[JSR] Jonathan's Space Report, No. 735

Jonathan McDowell jcm at planet4589.org
Fri Feb 24 22:16:11 EST 2017


Jonathan's Space Report 
No. 735                                                       2017 Feb 24  Somerville, MA
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International Space Station
---------------------------

Expedition 50 continues with the departure of two cargo ships and the arrival of two more.

Japan's HTV 6 cargo ship separated from ISS on Jan 27 at 1546 UTC. However,
its KITE tether experiment failed to deploy when commanded to do so on
Jan 28. HTV 6 was deorbited on Feb 5 at 1442 UTC and entered the
atmosphere over the South Pacific at 1506 UTC.

On Jan 31 the Progress MS-03 cargo ship undocked at 1425 UTC
and was deorbited at 1734 UTC with impact in the South Pacific
at 1824 UTC.

On Feb 19 Dragon CRS-10 was launched from Kennedy Space Center LC39A
aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9; the first non-NASA launch operation ever from
KSC and the first launch from KSC since 2011. NASA KSC abuts USAF Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station on its northern side; previous Falcon 9 east
coast launches were from SLC40 at Cape Canaveral. On this flight the
Falcon 9 first stage, B1031, landed at Cape Canaveral's LZ1.

CRS-10 carries three packages in its trunk for installation on ISS.  The
USAF Space Test Program's STP-H5 experiment suite includes a NASA
lightning sensor and NRL ionosphere-study experiments. SAGE-III IP
continues a long series of NASA ozone monitoring studies. SAGE-III NVP
(Nadir Viewing Platform) is an adapter which will allow the IP to be
installed sideways on the ISS ELC platform.

On Feb 22 Dragon aborted its approach to the ISS at a distance of 1.2 km
due to a navigation system error. Rendezvous was rescheduled for Feb 23
when Dragon was grappled by the SSRMS at 1044 UTC, then berthed on the
Harmony module.

On Feb 22 Progress MS-05 was launched from Baykonur on the final Soyuz-U-PVB
rocket. Among other cargo it carried a new Orlan-MKS spacesuit. The
ship docked with the Pirs module at 0830 UTC Feb 24. 

Soyuz-U first flew in 1973 and has been the main variant in use since
1976 when the Voskhod 11A57 was retired. The Molniya variant last flew
in 2010; the -U was the last of the Soviet-era versions of the rocket
still flying. Soyuz rocket variants still in service are Soyuz-FG,
Soyuz-2-1a, Soyuz-2-1b, Soyuz-2-1v, and the French Guiana variants of
2-1a/b, called ST-A and ST-B. 


TuPOD
-----

The TuPOD cubesat from the Italian group Gauss Srl ejected its two small
0.75kg Tubesats, TANCREDO-1 and OSNSAT, on Jan 19.
One of the cubesats ejected with it exhibited rapid orbital decay
and reentered on Feb 5; Space-Track identifies it as FREEDOM,
which would imply the drag devices on EGG and Waseda-SAT3
have not been deployed.


Falcon 9
--------

The 11th object cataloged with the Falcon 9 launch was a data error
(probably cross-tagging of the other 10 objects). 41927 has been
reassigned to a debris object from a 1964 Transit navigation satellite
launch.

SBIRS
-----

Atlas AV-066 launched the third SBIRS GEO early warning sat into geotransfer
orbit on Jan 21. SBIRS GEO uses an infrared telescope to detect missile
launches.

DSN 2
-----

The DSN Corporation is a Sky Perfect JSAT / NEC / NTT /Maeda consortium
to provide an X-band military communications satellite for the Japanese
Defense Ministry. DSN 2 (Kirameki 2) is their first satellite, based on
the Mitsubishi Electric DS-2000 bus.

Hispasat 36W-1
--------------

The Spanish Hispasat 36W-1 communications satellite (3220 kg at launch,
1700 kg dry) is the first SmallGEO bus, made by OHB of Bremen, Germany.
It was launched to geotransfer orbit by a Soyuz ST-B/Fregat in the first
GTO launch by a Soyuz from Kourou.

Ariane 588
----------

The VA235 flight placed two satellites in geotransfer orbit: SkyBrasil-1
for AT&T/DirectTV Latin America and Intelsat (which calls the satellite
Intelsat-32e), and Telkom-3S for the Indonesian operator Telkom.

PSLV-C37
--------

India's PSLV placed a record 104 payloads in orbit on Feb 15. The main payload
was the  714 kg `Cartosat-2 series satellite', the fourth such imaging payload
from ISRO. Two 10 kg INS-1 (Indian Nanosatellite) technology payloads were
carried, as well as 25 QuadPack cubesat dispensers from the Dutch company ISISSpace.
One of these ejected cubesats for SpacePharma (a Swiss/Israeli company), Ben Gurion
University, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Rashid Space Center (Dubai),
and the Dutch research lab TNO. Another pair of QuadPacks carried 8 Lemur
satellites for SpireGlobal. The remaining 22 QuadPacks hosted 88 Flock-3p
imaging satellites for Planet (San Francisco).

Space-Track has published identifications for 3 of the 104 satellites so far.

Juno
-----

NASA has decided that Juno's main engine, its reliability in question,
will not be used to  alter the probe's orbit around Jupiter. As of Feb
24 Juno remains in a 3750 x 7973000 km x 90.7 deg Jovian orbit with a 53
day orbital period.  It will reach apojove on Mar 1; perijove 5 will be
at 0850 UTC on Mar 27. Most of the critical science data is taken during
perijove passes as the probe skims the Jovian cloudtops.  Staying in the
high orbit just means that the mission will take longer to complete. I
suspect the longer intervals between perijoves will actually be somewhat
welcome to those analysing the onslaught of data.

Table of Recent Orbital Launches 
 ----------------------------------
Date UT       Name            Launch Vehicle        Site            Mission       INTL.   Catalog  Perigee Apogee  Incl   Notes
                                                                                                      km      km   deg
Jan  5 1518   Tongxin Jishu SW 2    Chang Zheng 3B    Xichang LC2      Sigint?       01A    S41911    201 x 35801 x  27.5
Jan  9 0411   Linye 1 (Jilin-1S3)   Kuaizhou-1A       Jiuquan          Imaging       02A    S41913    530 x   546 x  97.5 1030LT SSO
              Caton-1           )                                      Comms         02B?   S41914    513 x   545 x  97.5 1030LT SSO
              Xingyun Shiyan 1  )                                      Tech          02C?   S41915    529 x   541 x  97.5 1030LT SSO
Jan 14 1754   Iridium Next SV102 )  Falcon 9 v1.2     Vandenberg SLC4E Comms         03D    S41920    608 x   621 x  86.7
              Iridium Next SV103 )                                     Comms         03B    S41918    610 x   622 x  86.7
              Iridium Next SV104 )                                     Comms         03F    S41922    610 x   621 x  86.7
              Iridium Next SV105 )                                     Comms         03E    S41921    605 x   619 x  86.7
              Iridium Next SV106 )                                     Comms         03A    S41917    617 x   626 x  86.7
              Iridium Next SV108 )                                     Comms         03H    S41924    607 x   622 x  86.7
              Iridium Next SV109 )                                     Comms         03C    S41919    608 x   621 x  86.7
              Iridium Next SV111 )                                     Comms         03K    S41926    609 x   622 x  86.7
              Iridium Next SV112 )                                     Comms         03J    S41925    604 x   621 x  86.7
              Iridium Next SV114 )                                     Comms         03G    S41923    610 x   617 x  86.7
Jan 14 2333   TRICOM-1              SS-520            Uchinoura K      Tech          F01    F01486  -6340? x  200? x 30
Jan 16 0910   ITF-2          )                                         Tech      98-067KS   S41930    395 x   405 x  51.6
              FREEDOM        )                        ISS, LEO         Tech      98-067KU   S41932    396 x   408 x  51.6
              WASEDA-SAT3    )                                         Tech      98-067KW   S41934    397 x   408 x  51.6
Jan 16 0920   EGG                                     ISS, LEO         Tech      98-067KV   S41933    396 x   408 x  51.6
Jan 16 1040   AOBA-Velox-III                          ISS, LEO         Tech      98-067KX   S41935    396 x   409 x  51.6
Jan 16 1050   TuPOD                                   ISS, LEO         Tech      98-067KT   S41936    398 x   407 x  51.6
Jan 19 2330?  TANCREDO-1 )                            ISS, LEO         Comms?    98-067KY   S41931    395 x   408 x  51.6
              OSNSAT     )                                             Comms?    98-067KZ   S41939    394 x   408 x  51.6
Jan 21 0042   SBIRS GEO-3           Atlas V 401       Canaveral SLC41  Early Warn    04A    S41937    195 x 35847 x  23.3
Jan 24 0744   Kirameki-2            H-IIA 204         Tanegashima      Comms         05A    S41940    250?x 35860?x  22.0?
Jan 28 0103   Hispasat 36W-1        Soyuz ST-B/Fregat CSG ELS          Comms         06A    S41942    252 x 35754 x   5.4
Feb 14 2139   SkyBrasil-1)          Ariane 5ECA       Kourou ELA3      Comms         07B    S41945  35662 x 35785 x   0.1
              Telkom-3S  )                                             Comms         07A    S41944  35641 x 35810 x   0.0
Feb 15 0358   Cartosat-2 Series/4)  PSLV-XL           Sriharikota FLP  Imaging       08A    S41948    505 x   520 x  97.5
              INS-1A             )                                     Tech          08B    S41949    496 x   508 x  97.5
              INS-1B             )                                     Imaging       08C    S41950    496 x   507 x  97.5
              BGUSat             )                                     Tech          08     
              PEASSS             )                                     Tech          08     
              Al-Farabi 1        )                                     Tech          08     
              Dido-2             )                                     Micrograv     08     
              Nayif-1            )                                     Tech          08     
              Lemur-2-Jopanbutra   )                                   Com/Met-RO    08
              Lemur-2-Spire-Minions)                                   Com/Met-RO    08
              Lemur-2-Satchmo      )                                   Com/Met-RO    08
              Lemur-2-RDeaton      )                                   Com/Met-RO    08
              Lemur-2-Smita-Sharad )                                   Com/Met-RO    08
              Lemur-2-Mia-Grace    )                                   Com/Met-RO    08
              Lemur-2-NoguesCorreig)                                   Com/Met-RO    08
              Lemur-2-Tachikoma    )                                   Com/Met-RO    08
              Flock 3p (88 sats) )                                     Imaging       08
Feb 19 1439   Dragon CRS-10         Falcon 9          Kennedy LC39A    Cargo         09A    S42053   204 x   359 x  51.6
Feb 22 0558   Progress MS-05        Soyuz-U           Baykonur LC1     Cargo         10A    S42056   186 x   210 x 51.6

Table of Recent Suborbital Launches
-----------------------------------

News reports in the UK and discussion on nasaspaceflight.com indicate that the Trident II D-5
submarine-launched missile has had two previously unreported failures, a US launch sometime in 2011
and a UK launch in June 2016. Meanwhile, four Tridents were successfully launched over the Pacific
on Feb 14-16. 

Pakistan made the first test flight of its Ababeel missile, which appears to be a Shaheen-3
with a third stage and a new payload of multiple reentry vehicles. Iran made the second
known test flight of the Khorramshahr, which is suspected to be a medium range missile
based on the Soviet R-27, similar to North Korea's Hwasong-10/Musudan. The missile's
reentry vehicle failed to survive reentry, according to US sources. North Korea flew
a land-based variant of their solid-propellant Bukgueksong submarine missile. NASA
carried out two science flights to open their 2017 campaign at the Poker Flat launch
site in Alaska.


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

Jan 15        RV x10?           Dong Feng 5C       Taiyuan               Test         1000?      Taklimakan Desert
Jan 16        RV                Topol'-M           Plesetsk              Test         1000?      Kura
Jan 23 0230   MAIUS-1           VSB-30             Kiruna                Physics       238       ESRANGE
Jan 24        Ababeel RV        Ababeel            Somniani?             Test          300?      Arab.Sea
Jan 27 1345   PolarNOx          Black Brant 9      Poker Flat, Alaska    Atmos.Sci     283       Poker Flat zone 4
Jan 29        RV                Khorramshahr       Semnan                Test          300?      Iran?
Feb  4 0830   SFTM-1 Target     ?                  Kauai                 Target        200?      Pacific
Fab  4 0833?  SFTM-1 KV         SM-3-IIA           DDG-53, Pacific       Intercept     150?      SFTM-1 
Feb  9 0739   RV x 3?           Minuteman 3        Vandenberg LF10       Test         1300?      Kwajalein
Feb 11 2255   RV                Bukgueksong-2      North Pyongan         Test          500?      Sea of Japan
Feb 14 1130   RV x 8?           Trident D-5   Unknown sub, Cape Arguello Test         1000?      Wake Island
Feb 14 1420   RV x 8?           Trident D-5   Unknown sub, Cape Arguello Test         1000?      Wake Island
Feb 15?       RV x 8?           Trident D-5   Unknown sub, Cape Arguello Test         1000?      Wake Island
Feb 16?       RV x 8?           Trident D-5   Unknown sub, Cape Arguello Test         1000?      Wake Island
Feb 22 1014   ISINGLASS-1       Black Brant 9      Poker Flat, Alaska    Auroral       362       Poker Flat zone 4


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|  Jonathan McDowell                 |                                    |
|  Somerville MA 02143               |  inter : planet4589 at gmail       |
|  USA                               |  twitter: @planet4589              |
|                                                                         |
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