Jonathan's Space Report No. 688 2013 Nov 2, Somerville, MA --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- International Space Station ---------------------------- Expedition 37 is underway with commander Fyodor Yurchikin, FE-5 Luca Parmitano, FE-6 Karen Nyberg, FE-1 Oleg Kotov, FE-2 Sergey Ryazanskiy and FE-3 Michael Hopkins. Ferry ship Soyuz TMA-09M is at Zvezda, TMA-10M at Poisk. Cargo ship Progress M-20M is at the Pirs module. The Cygnus Demo ferry was unberthed from Harmony at 1004 UTC Oct 22 and released into a 415 x 419 km orbit by the SSRMS at 1131 UTC. On Oct 23 at 1306 UTC the orbit was lowered to 180 x 420 km; a further burn at 1741 UTC lowered it further to 50 x 420 km and the Cygnus reentered and burnt up at 1816 UTC over the South Pacific. The ATV-4 Albert Einstein cargo ship undocked from the Zvezda module at 0855 UTC Oct 28. Soyuz TMA-09M, flown by Yurchikin, Nyberg and Parmitano, undocked from the Rassvet module at 0833 UTC Nov 1 and flew around the station at a distance of 200m to redock at 0854 UTC with the Zvezda aft port freed up by ATV-4. ATV-4 was deorbited over the Pacific on Nov 2, with the final deorbit burns at 0835 and 1128 UTC lowering perigee to -70 km; entry loss of signal was at 1204 UTC. I finally saw 'Gravity' last night. For movie lovers traumatized by the apparent physics errors, my nerdy analysis of the fictional STS-157 mission may be found at http://planet4589.org/space/jsr/gravity.html SJ-15 ----- Bob Christy of zarya.info reports new activity in the Chinese 2013-037 satellites. The 2013-037A payload, possibly SJ-15, made a slight orbit adjustment of 1km on Oct 15 to 660 x 675 km and then released a new object, 2013-037J, with which it is stationkeeping within 2 km. I suspect the new object is a target subsatellite, possibly passive, for experiments with proximity operations. SJ-16 ----- China launched a new spacecraft on Oct 25, Shi Jian 16. The CZ-4B rocket's third stage put SJ-16 into a 600 x 616 km x 75.0 deg orbit, a new profile for the series. The mission of SJ-16 is unknown; the SJ ('practice') series satellites carry a mix of technology development and military payloads. Yaogan 18 --------- Yaogan 18, launched on Oct 29 into sun-synchronous orbit, appears to be the third in a series that began with Yaogan 6 and 13. It is in a 492 x 510 km x 97.6 deg orbit. Falcon 9 v1.1 ------------- Various sources tell me that the defunct-before-launch CUSAT 2/Top satellite was after all launched on the Falcon 9, and remains attached to the Falcon 9 second stage. CUSAT (formerly CUSAT 1/Bottom) was launched attached to CUSAT 2 and separated from it after orbit insertion. CUSAT mass is 23 kg. The DANDE satellite's lightband adapter bracket was jettisoned from it on Oct 30 (and cataloged as 2013-055AC). DANDE can now begin its atmospheric density studies. The situation with the tracking of the objects from the Falcon 9 launch has now settled out. The mistake with the international designations caused a second overall relabelling so that 55U and 55V are now at the end of the list, just to add to the confusion. We now see that all the payloads are very close to the original deployment orbit as expected, it is the debris objects which have a large scatter in their apogees and perigees. The old debris object 2013-055D/39268 is now labelled 2013-055K/39274; the old objects 39265, 39267, 39268, 39269, 39270 are no longer being tracked - some have reentered, others may have been errors of some kind. The NEW objects 39265-39270 are identified with the payloads and are all in orbits close to 39271/2013-055G which (apart from a few early element sets which belong to something else) is the Falcon 9 rocket. The POPACS objects 39268-39270 still seem to be uncertain; some TLEs for E and F may be for parts of the POPACS deployer. Revised orbital data A Cassiope 325 x 1485 x 81.0 B CUSAT 324 x 1482 x 81.0 C DANDE 325 x 1485 x 81.0 D POPACS 1 324 x 1480 x 81.0 E POPACS 2 323 x 1482 x 81.0 F POPACS 3 324 x 1481 x 81.0 G Falcon 9 319 x 1487 x 81.0 E' POPACS bit? 324 x 1474 x 81.0 F' POPACS bit? 324 x 1475 x 81.0 Debris Old Name New Name Initial Current (Oct 11-12) 39272/H 39272/H 275 x 1420 x 81.0 254 x 766 x 81.1 39275/K 39275/L 258 x 1421 x 81.0 Reentered Oct 6 39268/D 39274/K 403 x 1433 x 81.0 432 x 1283 x 80.9 - 39275/L - 405 x 648 x 81.0 - 39276/M - 402 x 1179 x 80.9 39277/M 39277/N 444 x 1588 x 81.0 460 x 1397 x 81.0 39278/N 39278/P 407 x 1596 x 81.0 468 x 1393 x 81.0 39280/P 39280/R 369 x 1595 x 81.0 325 x 1473 x 81.0 39281/Q 39281/S 378 x 1539 x 81.0 253 x 329 x 80.8 39282/R 39282/T 350 x 1523 x 80.9 330 x 793 x 80.9 39283/S - 391 x 1590 x 81.0 Lost? - 39283/U 453 x 1508 x 81.0 491 x 629 x 81.2 38284/T 39284/V 390 x 1573 x 81.0 383 x 834 x 81.0 39273/U 39273/J 323 x 1409 x 81.0 Reentered Oct 8 39279/V - 319 x 1647 x 81.0 Lost? - 39279/Q - 428 x 1173 x 81.0 39265/A - 261 x 1339 x 81.0 Lost 39266/B - 306 x 1483 x 81.0 Lost 39267/C - 276 x 1472 x 81.0 Lost 39269/E - 264 x 1461 x 81.0 Lost 39270/F - 236 x 1460 x 81.0 Lost 39271/G - 420 x 1410 x 81.0 Lost 39274/J - 336 x 1408 x 81.0 Lost 39276/L - 323 x 1380 x 81.0 Lost LADEE ----- The LOI-2 burn at 1038 UTC Oct 9 lowered the orbit to 227 x 2200 km. A further burn on Oct 13 at 0333 UTC circularized the orbit at 235 x 250 km and LADEE is now in its commissioning phase, and breaking records with its laser communication system. Juno ----- The Juno mission completed has its first orbit of the Sun, heading out to the inner asteroid belt at 2.2AU and back for a 552 km flyby of Earth at 1922 UTC Oct 9, which sends it out again into a 0.98 x 5.44 AU x 4.5 deg solar orbit on its way to Jupiter orbit insertion. Sirius FM6 ---------- A Proton rocket put the Sirius FM6 spacecraft in orbit on Oct 25. Proton reached a -516 x 174 km trajectory at 1818 UTC (some 20 km lower than expected) and released the Briz stage. Briz fired from 1820 to 1825 UTC to reach 173 x 173 km; from 1916 to 1934 UTC to rach 270 x 4999 km; from 2137 to 2148 UTC to reach 327 x 15140 km, at which point it jettisoned the DTB propellant tank; from 2150 to 2156 UTC to reach 430 x 35809 km; and on Oct 26 from 0300 to 0307 UTC to reach 4074 x 35818 km x 23.2 deg where the Sirius satellite was released. Sirius FM6 is a Loral 1300 satellite with a launch mass of 6003 kg. It will provide satellite digital radio services for Sirius XM. Satellite Launch Current orbit Sirius FM1 2000 Jun 30 24590 x 46978 x 60.2 Sirius FM2 2000 Sep 5 24470 x 47096 x 64.1 Sirius FM3 2000 Nov 30 24446 x 47121 x 64.5 XM-2 2001 Mar 18 35771 x 35800 x 0.2 GEO 115.2W XM-1 2001 May 8 35770 x 35801 x 0.2 GEO 115.2W XM-3 2005 Mar 1 35783 x 35790 x 0.0 GEO 85.1W XM-4 2006 Oct 31 35785 x 35786 x 0.0 GEO 115.2W Sirius FM5 2009 Jun 30 35779 x 35796 x 0.0 GEO 96W Sirius XM-5 2010 Oct 14 35782 x 35790 x 0.0 GEO 85.2W Sirius FM6 2013 Oct 25 4074 x 35818 x 23.2 En route GEO Note that Sirius FM4 was not launched. 2013 launch statistics ---------------------- This year has seen the resurgence of the Russian space launch program. Orbital attempts so far include 24 Russian rockets (some from Kourou; I count Dnepr, Zenit-3SLB as Russian despite their partly Ukrainian manufacture, but Zenit-3SL I count as an international project). The US is next at 15 launches, then China 10, ESA 5, Japan 3, India 2, S Korea 1, Sea Launch 1. Table of Recent (orbital) Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. Sep 1 1916 Yaogan 17 ) Chang Zheng 4C Jiuquan LC603 SIGINT 46A YW-17 subsat 1) SIGINT 46B YW-17 subsat 2) SIGINT 46C Sep 7 0327 LADEE Minotaur V Wallops I. LA0B Lunar probe 47A Sep 11 2323 Gonets-M No. 14 ) Rokot Plesetsk LC133/3 Comms 48A Gonets-M No. 16 ) Comms 48B Gonets-M No. 17 ) Comms 48C Sep 14 0500 Hisaki Epsilon Uchinoura Astronomy 49A Sep 18 0810 AEHF 3 Atlas V 531 Canaveral SLC41 Comms 50A Sep 18 1458 Cygnus Demo Antares 110 Wallops I. LA0A Cargo 51A Sep 23 0307 Fengyun-3 3 Chang Zheng 4C Taiyuan LC9 Weather 52A Sep 25 0437 Kuaizhou-1 Kuaizhou Jiuquan Imaging? 53A Sep 25 2058 Soyuz TMA-10M Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 54A Sep 29 1600 Cassiope ) Falcon 9 v1.1 Vandenberg SLC4E Comm/Sci 55A POPACS 1 ) Sci 55D POPACS 2 ) Sci 55E POPACS 3 ) Sci 55F DANDE ) Sci 55C CUSat ) Tech 55B Sep 29 2138 Astra 2E Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 56A Oct 25 0350 Shi Jian 16 Chang Zheng 4B Jiuquan Tech? 57A Oct 25 1808 Sirius FM6 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 58A Oct 29 0250 Yaogan 18 Chang Zheng 2C Taiyuan Radar? 59A Suborbital launches ------------------- The Strategic Rocket Forces flew an experimental reentry vehicle on a Topol' launch from Kapustin Yar to the Balkash range at Sary Shagan on Oct 10; the launch was observed by Mike Hopkins on board the ISS, orbiting several thousand km to the southeast. Ejecta in an upper stage rocket plume of some kind were illuminated by the Sun making an easily visible cloud. Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches ---------------------------------- Thanks to Thomas Schiller for alerting me to the FTM-22 and Prithvi launches. The ARAV-ER vehicle is possibly a Terrier-Oriole-Star 20, but I would love to get a confirmation or correction on that. The NASA 36.290US flight carried Colorado's annual payload to calibrate the SDO EVE solar flux experiment. Russia launched a series of missiles on Oct 30 as part of a large scale military exercise: a Topol from Plesetsk to Kura, a Voevoda R-36M2 from Dombarovskiy/Yasniy to Kura, an R-29RM from a sub in the Barents Sea to Kura, and an R-29R from a sub in the Sea of Okhotsk to Chizha. One Iskander-M and three Tochka-U short range missiles launched from Kapustin Yar to unknown targets may also have been mildly exoatmospheric. Pavel Podvig's russianforces.org site has, as usual, the details. Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Sep 3 0616 Radar target Silver Sparrow F-15, Med. Sea Target 150? Sep 6 0520 Bulava RV Bulava K-550, White Sea Test 100? Sep 10 MBRV? Unknown Wake Island Target 300? Sep 10 MBRV? eMRBM C-17, Pacific Target 300? Sep 10 Aegis KV SM-3 USS Decatur,Pacific Interceptor 150? Sep 10 THAAD KV THAAD Meck Island Interceptor 100? Sep 10 THAAD KV THAAD Meck Island Interceptor 100? Sep 10 2110? USN RV Trident D-5 SSBN, Atlantic O. Test 1000? Sep 10 2110? USN RV Trident D-5 SSBN, Atlantic O. Test 1000? Sep 12 USN RV Trident D-5 SSBN, Atlantic O. Test 1000? Sep 12 USN RV Trident D-5 SSBN, Atlantic O. Test 1000? Sep 15 0920 Agni RV Agni V Wheeler I. IC4 Test 800? Sep 19 0030 FTM-21 Target ARAV-C++ Kauai Target 300? Sep 19 0032? Aegis KV SM-3-1B USS Lake Erie Interceptor 300? Sep 19 0032? Aegis KV SM-3-1B USS Lake Erie Interceptor 300? Sep 22 1001 Mk 21 RV? Minuteman 3 Vandenberg LF10 Op. test 1300? Sep 26 1033 Mk 21 RV? Minuteman 3 Vandenberg LF09 Op. test 1300? Oct 4 0533 FTM-22 Target ARAV-ER Kauai Target 300? Oct 4 0537? Aegis KV SM-3-1B USS Lake Erie Interceptor 150? Oct 7 0345 Prithvi RV Prithvi II Chandipur Op. test 100? Oct 8 0650? Prithvi RV Prithvi II Chandipur Op. test 100? Oct 10 1339 Exptl. RV Topol' Kapustin Yar RV test 1000? Oct 23 1800 NASA 36.290US Black Brant IX White Sands Solar 278? Oct 30 Topol' RV Topol' Plesetsk Exercise 1000? Oct 30 10 RVs?? R-36M2 Yasniy Exercise 1000? Oct 30 RV Shtil'? K-117, Barents Sea Exercise 1000? Oct 30 RV Volna L-433, S.of Okhotsk Exercise 1000? .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | | | Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail | | USA | twitter: @planet4589 | | | | 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'