Jonathan's Space Report No. 682 2013 Jul 16, Somerville, MA --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- International Space Station ---------------------------- Expedition 36 is underway. The crew are commander Pavel Vinogradov, Flight Engineers FE-2 Alexandr Misurkin, FE-3 Chris Cassidy, FE-4 Yurchikin, FE-5 Parmitano and FE-6 Nyberg. Ferry ship Soyuz TMA-08M is at Poisk and TMA-09M at Rassvet. Cargo ship Progress M-18M is at the Pirs module and ATV-4 is at the Zvezda module. Astronauts Cassidy and Parmitano made spacewalk US EVA-22 on Jul 9 from the Quest airlock, using EMU suits 3010 and 3011 respectively (thanks to A. Krasilnikov for data). The airlock was depressurized at 1200 UTC and repressurized at 1809 UTC. The astronauts repaired one of the two S-band space-to-ground communications systems by replacing its SGTRC electronics box with a spare that had been stored inside the Station for some time. Then they retrieved the two parts of the MISSE-8 exposure experiment, the PEC `suitcase' and the ORMATE-III installation, and installed the two Radiator Grapple Bars delivered by the last Dragon cargo ship. The RGB package had been stored on the Mobile Base System; the two bars were moved to the base of the thermal radiators on the port and starboard truss sections. A `Y-bypass jumper' was wired into the Z1 truss to allow aspects of the station's power system to be rerouted remotely without requiring a future spacewalk. Finally, a multi-layer-insulation (MLI) cover was wrapped over the old PMA-2 docking port, formerly used by visiting Shuttles, to protect it for future use. Cassidy and Parmitano made another spacewalk, US EVA-23, on Jul 16. It was planned to last over six hours but was cut short when water started leaking into Parmitano's helmet. The airlock was depressurizd at about 1154 UTC with hatch open at 1156 UTC. Cassidy and Parmitano completed their first tasks involving external cabling, when at 1242 UTC Parmitano reported water in his helmet. The problem got worse, and EVA work was paused at 1254 UTC; at 1306 UTC the decision was made to come back inside. There are two ways to do this, 'terminate', which involves tidying up and returning at a normal pace, and 'abort', which would involve leaving things in a mess, skipping some of the normal checks, and doing a fast repressurization. Mission Control elected to go with the more leisurely method. Parmitano was inside the airlock by 1312 UTC, with Cassidy in by 1321 UTC and the hatch closed at 1326 UTC. At this stage there was so much water in Parmitano's helmet that he could neither see airlock switches nor communicate with the ground, and concern for his safety increased. Airlock repressurization began at 1329 UTC and the internal hatch was opened at 1337 UTC, followed by `expedited suit doffing', with astronauts Nyberg and Yurchikin removing Parmitano's helmet and mopping up the water with towels. NASA's public affairs commentator, during this process, repeatedly claimed that the crew were not in danger. Let's recall that you're falling through vacuum at 27000 kph, 300 km above a planetary atmosphere, with only a few layers of fabric between you and certain death, in an environment awash with sharp-edge hazards and thermal challenges, and with a scant few hours of air supply even if the equipment in your suit works just fine. Now you're suddenly blind, unable to communicate, and trying to breathe water. To quote Arthur Dent as penned by Douglas Adams, "this must be some new meaning of the word that I wasn't previously aware of." Kudos is due to the professionalism of the astronauts and the ground team in working through this emergency calmly and effectively - although I might have argued for the faster repress. Parmitano's suit, EMU 3011, was first flown on STS-96 in 1999; after two previous tours as a Station suit in 2002-2006 and 2008-2009, it was relaunched on STS-132 in May 2010 and has been on board the ISS since then. Cassidy's suit has been in space since 2009. There are two other US EMU suits and three Russian Orlan suits on the station. Proton failure -------------- The dramatic failure of a Proton-M rocket launched from Baykonur on Jul 2 came seconds after launch when it went off course and powered itself downwards into the steppe. By a few seconds after launch the rocket was unstable in pitch and then began swinging to one side and then the other; by 17 seconds the vehicle was flying horizontally and then heading downwards. The payload section disintegrated at about T+24s and broke off due to aerodynamic forces seconds before the rocket impacted the ground and exploded at around T+32s, under 2 km from the blockhouse and near the Rokot/Strela silos at area 175. Reports indicate that no-one was injured in the accident. Preliminary investigations suggested that the launch occurred 0.4 seconds early (or at least one of the pad cable connections separated), when the engines were not yet at full thrust, but later reports claim instead that the problem was with angular velocity sensors being physically installed upside-down, fooling the rocket's flight control system and causing the unstable flight. The payload second consisted of the Blok DM-03 No. 2L upper stage carrying three Uragan-M (Glonass-M) navigation satellites, nos. 48, 49 and 50. The previous Proton-M/DM-03/Glonass launch, in 2010, also failed, but less spectacularly. (Anatoliy Zak at russianspaceweb.com provides excellent and detailed analysis). SJ-11-5 -------- China launched `Shijian shiyi hao 05 xing', another Shi Jian 11 satellite, on Jul 15. It is the 5th in a series of what are suspected to be infrared-telescope-equipped missile early warning satellites, and replaces the 4th spacecraft which was lost in a launch failure. Two objects have been cataloged; A, the final stage rocket, in a 684 x 749 km x 98.1 deg orbit and B, the payload, in a 680 x 703 km x 98.1 deg orbit; the designations will be switched when the US JSPOC realizes which is which. The constellation's current status, including the local time of descending node (LTDN) of the sun-synchronous orbits, is: Satellite Launch date Orbit LTDN (launch) (now) SJ-11 01 2009 Nov 12 685 x 702 km x 98.1 deg 09:00 09:02 SJ-11 03 2011 Jul 6 687 x 702 km x 98.2 deg 10:45 10:50 SJ-11 02 2011 Jul 29 685 x 703 km x 98.2 deg 14:00 13.47 SJ-11 04 2011 Aug 18 Launch failure 15:44 (planned) SJ-11 05 2013 Jul 15 688 x 704 km x 98.1 deg 15:44 15:44 IRNSS-1A -------- The third stage of the PSLV-XL for this mission was marginally orbital and reentered off the coast of South America. Orbit was somewhere between -22 x 190 km and +60 x 190 km. Table of Recent (orbital) Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. Jun 3 0918 SES-6 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 26A Jun 5 2152 ATV-4 Ariane 5ES Kourou ELA3 Cargo 27A Jun 7 1837 Kosmos-2486 Soyuz-2-1B Plesetsk LC43/4 Imaging 28A Jun 11 0938 Shenzhou 10 Chang Zheng 2F Jiuquan Spaceship 29A Jun 25 1728 Resurs-P Soyuz-2-1B Baykonur LC31/6 Imaging 30A Jun 25 1927 O3b SC1/PFM) Soyuz ST-B Kourou ELS Comms 31A O3b SC2/FM2) Comms 31B O3b SC3/FM4) Comms 31C O3b SC4/FM5) Comms 31D Jun 27 1653 Kosmos-2487 Strela Baykonur LC175 Radar 32A Jun 28 0227 IRIS Pegasus XL L1011, Vandenberg Solar 33A Jul 1 1811 IRNSS-1A PSLV-XL Sriharikota LP1 Navigation 34A Jul 2 0238 Glonass-M No. 48 ) Proton-M/DM-03 Baykonur LC81/24 Navigation F02 Glonass-M No. 49 ) Navigation F02 Glonass-M No. 50 ) Navigation F02 Jul 15 0927 SJ-11-05 Chang Zheng 2C Jiuquan Early Warn 35A Suborbital launches ------------------- NASA's Daytime Dynamo experiment was carried out on Jul 4, with two rockets launched into the ionosphere. A Missile Defence Agency test on Jul 5 was a failure; a GBI rocket (using Pegasus stages) carrying a kinetic kill vehicle (EKV), launched from Vandenberg AFB in California, did not intercept the target launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific; it's not yet officially public whether this was a problem with the EKV or the rocket, although the website missiledefenseadvocacy.org is reporting that the GBI rocket's third stage failed to separate (presumably, from the EKV, although they might mean from the second stage). Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Jun 6 0305 CIBER Black Brant XII Wallops I. IR Astron 577 Jun 6 1745 RV Rubezh Kapustin Yar R&D launch 1000? Jun 20 0930 NASA 40.106UO Terrier Imp. Orion Wallops I. Education 118 Jun 21 1357 SL-7/FOP-1 SpaceLoft XL Spaceport America Tech 119 Jul 4 1431 NASA 21.140GE Black Brant V Wallops I. Ionosphere 135? Jul 4 1431 NASA 41.090GE Terrier Imp. Orion Wallops I. Ionosphere 160? Jul 5 FTG-07 Target? LV-2? Kwajalein Target 1000? Jul 5 FTG-07 CE-I EKV GBI Vandenberg Intercept 1000? .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail | | USA | jcm at cfa | | | | JSR: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html | | Back issues: http://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: http://www.planet4589.org/mailman/listinfo/jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'