[JSR] Jonathan's Space Report, No. 820

Jonathan McDowell jcm at planet4589.com
Thu Jun 1 20:22:52 EDT 2023


Jonathan's Space Report
No. 820                                                      2023 Jun 1       Somerville, MA
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

International Space Station
---------------------------

Expedition 69 continues.

On May 18 at 1643 UTC the Progress MS-22 cargo ship, docked to Zvezda, fired its engines
for 353s and raised the ISS orbit by 1 km.

On May 21 SpaceX launched Dragon capsule C212 on mission Axiom Ax-2,
carrying Axiom Space astronauts Peggy Whitson and John Shoffner and
Saudi Space Commission astronauts Ali Al-Qarni and Rayyanah Barnawi.
Ax-2 docked with IDA-3 on the ISS at 1312 UTC May 22. The Ax-2 crew
undocked at 1505 UTC May 30 and landed near 86.2W 29.7N in the Gulf of
Mexico at 0304:24 UTC May 30.

On May 24 Roskosmos launched cargo ship Progress MS-23 from Baykonur.
The ship is factory no. 453, on ISS mission 84P. It docked with the
Poisk module at 1618 UTC May 24, 3h 22 min 34s after launch.


Chinese Space Station
---------------------

Shenzhou 16 was launched on May 30. Crew are commander Jing Haipeng,
space flight engineer Zhu Yangzhu, and payload specialist Gui Haichao.
The launch marked a new record population of 17 humans in orbit.
Shenzhou 16 docked with the nadir port of Tianhe at 0829 UTC May 30.

Starlink 
---------

Starlink Group 5-9 (56 satellites) was launched from Canaveral on May 14.
Starlink Group 2-10 (52 satellites) was launched from Vandenberg on May 31.


Iridium OneWeb
---------------

On May 20 SpaceX launched a set of Iridium and OneWeb communications satellites.
The satellites are on-orbit spares. OneWeb SL0721 (JoeySat) carries experimental
hardware for next-generation OneWeb satellites.

CALT launches
-------------

CALT launched a CZ-3B with the Beidou DW56 navigation satellite, also called Beidou-3 GEO-4.
It will be an on-orbit spare.

CALT launched a CZ-2C on May 21 with the Macao Science Satellite 1A and 1B spacecraft
(Aomen Kexue 1A/1B in Chinese). A Wuhan University radar satellite, Luojia-2 01, was
also carried on the flight.

Nuri
----

The third flight of South Korea's Nuri rocket successfully reached a
sun-sync orbit  on May 25. The 180 kg NEXTSAT-2 technology test sat
carries an X-band radar and a radiation detector. The four 10 kg
SNIPE/Doyosaet 6U cubesats from Korea Astronomy and Space Sci Inst. have
space weather instruments and a gamma-ray-burst detector; however, SNIPE 3
failed to eject from its deployer. JAC from
Justek Inc. is a 3U cubesat from JUSTEK Inc. (Pyeongtak) with an Earth
observation camera. KSAT3U is a 3U cubesat from Kairo Space (Seongnam)
with a weather imager. The 6U cubesat LUMIR-T1 from LUMIR (Seoul) has a
test of a microprocessor board with a radiation-error correction system.
Orbits are 540 x 550 km x 97.5 deg with 18:00 LTDN  orbital plane.

XR 1
-----

The XR 1 radar satellite was launched in Jan 2021 on the Transporter 1 mission.
It was like the Finnish ICEYE satellites but owned by the Michigan-based company R2 Space.
According to an FCC filing on May 20, ICEYE's US subsidiary, ICEYE US, is now taking
over operations of the satellite from R2 Space.

Virgin Galactic
---------------

On May 25 VG's Spaceship Two made its first spaceflight since 2021. VSS Unity carried
six people to an apogee of 87.2 km. Aboard were six VG employees: pilot Mike Masucci,
copilot CJ Sturckow, chief astronaut instructor Beth Moses, astronaut instructor Luke Mayes,
and mission specialists Chris Huie and Jamila Gilbert.

The launch marked, briefly, a record population of 20 humans in space simultaneously.

TROPICS
-------

The final two TROPICS cubesats from MIT Lincoln Labs were orbited by Rocket Lab Electron
from New Zealand on May 26.

Kondor-FKA
----------

The Kondor-FKA No. 1 S-band radar satellite, built by NPO Mashinostroenie for Roskosmos,
was launched on May 26.

Badr-8
------

Arabsat's Badr-8, also called Arabsat 7B, is a 4500 kg Airbus Defense and Space
Eurostar-NEO C/Ku-band communications satellite with electric
propulsion, launched by SpaceX to supersynchronous transfer orbit on May 27.

NVS-01
------

On May 29 ISRO launched the first of a second generation of NavIC navigation satellites (formerly IRNSS). 
NVS-01 has a mass of 2232 kg and uses the I2K bus; the GSLV Mk II flight GSLV-F12 placed it in
geotransfer orbit.


North Korean spy satellite
--------------------------

North Korea made its first attempt to launch a spy satellite on May 30. The Cheonlima-1 rocket first
stage flew correctly and fell in the sea 200 km west of Eocheong, but the second stage failed
and the rest of the vehicle apparently fell in the same location. The spy satellite payload
is called Manli-gyeong-1. Cheonlima-1 (also transliterated Chollima-1 in phonetic schemes)
appears to be based on the Hwasong-15 first stage.

Erratum
-------

The Cygnus NG-18 was deorbited at 0229 UTC Apr 22 and reentered over the Pacific ot 0304 UTC.
Thanks to C.N. for the data which I forgot to include last issue.


Table of Recent Orbital Launches
 ----------------------------------

Date UT       Name			     Launch Vehicle	 Site		 Mission  INTL.  Catalog  Perigee Apogee  Incl	 Notes
May  1 0026   Viasat-3 Americas                Falcon Heavy               Kennedy LC39A     Comms    60A   34569 x 34646 x 0.1
              Arcturus                                                                      Comms    
              G-Space 1                                                                    Com/SSA
May  4 0240   VKD-57 jettison bundle                                       ISS, LEO         Junk   98067VJ  412 x 420 x 51.6
May  4 0731   Starlink Group 5-6               Falcon 9                   Canaveral LC40    Comms    61A    297 x 338 x 43.0
May  8 0100   TROPICS SV05                     Electron                   Mahia LC1B        Sci      62A    538 x 555 x 32.7
              TROPICS SV06                                                                  Sci      62B    535 x 553 x 32.7
May 10        Zeus-1                                                      VR-5, LEO         Tech   23001DD? 513 x 529 x 97.5
May 10 1322   Tianzhou 6                       Chang Zheng 7              Wenchang          Cargo    63A    199 x 317 x 41.5
May 10 2009   Starlink Group 2-9               Falcon 9                   Vandenberg SLC4E  Comms    64A    221 x 332 x 70.0
May 14 0503   Starlink Group 5-9               Falcon 9                   Canaveral LC40    Comms    65A    298 x 336 x 43.0
May 16?       LLITED-A                                                    VR-6, LEO         Tech   23054AU  488 x 509 x 97.4
              LLITED-B                                                                      Tech   23054AT  488 x 509 x 97.4
May 17 0249   Beidou DW56                      Chang Zheng 3B             Xichang LC3       Nav      66A    198 x 35822 x 28.4
May 17 1800?  IRIS-C                                                      VR-6, LEO         Tech   23054AV  488 x 509 x 97.4
May 18 2219   DISCO-1                                                     VR-6, LEO         Tech   23054AW? 488 x 509 x 97.4
May 19 0619   Starlink Group 6-3               Falcon 9                   Canaveral LC40    Comms    67A    314 x 321 x 43.0
May 20 1316   Iridium 174                      Falcon 9                   Vandenberg SLC4E  Comms    68A    613 x 627 x 86.7
              Iridium 177   
              Iridium 178 
              Iridium 179 
              Iridium 181 
              OneWeb SL0561,0668,0676-0684
              OneWeb SL0686,0694,0696,0703
              OneWeb SL0721 (JoeySat)
May 21 0800   Aomen Kexue 1A                   Chang Zheng 2C             Jiuquan           Science  69A?  453 x 497 x 41.0
              Aomen Kexue 1B                                                                Science  69B?  453 x 496 x 41.0
              Luojia-2 01                                                                   Radar    69C?  453 x 494 x 41.0
May 21 2137   Axiom Ax-2                       Falcon 9                   Kennedy LC39A   Spaceship  70A   210 x 302 x 51.7
May 24 1256   Progress MS-23                   Soyuz-2-1a                 Baykonur LC31     Cargo    71A   187 x 224 x 51.6
May 25 0924   NEXTSAT-2                        Nuri                       Naro              Tech     72A   540 x 550 x 97.5
              Doyosaet 1                                                                   Sci/Ast   72
              Doyosaet 2                                                                   Sci/Ast   72
              Doyosaet 3                                                                   Sci/Ast   72
              Doyosaet 4                                                                   Sci/Ast   72
              LUMIR-T1                                                                      Tech     72
              JAC                                                                           Tech     72
              KSAT3U                                                                        Tech     72
May 26 0346   TROPICS 03                       Electron                    Mahia LC1B       Science  73A   538 x 556 x 32.7
              TROPICS 07                                                                    Science  73B   539 x 555 x 32.7
May 26 2114   Kondor-FKA No. 1                 Soyuz-2-1a/Fregat          Vostochniy PU1S   Radar    74A   509 x 512 x 97.4
May 27 0430   Badr 8                           Falcon 9                   Canaveral LC40    Comms    75A   403 x 61203 x 27.8
May 29 0512   NVS-01                           GSLV Mk II                 Satish Dhawan SLP Nav      76A   208 x 40040 x 19.3
May 30 0131   Shenzhou 16                      Chang Zheng 2F             Jiuquan         Spaceship  77A   189 x 534 x 41.6
May 30 2127   Manligyeong-1                    Cheonlima-1                Sohae LC2         Imaging  F06   -5700? x 150? x 93?
May 31 0602   Starlink Group 2-10              Falcon 9                   Vandenberg SLC4E  Comms   78A    222 x 333 x 70.0

Table of Recent Suborbital Launches 

-----------------------------------

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

May  3 1830   SDO EVE Cal 9     Black Brant 9       White Sands          Solar EUV     290?      White Sands
May 22 0500   MAPHEUS 13        IM/IM               Kiruna               Micrograv     225       ESRANGE
May 25?       RV                Kheibar             Unknown, Iran        Test          300?      Iran?
May 25 1623   Unity 25          Spaceship Two       Elephant Butte P3    Spaceship      87       Spaceport America


.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
|  Jonathan McDowell                 |                                    |
|  Somerville MA 02143               |  inter : planet4589 at gmail       |
|  USA                               |  twitter: @planet4589              |
|                                                                         |
| JSR: https://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html                                 |
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