[JSR] Jonathan's Space Report, No. 819

Jonathan McDowell jcm at planet4589.com
Sat May 13 17:04:15 EDT 2023


Jonathan's Space Report
No. 819 Draft                                                2023 May 13       Somerville, MA
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Expedition 69 continues.

On Apr 19 astronauts Prokop'ev and Petelin carried out the VKD-56 spacewalk, which had been
interrupted before hatch opening on Dec 15 because of the Soyuz MS-22 coolant leak.
This time all went as planned; the Poisk airlock was depressurized at 0117 UTC and the hatch
was opened at 0141:12 UTC. The astronauts released the MLM RTod radiator from Rassvet (where it
had been attached since launch in 2010) at 0417 UTC and the ERA robot arm unberthed it
at 0421 UTC, attaching it to the Nauka module at 0758 UTC. The hatch was closed at 0935:32 UTC
and the airlock was repressurized at 0950 UTC.

The Canadarm-2 unberthed Cygnus NG-18, the S.S. Sally Ride, from the Unity module on Apr 21 at about 0840 UTC
and released it into orbit at 1122 UTC. NG-18 was deorbited over the S Pacific on Apr 22,
possibly around 0142 UTC.

On Apr 24 the JRMS arm extracted Nanoracks NRCSD-25 from the Kibo airlock. NRCSD-25
ejected six cubesats at 1205 and 1215 UTC.

On Apr 28 astronauts Bowen and Al Neyadi made spacewalk EVA86 from Quest. After carrying out 
IROSA related cabling and insulation work, they attempted to retrieve part of a failed SASA antenna
stored on stowage platform ESP-2. However they were unable to separate the RFG antenna section
from the unit and ultimately left it in place. The airlock was depressurized at 1300 UTC and repressurized
at 2012 UTC; the hatch wsa open from 1309 UTC to 2006 UTC.

On May 3 astronauts Prokop'ev and Petelin made spacewalk VKD-57 from Poisk. They transferred
the 812 kg ShK experiment airlock from Rassvet to Nauka from 2215 to 0100 UTC, and jettisoned a 5 kg bundle 
of surplus equipment and insulation at 0240:25 UTC. The airlock was depressurized around 1945 UTC and 
repressurized at 0315 UTC; the hatch was open from 2000 to 0311 UTC.

On May 6 the Crew-6 astronauts flew their Dragon ship from the IDA-3 docking port to IDA-2, undocking
at 1123 UTC and docking at 1201 UTC.

On May 12 astronauts Prokop'ev and Petelin made spacewalk VKD-58 from Poisk. They deployed
the RTOd radiator on Nauka and filled it with coolant. A bundle of used decontamination towels
was jettisoned at 2037 UTC. The airlock was depressurized from 1527 to 2104 UTC and the hatch
was open from 1546 to 2101 UTC.

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

The Tianzhou-5 cargo ship undocked from the aft Tianhe port at 0726 UTC May 5. Tianzhou-6 was
launched on May 10 at 1322 UTC and docked with the vacant port at 2116 UTC the same day.
Tianzhou-5 remains in orbit.

Chinese Space Plane
-------------------

The second test flight of the Chinese orbital spaceplane ended on May 8.
The spacecraft appears to have landed at Lop Nor around 0020 UTC.
It was launched in Aug 2022; during its mission it appears to have deployed
and retrieved a subsatellite.


Starlink
--------

Starlink Group 6-2, the second launch of 21 V2-Mini satellites, took off from Canaveral on Apr 19.
Starlink Group 3-5, with 46 V1.5 satellites, was launched from Vandenberg on Apr 27.
Starlink Group 5-6, with 56 V1.5 satellites, was launched from Cape Canaveral on May 4.
Starlink Group 2-9, with 52 V1.5 satellites, was launched from Vandenberg on May 10.

Starship
--------

The first full Starship flight test was launched from Boca
Chica/Starbase on Apr 20 at about 1333:08 UTC, using Booster 7 and Ship
24. Of the 33 Raptor 2 engines on the Booster, 3 failed early and at
least 3 more shut down at some point during the ascent. It has been
suggested that a small explosion visible around T+0:30 was the failure
of a hydraulic power unit, but this has not yet been confirmed. At the
end of Booster propulsion at about T+2:49, a flip maneuver began but
Ship/Booster separation did not occur and the vehicle tumbled out of
control three minutes after launch. The vehicle reached an apogee of 39
km at a velocity of 0.43 km/s (Earth-relative) at T+3:13. As it fell
back to 29 km at T+3:59, an automated flight-termination-system destruct
ended the flight in a fireball. Weather radar data suggests this occurred
to the south of the main flight corridor at about 96.6W 25.7N.

Although this flight was targeted to be only marginally orbital, I am assigning
it a regular orbital launch failure designation, 2023-F05.

PSLV-C55
---------

India launched PSLV-C55 on Apr 22, placing Singapore's 741 kg TeLEOS-2 radar
satellite in orbit. The satellite is operated by Agilspace and was built  by
ST Engineering.  A 16 kg secondary payload, the 12U LUMELITE-4
for the National University of Singapore, was ejected from the PS4 4th stage.
The PS4 deployed solar panels and remains on orbit as the POEM-2 experiment
plaftorm carrying a variety of hosted experiments.

The PS3 stage appears to have reached a positive perigee orbit of
around 27 x 594 km x 13.5 deg and impacted 50 min after launch near 112W 13S.

Hakuto-R M1
-----------

I-Space's lunar probe lowered its lunar orbit to 100 x 100 km on Apr 13.
On Apr 25 at 1533 UTC the probe moved to a 25 x 100 km orbit; at perilune around
1627 UTC it began a braking burn to descend towards crater Atlas, target landing
point 47.5N 44.4E. However it appears terminal descent was unsuccessful
and contact was lost with the probe around the time of landing at 1640 UTC.

Hakuto-R M1 carried the Rashid rover from the UAE and the SORA-Q mini-lander from Japan.


O3b mPOWER
-----------

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 on Apr 28 with two O3b mPOWER satellites for SES, which will operate
in an 8000 km orbit. The Falcon 9 upper stage will be left in high orbit.

Falcon Heavy
-------------

Falcon Heavy 6 flew from Kennedy Space Center on May 1 on a direct-to-GEO insertion mission.
The main payload was Viasat-3 Americas, a 6418 kg Boeing BSS-702MP+ Ka-band communications satellite for Viasat.
Also aboard were Arcturus and G-Space 1. Arcturus is a 400 kg Astranis MicroGEO Ku-band communications satllite,
also called Aurora 4A. G-Space 1 is a 16U cubesat for Gravity Space (based in White Salmon, Washington, US)
built by the Danish manufacturer Space Inventor. The 22 kg satellite carries a small Ku-Ka band comms
payload called Nusantara H-1A, being used in a legal maneuver to retain the frequency/orbital slot
for Indonesia's PSN before the slot assignment expires, since the actual Nusantara satellite is not ready yet.
G-Space 1 also carries an experimental space situational awareness imager to track other satellites.

TROPICS
--------

MIT's TROPICS SV05 and SV06 cubesats were launched on a Rocket Lab
Electron on May 8 from New Zealand. They will study hurricanes using
microwave spectrometers.  The second stage entered a 35 degree circular
orbit; the kick stage then lowered inclination to 32.7 deg. This was a
new launch profile for Electron.


Artemis Cubesats
-----------------

Here's an update on the cubesats launched on the Artemis I mission.
It is really unfortunate that Ames, ASU, and Argotec,among others,
have still not made public detailed solar orbit parameters for their spacecraft.

Lunar IceCube:
             Failed Nov 18?
             Lunar flyby around 2000 km on Nov 21   
             Probably in solar orbit? No orbit data available

EQUULEUS:    Lunar flyby 5212 km on Nov 21
             Earth orbit on Nov 25: 60400 x 549300 km x 47.1 deg
             Distant lunar flybys on  Dec 18, Mar 10  
             Active, in Earth-Moon system
             Next lunar flyby May 27
             Then to 180000 x 1112000 x 17.2 deg Earth orbit.
             
OMOTENASHI:  Failed Nov 20(?).
             Lunar flyby 1880 km on Nov 21
             Depart Earth Hill Sphere on Dec 11 at 0714 UC
             In solar orbit 0.996 x 1.018 AU x 0.18 deg

BioSentinel: Lunar flyby 406 km on Nov 21 at 1540 UTC 
             Left Earth Hill Sphere on Dec 12 at 1030 UTC
             Active, in solar orbit, orbit parameters not available
             
ArgoMoon:    Lunar flyby Nov 21, distance unknown
             Failed Nov 28, in 383000 x 2442000 km x 43.0 deg Earth orbit
             Perturbed to solar orbit around Jan 2023?
             Probably in solar orbit? No orbit data available

           
NEA SCOUT:   Failed Nov 16.
             Lunar flyby 736 km on Nov 21 at 1547 UTC
             Depart Earth Hill Sphere on Dec 13 at 1508 UTC
             In solar orbit 0.998 x 1.061 AU x 0.28 deg

LunaHMap     Lunar flyby 1351 km on Nov 21 at 1552 UTC
             Perturbed to solar orbit around Jan 2023?
             Thruster failed, primary mission abandoned, still in contact.
             Active, In solar orbit, No orbit data available

LunIR        Lunar flyby about 1000? km on Nov 21
             Failed sometime in Dec?
             Perturbed to solar orbit around Jan 2023?
             In solar orbit, No orbit data available

Miles        Failed Nov 16
             Lunar flyby about 1500 km? on Nov 21
             Perturbed to solar orbit around Dec 2023?
             In solar orbit, No orbit data available

CUSP         Failed Nov 17
             Lunar flyby about 1500 km? on Nov 21
             Perturbed to solar orbit around Dec 2023?
             In solar orbit, No orbit data available

Other 2022 lunar missions
-------------------------

Hakuto-R M1 (as noted above)
    Jan 20 1.4 million km apogee
    Mar 21 Lunar orbit insertion
    Apr 25 Lunar impact near Atlas crater.
   
Lunar Flashlight
    May 12 Primary mission abandoned
    Jun 22 Depart Earth Hill Sphere
    Active, In solar orbit,  0.92 x 1.0 AU x 0.1 deg
             
CAPSTONE:    
    Nov 22 NHRO lunar orbit insertion
    Active, mean lunar orbit elements around 1400 x 8000 km x 95 deg.                      


Danuri  -
    Dec 16 lunar orbit insertion
    Active, In lunar orbit  97 x 101 km, 89 deg.






Erratum
-------

The Pleiades-Yearling owner should have read 'Cal Poly Pomona'.

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

Date UT       Name			     Launch Vehicle	 Site		 Mission  INTL.  Catalog  Perigee Apogee  Incl	 Notes
Apr  2 0848   Jinta                            Tianlong 2                  Jiuquan          Imaging  49A  478 x 496 x 97.5
Apr  2 1429   SDA-0A TPL-01                    Falcon 9                    Vandenberg SLC4E Comms    50A  941 x 952 x 81.0
              SDA-0A TPL-02                                                                 Comms    50B
              SDA-0A TPL-03                                                                 Comms    50C
              SDA-0A TPL-04                                                                 Comms    50D
              SDA-0A TPL-05                                                                 Comms    50E
              SDA-0A TPL-06                                                                 Comms    50F
              SDA-0A TPL-07                                                                 Comms    50G
              SDA-0A TPL-08                                                                 Comms    50H
              SDA-0A TRL-01                                                               Early Warn 50J
              SDA-0A TRL-02                                                               Early Warn 50K
Apr  7 0400   Test payload                     Shuang Quxian 1              Jiuquan         Tech     51A  295 x 503 x 97.3
Apr  7 0430   Intelsat IS-40e/TEMPO            Falcon 9                     Canaveral LC40  Comms/Sci 52A  229 x 33836 x 27.0
Apr 14 1214   JUICE                            Ariane 5ECA+                 Kourou ELA3   Space probe 53A  314 x -156007 x 5.9
Apr 15 0647   Transporter-7                    Falcon 9                   Vandenberg SLC4E  Rideshare 54A  668 x 679 x 98.2
Apr 16 0136   Fengyun 3-07                     Chang Zheng 4B               Jiuquan         Weather   55A  410 x 417 x 50.0
Apr 19 1431   Starlink Group 6-2               Falcon 9                     Canaveral LC40  Comms     56A  344 x 351 x 43.0
Apr 20 1333   Starship Test 1                  Starship                     Starbase OLP1   Test      F05 -6340 x 35 x 26.4
Apr 22 0850   TeLEOS-2                         PSLV                       Satish Dhawan FLP Radar     57A  588 x 618 x 9.9
              LUMELITE-4                                                                    Tech      57B
              POEM-2                                                                        Tech      57C
Apr 22 2300?  VCUB1                                                      ION SCV010,LEO     Tech     54AP  490 x 505 x 97.4
Apr 24 1205   ARKSAT-1                                                     ISS, LEO         Tech   98067VC 412 x 420 x 51.6
              LightCube                                                                     Tech   98067VD
              Ex-Alta 2                                                                     Tech   98067VE
Apr 24 1215   YukonSat-1                                                   ISS, LEO         Tech   98067VF 412 x 420 x 51.6
              AuroraSat                                                                   Com/Tech 98067VG
              NEUDOSE                                                                       Sci    98067VH
Apr 25?       EPICHyper-1                                                ION SCV010,LEO     Imaging  54AQ? 492 x 507 x 97.4
Apr 25?       Kepler-20                                                  ION SCV010,LEO     Comms    54AR?
Apr 26?       Kepler-21                                                  ION SCV010,LEO     Comms    54AS?
Apr 27 1340   Starlink Group 3-5               Falcon 9                   Vandenberg SLC4E  Comms    58A   296 x 349 x 97.7
Apr 28 2212   O3b mPOWER 3                     Falcon 9                   Canaveral LC40    Comms    59A   2770 x 7000 x 8.6
              O3b mPOWER 4                                                                  Comms     
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  9?       Zeus-1                                                      VR-5, LEO         Tech   23001DD?
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

Table of Recent Suborbital Launches 

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

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

Apr  1 0420   REXUS 29          Imp. Orion         Kiruna                Auroral        80       ESRANGE
Apr 11        RV                Yars-E             Kapustin Yar          Test         1000?      Sary Shagan
Apr 12 2223   Hwasong-18 RV     Hwasong-18         Chong-dong            Test         2500?      Sea of Japan
Apr 14        Target            B-611?             Jiuquan               Target        100?      Urumqi
Apr 14        DN-3 KV?          DF-21?             Urumqi                Interceptor   250?      Intercept
Apr 19        MSBS RV           M51               S619, Baie d'Audierne  Test         1000?      W Atlantic
Apr 19 1211   Mk 21 RV?         Minuteman 3         Vandenberg LF09      Test         1000?      Kwajalein
Apr 22 1512   Gold Chain Cowboy Evo Space           Evo Space Ridgecrest Test          124       Mojave Desert
Apr 24 0520   TEXUS 58          VSB-30              ESRANGE              Micrograv     250       Norway ( by accident)
Apr 25 2315   SubTEC 9          Terrier Imp.Mal.    Wallops I.           Tech          137       Atlantic
May  3 1830   SDO EVE Cal 9     Black Brant 9       White Sands          Solar EUV     290?      White Sands

.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
|  Jonathan McDowell                 |                                    |
|  Somerville MA 02143               |  inter : planet4589 at gmail       |
|  USA                               |  twitter: @planet4589              |
|                                                                         |
| JSR: https://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html                                 |
| Back issues:  https://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back                  |
| Subscribe/unsub: https://www.planet4589.org/mailman/listinfo/jsr         |
'-------------------------------------------------------------------------'



More information about the JSR mailing list