[JSR] Jonathan's Space Report, No. 803
Jonathan McDowell
jcm at planet4589.com
Mon Feb 21 17:17:08 EST 2022
Jonathan's Space Report
No. 803 2022 Feb 21 Somerville, MA
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International Space Station
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Expedition 66 continues.
On Jan 19 astronauts Shkaplerov and Dubrov made a spacewalk from the Poisk airlock
to work on outfitting the new Prichal module. The airlock wsa
depressurized around 1150 UTC and the hatch was open at 1218 UTC. Dubrov, in suit
Orlan MKS4, and Shkaplerov - in suit MKS5 - emerged at 1225 and 1236 UTC,
and used the Strela crane to reach the Nauka module, then crawled down
to Prichal. They installed handrails, cables and two antennas. They
relocated a TV camera, and installed two docking targets.
At 1729 UTC Jan 19 the astronauts jettisoned the docking target cover;
at 1810 and 1811 UTC two antenna covers were jettisoned; and at 1905 and
1906 UTC two cleaning towels were thrown into space after the astronauts
wiped themselves down to avoid bringing any thruster contamination into
the airlock. At 1910 and 1915 UTC respectively Shkaplerov and Dubrov
went back inside the airlock, with hatch closure at 1929 UTC and
repressurization beginning at 1932 UTC.
Cargo ship Dragon CRS-24 undocked from IDA-3 at 1540 UTC Jan 23 and at about 1755 UTC
lowered its orbit to 186 x 377 km x 51.6 deg. It jettisoned the trunk into a 184 x 369 km orbit
and made its deorbit burn at 2018 UTC Jan 24, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico
near Panama City, at around 86.2W 29.7N at about 2105 UTC.
On Jan 26 the Japanese RMS arm extracted Nanoracks NRCSD-22 from the Kibo airlock;
NRCSD-22 then ejected five cubesats. On Feb 3 the JRMS was used similarly with the JAXA
J-SSOD #20 deployer, ejecting two cubesats.
On Feb 8 at 0736 UTC the engines of Progress MS-18 were fired to change the ISS orbit by 0.3 m/s.
Progress MS-19 was launched from Baykonur on Feb 15 with 2523 kg of cargo including six 3U amateur
radio satellites for later manual EVA deployment. The ship docked with the Poisk module at 0703:20 UTC Feb 17.
Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo ship NG-17, the S.S. Piers Sellers, was launched on Feb 19.
It arrived at ISS on Feb 21; SSRMS grappled it at 0944 UTC and berthed it at Unity nadir at 1202 UTC.
GSSAP
------
Two GSSAP geosynch space surveillance sats for the Space Force were launched on Jan 21 at 1900 UTC
by a ULA Atlas V 511. This is the only flight of the 511 model, with one strapon SRM booster,
a single-engine Centaur, and a 5-meter-diameter fairing.
The Centaur reached a 176 x 319 km x 28.0 deg parking orbit at 1913 UTC and a 231 x 36329 km x 26.0
deg geotransfer orbit at 2013 UTC. Deployment of the payloads in circular 36100 km orbits occurred
at 0135 and 0145 UTC Jan 22.
The payloads were also given the cover designations USA 324 and USA 325.
Ludi Tance
----------
At 2344 UTC Jan 25 China's SAST launched a CZ-4C from Jiuquan with the
Ludi Tance 1 hao 01 zu A xing, a 3200 kg L-band SAR satellite. The name
translates as Land Probe 1 Group 01 Sat A.
CSG2
----
The second Cosmo-Skymed Second Generation radar satellite, FM2, was
launched by SpaceX on Jan 31 into the same 17:46 local time orbital plane as FM1. The
X-band SAR satellite is operated by ASI (the Italian space agency) and
the Italian Ministry of Defence.
USA 326
-------
A new large imaging reconnaissance satellite for the US National Reconnaissance Office is now
in orbit after launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base by a SpaceX Falcon 9 on Feb 2.
Kosmos-2553
-----------
On Feb 5 Russia launched a military satellite from the Plesetsk spaceport into an unusual
orbit nearly 2000 km high. With the cover name Kosmos-2553, the satellite is thought to be
the first Neitron radar satellite, built by NPO Masinostroenie. The Soyuz-2a third
stage flew a suborbital trajectory to the western Pacific; the Fregat upper stage
made several burns to reach the target orbit and a final one after payload separation
to deorbit itself. It's not immediately obvious which ocean was used for the Fregat disposal.
Starlink
---------
49 more Starlinks (Group 4-6) were launched to the Group 4 shell on Jan
19. The Falcon 9 first stage landed on the droneship A Shortfall Of
Gravitas.
Starlink Group 4-7, with 49 satellites, was launched from Kennedy Space
Center on Feb 3. However, a geomagnetic storm on Feb 4 meant that
atmospheric density was larger than expected and drag forces exceeded
the ability of the satellites to operate correctly. According to SpaceX
(spacex.com, Feb 8), `the increased drag at the low altitudes prevented
the satellites from leaving safe-mode to begin orbit raising maneuvers,
and up to 40 of the satellites will reenter or already have reentered
the Earth's atmosphere.' In fact, 11 satellites appear to have survived,
with 38 reentering within a few days.
Starlink Group 4-8 was launched from Cape Canaveral on Feb 21, this time
using a two-burn insertion profile to a slightly higher deployment orbit.
The number of satellites aboard was reduced to 46 as a result.
OneWeb
------
On Feb 10, 34 OneWeb satellites were launched on an Arianespace Soyuz from French Guiana.
Astra LV0008
-------------
Astra Rocket 3.3, mission LV0008, was launched from Cape Canaveral on
Feb 10 carrying four cubesats: BAMA-1 for the U. of Alabama, QubeSat for
Berkeley, INCA for NMSU, and R5-S1 for Johnson Space Center. Three minutes
after launch the first stage shut down but there was some kind of problem
during fairing and first stage separation; the vehicle tumbled and did not
reach orbit.
Transporter 3
--------------
Four previously unknown US military payloads, USA 320 to USA 323, have
been cataloged associated with the Transporter 3 launch. The OroraTech
infrared imager, FOREST, is aboard the 6U satellite Lemur-2-Rohovithsa.
D-Orbit's ION SCV 004 has deployed the VZLUSat-2, STORK-1 and 2, LabSat,
Dodona and SW1FT cubesats.
Corrections to last week's Transporter 3 comments: Three, not four,
Unicorn-2 imaging sats (2A,2D,2E); and aboard ION-SCV I missed the SW1FT
cubesat from SatRevolution. ICEYE X14 is US-licenced and is probably the
Orbital Effects XR-2 satellite.
Shiyan 12
----------
The two Shiyan 12 satellites launched in December maintained a 100 km separation at 94E in GEO
until Jan 8, when they moved about 40 km above GEO and began proximity operations, staying within
5 km of each other most of the time since Jan 18.
PSLV-C52
----------
ISRO launched the PSLV-C52 mission on Feb 14. The rocket placed the 1710 kg RISAT-1A (EOS-04) C-band
radar imaging satellite in a 0600 LTDN sun-synch orbit. Two secondary payloads
were also deployed: INS-2TD, a 17 kg ISRO test satellite with a thermal imager, and
InspireSat-1, an 8 kg satellite with a solar X-ray spectrometer. InspireSat-1 is a joint project
of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology in Thiruvananthapuram and the University of
Colorado's LASP space physics lab.
Upper stage to hit moon
-----------------------
Further analysis by Bill Gray shows that an upper stage, abandoned
since 2014, will actually impact the lunar farside at around 1222 UTC
Mar 4. Originally thought to be a Falcon 9 upper stage from the 2015
DSCOVR launch, further backtracking of the orbit data now shows that it
is actually the CZ-3C Y12 third stage from China's Chang'e-5T1 lunar
test mission, launched in Oct 2014. (China issued a confusing statement
saying it wasn't the booster from Chang'e-5 - the 2020 followon mission -
which no-one was claiming it was anyway).
Following a flyby of the Moon soon after launch, the stage remained
in a 350000 x 565000 km x 57.4 deg deep Earth orbit in
the outer part of the Earth-Moon system. The perigee was close to lunar
distance, making eventual further lunar encounters inevitable. Orbits
like this are somewhat chaotic, their orbital parameters strongly
affected over time by lunar and solar gravity as well as the Earth.
Further lunar flybys occurred: 23573 km on 2016 Jan 17, and 9312 km on
2022 Jan 5. This last flyby sent the stage on an elliptical
orbit that came as low as 25000 km from the Earth, on Jan 21, then out
again to lunar distance. It will come back in to 45000 km perigee on
Feb 9 on a path for a fatal last apogee at 688000 km on Feb 23 from
which it will fall back in to hit the Moon on Mar 4.
The stage is about 4 tonnes and it will hit the Moon at 2.5 km/s.
We know lots of junk from lunar missions has ended up hitting the Moon,
for example upper stages from lunar missions and junk left in lunar
orbit. The LCROSS mission deliberately smashed a Centaur stage (similar size)
into the Moon on 2009 Oct 9, with a special spacecraft following behind
it to study the impact.
This is the first time that something not explicitly targeted at
the Moon has been noticed to accidentally hit it, but that's mainly
because we weren't paying attention until recently. Thanks to Bill Gray
and a few other people who have spent their own time keeping track of
the space junk that's too far out for SpaceForce to care about, we can
now spot events like this. Amazingly it is no one's paid job to do -
the fact that the stage was initially misidentified adds emphasis to
our lack of knowledge of the artificial objects abandoned in cislunar space.
There are about 30 to 50 lost deep space objects like this that have
been missing for years - 50 years in some cases - that haven't been
picked up by asteroid searches, and probably some of them hit the moon
without us noticing. This is not 'the launch agency did something bad' - it's
perfectly standard practice to abandon stuff in deep orbit - this is
'none of the space agencies care about leaving stuff out beyond the
Moon'.
Traffic in deep space is increasing. And it's not like the old days with
just the USA and the USSR sending stuff to deep space, it's many countries and even
commercial companies like SpaceX. So I think it's time for the world to
get more serious about regulating and cataloging deep space activity.
Thanks to Bill Gray and Dan Adamo for sterling astrodynamics work
sorting this out.
Oh, and where is the DSCOVR booster? Based on extrapolation of
a dataset provided by SpaceX, Dan Adamo derives a prediction which
implies it left the Earth-Moon system in March 2015 and is now
in a 0.95 x 0.99 AU x 0.1 deg heliocentric orbit.
SJ-21
-----
China's Shi Jian 21 turns out to be the first space garbage truck. On Jan 21 it
appears to have docked with the defunct Beidou 2-G2 satellite drifting
in GEO and then raised its orbit above GEO. On Jan 27 Beidou was tracked
in a 36076 x 38886 km orbit, 290 x 3100 km above GEO, and SJ-21 had lowered its
orbit back to the GEO ring.
Table of Recent Orbital Launches
----------------------------------
Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. Catalog Perigee Apogee Incl Notes
Jan 6 2149 Starlink 3230 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Comms 01A 209 x 337 x 53.2
Starlink 3232
Starlink 3234
Starlink 3278
Starlink 3290
Starlink 3294-3295
Starlink 3299-3300
Starlink 3302
Starlink 3308
Starlink 3310-3312
Starlink 3314-3316
Starlink 3318-3343
Starlink 3346-3349
Starlink 3353
Starlink 3355
Jan 13 1525 Transporter 3 (105 payloads) Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Various 02 520 x 535 x 97.5
Jan 13 2252 GEARRS-3 LauncherOne Cosmic Girl, Mojave Comms 03 S51094 502 x 508 x 45.0
STORK-3 Imaging 03
SteamSat-2 Tech 03
PAN A/B Tech 03
Adler-1 (Lemur-2-Krywe) Sci 03F
TES-13 Tech 03
Jan 17 0235 Shiyan 13 Chang Zheng 2D Taiyuan ? 04A S51102 357 x 1298 x 98.7
Jan 19 0202 Starlink 3172-3173 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Comms 05A
Starlink 3175-3177
Starlink 3179-3180
Starlink 3183-3185
Starlink 3243
Starlink 3253
Starlink 3344
Starlink 3350
Starlink 3352
Starlink 3354
Starlink 3356-3366
Starlink 3368-3370
Starlink 3372-3375
Starlink 3386-3400
Jan 21 1900 GSSAP 5 Atlas V 511 Canaveral SLC41 Surveillance 06A S51280? 36107 x 36166 x 0.0
GSSAP 6 06B S51281? 36075 x 36168 x 0.0
Jan 25 ASCENT or USA 326? LDPE-1, GSO ? 118E S51287 35517 x 35524 x 0.1
Jan 25 2344 Ludi Tance 1-01A Chang Zheng 4C Jiuquan Radar 07A S51824 590 x 601 x 97.8
Jan 26 1200 FEES2 ISS, LEO Tech 9867TB S51439 409 x 421 x 51.6
GASPACS Tech 9867TC S51440 409 x 421 x 51.6
Jan 26 1210 PATCOOL ISS, LEO Tech 9867TD S51441 409 x 421 x 51.6
Jan 26 1330 DAILI ISS, LEO Tech 9867TE S51442 409 x 421 x 51.6
Jan 26 1340 TARGIT ISS, LEO Tech 9867TF S51443 409 x 421 x 51.6
Jan 26 1502 VZLUSat-2 ION SCV004, LEO Sci 02? -
Jan 28 LabSat ION SCV004, LEO Tech 02? -
Jan 31 STORK-1 ION SCV004, LEO Imaging 02? -
Jan 31 2311 Cosmo-Skymed SG-FM2 Falcon 9 Canaveral SLC40 Radar 08A S51444 621 x 648 x 97.9
Feb 2 2027 USA 326 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Imaging 09A S51445 492 x 524 x 97.4
Feb 3 0855? Light-1 ISS, LEO Tech 9867TG? S51509 407 x 422 x 51.6
Feb 3 1030? GT-1 ISS, LEO Tech 9867TH? S51510 410 x 421 x 51.6
Feb 3 STORK-2 ION SCV004, LEO Imaging 02? -
Feb 3 1813 Starlink 3152 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Comms 10A- S51456- 209 x 336 x 53.2
Starlink 3163-3167 S51504
Starlink 3169-3170
Starlink 3174
Starlink 3178
Starlink 3181-3182
Starlink 3186-3189
Starlink 3220-3224
Starlink 3367
Starlink 3376-3377
Starlink 3384
Starlink 3401-3420
Starlink 3422-3423
Starlink 3426-3427
Feb 4 SW1FT ION SCV004, LEO Tech 02? -
Feb 5 0700 Kosmos-2553 Soyuz-2-1a/Fregat Plesetsk LC43/4 Radar? 11A S51511 1987 x 1994 x 67.1
Feb 10 1809 OneWeb SL0410-0411 Soyuz-ST-B/Fregat CSG ELS Comms 12A- S51622 468 x 487 x 87.4
OneWeb SL0415-0416 -S51655
OneWeb SL0422-0423
OneWeb SL0425
OneWeb SL0428
OneWeb SL0431
OneWeb SL0434-0436
OneWeb SL0438-0439
OneWeb SL0442-0446
OneWeb SL0448-0449
OneWeb SL0451-0452
OneWeb SL0455-0458
OneWeb SL0461
OneWeb SL0463-0464
OneWeb SL0468
OneWeb SL0473-0475
Feb 10 2000 BAMA-1 ) Rocket 3.3 Canaveral SLC46 Tech F01 F01620 -5150?x 278? x 41
INCA ) Sci F01 F01621
QubeSat ) Tech F01 F01622
R5-S1 ) Tech F01 F01623
Feb 14 0029 EOS-04 ) PSLV-XL Satish Dhawan FLP Radar 13A S51656 516 x 534 x 97.5
INS-2TD ) Tech 13B S51567? 516 x 534 x 97.5
InspireSat-1) Sci 13C S51568? 516 x 534 x 97.5
Feb 15 0424 Progress MS-19 Soyuz-2-1a Baykonur LC31 Cargo 14A S51570?
Feb 19 1740 S.S. Piers Sellers Antares 230+ Wallops MARS LA0A Cargo 15A S51712
Feb 21 1440 Starlink Falcon 9 Canaveral SLC40 Comms 16A
Table of Recent Suborbital Launches
-----------------------------------
Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Target
Jan 9 0500 DXL 4 Black Brant 9 Wallops I X-ray Astron 267 Atlantic
Jan 17 Warhead Zulfiqar (YE) Al Jawf? Weapon 100? Abu Dhabi
Jan 17 Warhead Zulfiqar (YE) Al Jawf? Weapon 100? Abu Dhabi
Jan 17 Warhead Zulfiqar (YE) Al Jawf? Weapon 100? Abu Dhabi
Jan 18 Target Silver Sparrow? F-15, Med. Sea Target 150? Israel
Jan 18 Arrow KV Arrow 3 Palmachim? Interceptor 150? Intercept
Jan 18 Arrow KV Arrow 3 Palmachim? Interceptor 150? Intercept
Jan 24 0015? Warhead Zulfiqar (YE) Al Jawf? Weapon 100? Abu Dhabi
Jan 24 0015? Warhead Zulfiqar (YE) Al Jawf? Weapon 100? Abu Dhabi
Jan 24 0015? Warhead Zulfiqar (YE) Al Jawf? Weapon 100? Dharan
Jan 29 0700 MAPHEUS 9 IM/IM Kiruna Micrograv 254 ESRANGE
Jan 29 2252 RV Hwasong-12? Mupyong Test 2000 Sea of Japan
.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Jonathan McDowell | |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail |
| USA | twitter: @planet4589 |
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