Jonathan's Space Report No. 516 2003 Dec 22, Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recent Launches --------------- The first launch of NPO Mashinostroenie's Strela space rocket was successful on Dec 5. The Strela is a UR-100NU ballistic missile with avionics added to the MIRV bus to turn it into a third stage. Original reports from the Russian Space Forces that this was a suborbital training launch were incorrect. Launch from site 132 at Baykonur placed the APB third stage and a dummy payload into low orbit. No name has been released for the satellite; Space Command is calling it Gruzomaket ("payload mockup") which is a plausible name for it, so I'll adopt that. Some Russian sources indicate the satellite is a mockup of Kondor-E, a proposed commercial radar satellite. Its orbit is 452 x 461 km x 67.1 deg, while the APB stage entered a 389 x 457 km x 67.1 deg orbit after venting its remaining propellant. Another space rocket based on the UR-100NU is the Rokot, which uses a more sophisticated Briz third stage and is marketed by Krunichev. Let's review the currently active launch vehicles from the former Soviet Union. In the table below, I list refurbished missiles followed by specially-built launch vehicles (still indicating the original missile design they are based on). "RV bus" denotes that the upper stage is a minimally modified post-boost delivery system used on the original ballistic missile. Missile Space launcher Upper stages Marketed by UR-100NU Rokot Briz-KM Krunichev, Eurockot UR-100NU Strela RV bus NPO Mash R-36M Dnepr RV bus Yuzhnoe, Kosmotras R-29RM Shtil' RV bus KB Makeyev RT-2PM Start-1 Start MITT, Pusk.Uslogi, USC (R-7) Soyuz-U/Soyuz-FG Blok-I, Blok-I/Fregat Energia, Starsem (R-7) Molniya-M Blok-I/Blok-L Energia? (R-14) Kosmos-3M S3 Polyot, OHB (R-36) Tsiklon-3 S5M Yuzhnoe - Zenit-2 - Yuzhnoe? - Zenit-3SL Blok DM-SL Boeing Sea Launch (UR-500) Proton-K,-M Briz-M Krunichev, ILS Three Uragan navigation satellites in the GLONASS system were launched from Baykonur at 1742 UTC on Dec 10. GLONASS is the Russian version of GPS, and the satellites are built by the Polyot company in Omsk. This was the first GLONASS launch to use the Proton-K with a Briz-M upper stage (earlier flights used the Blok-DM class stage). The third Proton stage flew a suborbital trajectory into the Pacific, while the Briz made an extremely long first burn with cutoff 35 minutes after launch over the Pacific near the equator, probably in an orbit approximately 290 x 3900 km x 51.6 deg. One orbit later the Briz fired again using the rest of the propellant in its DTB torus tank, reaching a 291 x 19093 km x 53.1 deg transfer orbit. The DTB was jettisoned at 2038 UTC. At 2313 UTC as the Briz core reached apogee over the western Atlantic it fired a third time to circularize the orbit at 18930 x 19330 km x 65.1 deg and the three Uragan satellites were deployed at 2325 UTC. Uragan satellites 794 and 795 were named Kosmos-2402 and Kosmos-2403, while uprated Uragan satellite 701 was named Kosmos-2404. The last UHF Follow-On communications satellite for the US Navy was launched on Dec 18. Lockheed Martin's Atlas IIIB flight AC-203 with a single-engine Centaur upper stage put the Boeing 601 satellite in a 185 x 1092 km x 28.1 deg parking orbit and then a 288 x 35905 km x 27.0 deg geostationary transfer orbit. The satellite will enter geostationary orbit and provide fleet communications. Another Block IIR Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite was launched on Dec 21 using a Boeing Delta 7925. The Delta second stage entered a 174 x 200 km x 36.8 deg parking orbit, fired again to a 187 x 1152 km x 37.2 km intermediate orbit, and then spun up the solid third stage which fired to enter a 187 x 20368 km x 39.0 deg transfer orbit. The GPS spacecraft, serial SVN 47, separated and will later use its solid apogee motor to circularize its orbit and change its inclination to a 20100 x 20300 km x 55.0 deg operational orbit. This was the tenth Block IIR (replenishment) launch and the 49th GPS launch since Navstar 1 in 1978. Observers are gaining confidence that only two payloads were aboard the USA 173 launch, confirming that the new generation naval signals intelligence system uses a different design from the Titan-launched triplets. The satellites are operated by the SIGINT (signals intelligence) branch of the National Reconnaissance Office. The Russian Kosmos-2399 military imaging satellite was destroyed in orbit on Dec 9 after completing its mission. At least 21 debris pieces were cataloged by US sensors; all have now reentered. On-orbit destruction is common for the Don series of imaging satellites. The Space Infrared Telescope Facility has been renamed the Spitzer Space Telescope, after astronomer Lyman Spitzer Jr. (1914-1997), who championed the idea of telescopes in space starting in 1946 and is credited with being the driving force behind OAO and HST. The first Spitzer Space Telescope images have been released, including a very spiffy image of the galaxy M81. Congratulations to all my friends on the Spitzer team for getting the mission off to a great start. The Japanese Mars probe, Nozomi, flew past the planet on Dec 14 at a height of 1000 km. Attempts to operate the spacecraft's main propulsion system failed, and small thrusters were used to increase the flyby distance by about 100 km to ensure a clean miss. The mission has now been abandoned, and Nozomi will enter a new orbit around the Sun. The flyby will have modified its orbit somewhat, but I don't have the new parameters. Meanwhile, the UK's Beagle-2 lander was ejected from the European Space Agency's Mars Express at 0831 UTC on Dec 19, on a trajectory that will impact Mars on Dec 25. On Dec 20 Mars Express tweaked its own orbit away from impact in preparation for orbit insertion around Mars. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Nov 3 0720 JB-4? CZ-2D Jiuquan Micrograv 51C Nov 14 1601 Zhongxing-20 CZ-3A Xichang Comms 52A Nov 24 0622 Yamal-200 KA-1 ) Proton-K/DM-2M Baykonur PL81/23 Comms 53A Yamal-200 KA-2 ) Comms 53B Nov 29 0433 IGS-2a ) H-IIA 2024 Tanegashima Imaging F02 IGS-2b ) Radar F02 Dec 2 1004 USA 173 ) Atlas IIAS Vandenberg SLC3E Sigint 54A USA 173 P/L 2? ) Sigint 54C Dec 5 0600 Gruzomaket Strela Baykonur PL132 Test 55A Dec 10 1742 Kosmos-2402 ) Proton-K/Briz Baykonur PL81 Navigation 56A Kosmos-2403 ) Navigation 56B Kosmos-2404 ) Navigation 56C Dec 18 0230 UHF F/O F11 Atlas IIIB Canaveral SLC36B Comms 57A Dec 21 0805 GPS SVN 47 Delta 7925 Canaveral SLC17A Navigation 58A .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Somerville MA 02143 | | | c/o | | | Center for Astrophysics, | | | 60 Garden St, MS6 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@host.planet4589.org | | USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html | | Back issues: http://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: mail majordomo@host.planet4589.org, (un)subscribe jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'