falcon 9 second stage, in a 268 x 333 km x 51.7 deg orbit.

On May 24 Dragon C2+ was in a 380 x 396 km orbit and made a 2.5 km flyby
of the Station at 1125 UTC; rendezvous and capture is expected on May
25. On May 25 the spacecraft entered the ISS 200-meter keep-out-sphere
at 1121 UTC. Approach was paused briefly to debug an issue with the
lidar, which was affected by unexpected reflections from the Kibo
Exposed Facility, but the 30-meter hold point was reached at 1313 UTC,
followed by the 10-meter point at 1347 UTC and capture by the station's
SSRMS robot arm at 1356 UTC. At 1552 UTC the SSRMS berthed the Dragon at
the nadir CBM port on the Harmony module, with berthing complete at 1602
UTC. Hatch opening on May 26 will represent the first delivery of cargo
to the Station by a commercial spacecraft.


CZ-4B launch
------------

China launched a three-stage Chang Zheng 4B rocket on May 10, orbiting
the Yaogan 14 military remote sensing satellite to a 473 x 479 km x 97.2
deg, 2:14pm sun-sunchronous orbit. It also deployed the Tiantuo 1
technology satellite for the National University of Defense Technology.
Tiantuo ('Space Pioneer') carries an imager, an atomic oxygen sensor,
and an AIS (maritime tracking) receiver. Tiantuo 1 is in a 468 x 471 km
x 97.2 deg orbit.

Ariane 5
--------

Arianespace launched an Ariane 5ECA on May 15, placing in orbit
two Lockheed Martin A2100 class satellites: JCSAT 13 for Sky Perfect JSAT,
and Vinasat 2 for VNPT (Vietnam Posts and Telecom). I believe that
JCSAT 13 has a Leros 1C apogee engine, while Vinasat 2 has the Japanese IHI BT-4
(can anyone confirm or refute this?).

On May 23 JCSAT 13 was in a 35731 x 35772 km x 0.1 deg orbit drifting east over 125E;
Vinasat-2 was in a 35716 x 35761 km x 0.1 deg orbit drifting east over 131E.
The ESC-A upper stage was in a 264 x 35665 km x 1.7 deg geostationary transfer orbit.


Kosmos-2480
-----------

A new Kobal't-M imaging spy satellite was launched on May 17 from
Plesetsk into a 186 x 255 km x 81.4 deg orbit - the second Kobal't-M to
this near polar inclination. The satellite was given the cover name
Kosmos-2480. At about 0750 UTC on May 20 the satellite's orbit was
raised to 218 x 248 km as it began its operational mission.

Shizuku
-------

Japan's JAXA space agency launched H-IIA flight F21 from Tanegashima on
May 17 into a 1:30am local time sun-synchronous orbit at 670 x 674 km x
98.2 deg. The main payloads are Shizuku, JAXA's first satellite in the
Global Change Observation Mission series, and Arirang-3 (Kompsat-3), a
South Korean imaging satellite. JAXA's 50 kg SDS-4 Small Demonstration
Satellite (kogata jissho eisei 4-gata) carries four technology
experiments including a space-based AIS (ship tracking) payload. A small
 7 kg satellite built by the Kyushu Institute of Technology, Horyu-2,
will study spacecraft charging effects and test a camera payload for
Surrey Satellite. (My Japanese colleague K. Sato informs me that Horyu
is an imaginary 'Phoenix-Dragon' - Ho + Ryu - which serves as KIT's
emblem). The second stage will be monitored after payload deployment to
study improved propellant insulation.

Shizuku (`dewdrop', GCOM-W1) is a 1991 kg satellite carrying a microwave
scanning radiometer, AMSR-2.

In addition to the four payloads and the second stage, the upper payload
adapter and two side panels from the lower fairing were cataloged in orbit,
for a total of 8 objects.


Nimiq-6
--------

A Krunichev Proton-M was launched from Baykonur on May 17. The Briz-M
No. 99530 upper stage carries the Canadian Nimiq-6 television broadcast
satellite, a Loral 1300-series vehicle with 24 Ku-band transponders; it
was deployed to a 11985 x 35800 km x 10.2 deg transfer orbit. By May 23
Nimiq 6 was in a 35738 x 35751 km x 0.0 deg geostationary drift orbit,
drifting east over 139W.

Suborbital launches
-------------------

Russian carried out the second launch of a new generation ballistic missile
on May 23. The missile is thought to be a modification of the Topol' series,
and is possibly code-named 'Avangard'.



Table of Recent (orbital) Launches 
 ----------------------------------
Date UT       Name            Launch Vehicle  Site            Mission    INTL.  
                                                                          DES.
Apr  3 2312   NROL-25            Delta 4M+(5,2)    Vandenberg SLC6   Radar     14A
Apr 12 2239   Kwangmyongsong-3   Unha-3            Sohae             Tech      F01
Apr 20 1250   Progress M-15M     Soyuz-U           Baykonur LC31/6   Cargo     15A
Apr 23 2218   Yahsat-1B          Proton-M/Briz-M   Baykonur LC200/39 Comms     16A
Apr 26 0017   RISAT-1            PSLV-XL           Sriharikota       Radar     17A
Apr 29 2050   Beidou DW 12     ) Chang Zheng 3B    Xichang LC2       Nav       18A
              Beidou DW 13     )                                     Nav       18B
May  4 1842   AEHF 2             Atlas V 531       Canaveral SLC41   Comms     19A
May  6 0710   Tianhui 1-02       Chang Zheng 2D    Jiuquan SLS2      Imaging   20A
May 10 0706   Yaogan Weixing 14) Chang Zheng 4B    Taiyuan           Imaging   21A
              Tiantuo 1        )                                     Tech/Sci  21B
May 15 0301   Soyuz TMA-04M      Soyuz-FG          Baykonur LC1/5    Spaceship 22A
May 15 2213   JCSAT 13   )       Ariane 5ECA       Kourou ELA3       Comms     23A?
              Vinasat 2  )                                           Comms     23B?
May 17 1405   Kosmos-2480        Soyuz-U           Plesetsk LC16     Imaging   24A
May 17 1639   Shizuku    )       H-2A              Tanegashima Y1    Climate   25A
              Arirang-3  )                                           Imaging   25B
              SDS-4      )                                           Tech      25C?
              Horyu-2    )                                           Tech      25D
May 17 1912   Nimiq 6            Proton-M/Briz-M   Baykonur LC81/24  Comms     26A
May 22 0744   Dragon C2  )       Falcon 9          Canaveral LC40    Cargo     27A
              Celestis 11)                                           Burial    27B

Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches
----------------------------------

Date UT     Payload/Flt Name  Launch Vehicle  Site                   Mission    Apogee/km


Apr  5 1418   SL-6             SpaceLoft XL       Spaceport America   Tech         117
Apr 19 0237   Agni RV          Agni V             Chandipur           R&D          800
Apr 25        Shaheen RV       Shaheen 1A         Somniani?           R&D          100?
May 10 0618   FTM-16/2A Target Terrier Orion      Kauai               Target       100?
May 10 0620?  FTM-16/2A KV     SM-3 Block IB      USS Lake Erie       Intercept    100?
May 23 0615   RV               Topol'-M2?         Plesetsk            R&D         1000?

.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
|  Jonathan McDowell                 |  phone : (617) 495-7176            |
|  Somerville MA 02143               |  inter : planet4589 at gmail       |
|  USA                               |          jcm at cfa.harvard.edu       |
|                                                                         |
| JSR: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html                                 |
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