[JSR] Jonathan's Space Report, No. 657

Fri Apr 20 01:25:08 EDT 2012

Jonathan's Space Report
No. 657                                        2012 Apr 20  Somerville, MA USA
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Space Station
-------------

Expedition 30 continues with Soyuz TMA-22 docked at Poisk and Soyuz
TMA-03M docked to the Rassvet module. ATV 3 is docked at Zvezda. Ex-30
commander is Dan Burbank; flight engineers 1 to 5 are Anton Shkaplerov,
Anatoliy Ivanishin, Oleg Kononenko, Andre Kuipers, and Don Pettit. The
Progress M-14M cargo ship undocked from the Pirs module at 1104 UTC on
Apr 19 to begin nine days of Radar-Progress ionospheric experiments.

Meanwhile, Orbiter OV-103 Discovery was ferried from Kennedy Space Center
to Dulles airport by the NASA SCA 905 airplane on Apr 18, and then towed to the
Smithsonian's nearby Udvar-Hazy complex for display on Apr 19.

North Korean launch
-------------------

Launch of the Unha-3 rocket with the Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite payload
from the Sohae launch site at Tongch'ang-dong occurred on Apr 12.

Based on the available information announced by the South Korean
military, it seems that the rocket took off at 2238:55 UTC but failed
near the end of first stage burn, probably at the point of separation of
the first and second stages about 1min30s after launch at 2240 UTC. The
remains of it then  arced up 151 km into space and fell back into the
Yellow Sea at about 124E 36N (according to South Korean statements) 
probably about 5 minutes after launch. This is consistent with a
trajectory of roughly -6200 x 130 km x 88 deg, about what one might
expect for the first stage. The impact area is close to the  planned
impact zone for the first stage which was at 124.5-124.8E, 35.2-35.9N.  

However, NORAD says the impact was 165 km west of Seoul, which is  well
north of this and well off the planned launch track. This is a
surprising claim and I am wondering if they meant something slightly
different - e.g. 165 km W of Seoul's Incheon airport, which would put
the impact near 124.5W 37.5N, on the expected track. More likely, they
originally meant "very roughly 100 miles west" and the conversion got
corrupted. In any case this is a bit north of the expected first stage
impact zone, which could indicate a failure prior to first stage cutoff,
or  underperformance by the first stage engines, if correct. At this
point I place more reliance on the South Korean data and suspect that
the NORAD data is highly approximate at best. Washington Post's
correspondent Chico Harlan reported North Korea's admission that the
satellite failed to enter orbit.

>From KCNA: "The DPRK launched its first application satellite
Kwangmyongsong-3 at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in Choisan
County, North Phyongan Province at 07:38:55am on Friday. The earth
observation satellite failed to enter its preset orbit. Scientists,
technicians and experts are now looking into the cause of the failure".
This contrasts with the two previous failures which the North Koreans
still claim as successes.

Suborbital launches
--------------------

India carried out the first test launch of its three-stage Agni V
missile on Apr 19. The missile, which has a claimed range of 5000 km,
flew from Wheeler Island in Orissa to the southern Indian Ocean
near 90E 20S; an orbit of -4700 x 800 km x 81 deg very roughly
matches the data.

An unidentified tactical ballistic missile was launched from
White Sands (or possibly Fort Wingate) on Mar 29 as a target
for Patriot interceptors.

Table of Recent (orbital) Launches 
 ----------------------------------
Date UT       Name            Launch Vehicle  Site            Mission    INTL.  
                                                                          DES.
Mar 23 0434   Edoardo Amaldi     Ariane 5ES-ATV    Kourou ELA3       Cargo     10A
Mar 25 1210   Intelsat IS-22     Proton-M/Briz-M   Baykonur LC200/39 Comms     11A
Mar 30 0549   Kosmos-2479        Proton-K/DM-2     Baykonur LC81/24  EarlyWarn 12A
Mar 31 1027   Apstar 7           Chang Zheng 3B/E  Xichang LC2       Comms     13A
Apr  3 2312   NROL-25            Delta 4M+(5,2)    Vandenberg SLC6   Radar     14A
Apr 12 2239   Kwangmyongsong-3   Unha-3            Sohae             Tech      F01?

Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches
----------------------------------

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

Mar 19 1405   REXUS 12         Imp. Orion         ESRANGE             Micrograv     82
Mar 22 0900   NASA 36.277UG    Black Brant IX     White Sands         IR Astron    320?
Mar 27 0858   NASA 45.004UE    Terrier Oriole     Wallops             Atm. Sci     375?
Mar 27 0859   NASA 46.002UE    Terrier Malemute   Wallops             Atm. Sci     200?
Mar 27 0900   NASA 41.097UE    Terrier Orion      Wallops             Atm. Sci     157?
Mar 27 0902   NASA 46.003UE    Terrier Malemute   Wallops             Atm. Sci     254?
Mar 27 0903   NASA 41.098UE    Terrier Orion      Wallops             Atm. Sci     169?
Mar 29        Target           Unknown            White Sands?        Target        80?
Apr  5 1418   SL-6             SpaceLoft XL       Spaceport America   Tech         117
Apr 19 0237   Agni RV          Agni V             Chandipur           R&D          800

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|  Jonathan McDowell                 |  phone : (617) 495-7176            |
|  Somerville MA 02143               |  inter : planet4589 at gmail       |
|  USA                               |          jcm at cfa.harvard.edu       |
|                                                                         |
| JSR: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html                                 |
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