[JSR] Jonathan's Space Report, No. 653
Jonathan McDowell
jcm at planet4589.org
Mon Jan 30 11:41:32 EST 2012
Jonathan's Space Report
No. 653 2012 Jan 30 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. Progress M-13M undocked from the
Pirs module on Jan 23 at 2210 UTC into a 375 x 405 km orbit. It made two
burns to reach a 493 x 508 km orbit, and ejected the Chibis-M scientific
microsatellite at 2318 UTC on Jan 24. Progress M-13M was then deorbited at
0225 UTC on Jan 25 into a 56 x 514 km orbit. It entered
the atmosphere at 0304 UTC, with the debris falling in the South Pacific at
0318 UTC. Progress M-14M was launched on Jan 25 and docked with the
Pirs module at 0009 UTC on Jan 28.
FOBOS-GRUNT REENTRY
-------------------
At 1636 UTC on Jan 15, FG's orbit was 112 x 124 km x 51.4 deg.
According to the Russian `space control network' the spacecraft was
expected to have reentered about 1745 UTC on Jan 15, over the Pacific
Ocean. Other reports from the Russian `ballistics' calculations
suggested a slightly later reentry predicted at 1759 UTC over Goias
state in Brazil. On Jan 23 Space-Track released an estimate reported
that entry at 80 km was at 1746 UTC +/- 1 min, off the coast of Chile at
46S 87W; this estimate seems likely to be reliable and is probably
derived from DSP infrared sensors (and at least gets credit for quoting
an error bar). The quoted location matches the final element set's
ground track at about 1746:40 UTC - I will combined that estimated
time with the quoted 1 minute error bar.
On Jan 25 ESA announced a reentry time at 10 km of 1745
UTC, with an uncertainty of +/-7.5 min (1 sigma; personal communication
from Heiner Klinkrad). Adopting ESA's estimated descent time of 7
minutes from 80 km to 10 km, this corresponds to an 80 km reentry at
1738 UTC +/- 7.5min, consistent with the Space-Track value within the quoted
uncertainties,
Unfortunately you can't use the standard orbit propagators to figure out
what geographical position the 10-km-altitude time corresponds to, since
the atmosphere slows the debris down a lot. Models of the UARS reentry
suggested that the denser debris, which might survive reentry, impacts
800 to 1200 km downrange from the 80 km point. Taking that as a model
for FG, and including the +/- 1 minute error range for the initial
starting point around 1746:40UTC, I derive a range of 84W 45S to 71W
38S for the likely position of dense debris impact based on the
Space-Track (USSTRATCOM) data. This region is in the south-east Pacific
and stretches across the Chilean coast north of Valdivia and across the
Araucania region. to just short of the Chilean/Argentine border
northeast of Temuco. Taking the centers of the relevant ranges gives a
point just off the Chilean coast, near 76W 41S.
I believe it is likely that all the debris hit the ocean, but it's also
entirely possible that some pieces reached the ground in the Araucania
region of Chile. Only about 100 kg of the 13000 kg satellite was
expected to reach the Earth's surface according to Russian sources,
while the remainder would have burned up and melted high in the upper
atmosphere.
As you can see, even ten days post-reentry for a well studied event, it
can be tough to figure out exactly where a spacecraft came down when it
has undergone natural reentry from an atmosphere-skimming circular
orbit. This may be contrasted with deliberate deorbits from higher
altitude, like the Progress M-13M entry, where the steep angle of entry
into the atmosphere yields a well-understood time and location.
WGS 4
-----
The 4th Wideband Global Satcom satellite was launched on Jan 20
into supersynchronous geostationary transfer orbit. The Boeing 702 satellite
provides high bandwidth communications for the US military
and is operated by US Army Space Command.
Chinese launches
----------------
On Jan 9 the zi yuan san hao (ZY-3) mapping satellite was launched,
together with the small 28 kg VesselSat 2, built by LuxSpace for
Orbcomm's AIS (maritime vessel tracking) system. On Jan 13 ZY-3 was in a
498 x 506 km x 97.5 deg orbit, Vesselsat-2 in a 489 x 500 km orbit and
the CZ-4B third stage in a 219 x 487 km orbit. The second Chinese launch
this month was the fengyun erhao 07 xing (FY-2 satellite 07), also
called FY-2F. This geostationary weather satellite was launched to a 362
x 35773 km x 24.3 deg geostationary transfer orbit.
GRAIL and NPP
---------------
The two GRAIL lunar satellites have been renamed Ebb and Flow, following
a competition in which school students suggested names. The NPP weather
satellite has been renamed Suomi NPP after Verner Suomi (1915-1995) who
was a pioneer of NASA's early weather satellites and flew the
first cloud cover sensors on Vanguard 2 and Tiros 1.
Passing rock
-------------
Asteroid 2012 BX34 made a close approach to Earth in a 59023 x -80873 km
x 80.18 deg hyperbolic orbit (C3 = 87.7 km**2/s**2) at 1525 UTC on Jan
27, over about 150W 56S. This is sufficiently above GEO altitude that it
probably didn't come too close to any satellites (the closest pass
I've found was to OGO 1 at 19000 km distance). It missed Chandra
by 173000 km - phew!
Suborbital launches
-------------------
The second Terrier/Improved Malemute flight was launched on Jan 11. The
T/IM is an uprated version of the Terrier Malemute developed by Sandia
Labs, which made at least 46 flights between 1974 and 2004. I'm still
waiting to hear what apogee the new flight reached. JAXA's S-520-26
launch from Uchinoura released three lithium clouds for upper atmosphere
studies.
In the last JSR I missed the Dec 10 launch of Webster Cash's CODEX mission,
NASA 36.274UH, which was flown to get soft X-ray spectra of the Vela
region.
Table of Recent (orbital) Launches
----------------------------------
Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
Dec 1 2107 Beidou DW10 Chang Zheng 3A Xichang Navsat 73A
Dec 11 1117 Amos 5 ) Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur Comms 74A
Luch 5A ) DataRelay 74B
Dec 12 0121 JSE Reda-3 gouki H-IIA 202 Tanegashima Radar 75A
Dec 17 0203 Pleiades HR1 ) Soyuz ST-A CSG ELS Imaging 76A
Elisa 1 ) Sigint 76
Elisa 2 ) Sigint 76
Elisa 3 ) Sigint 76
Elisa 4 ) Sigint 76
Fasat-Charlie) Imaging 76
Dec 19 1641 Nigcomsat 1R Chang Zheng 3BE Xichang LC2 Comms 77A
Dec 21 1316 Soyuz TMA-03M Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 78A
Dec 22 0326 ZY-1 02C Chang Zheng 4B Taiyuan Imaging 79A
Dec 23 1208 Meridian Soyuz-2-1B Plesetsk Comms F04
Dec 28 1709 Globalstar M084) Soyuz-2-1A Baykonur LC31 Comms 80A
Globalstar M080) Comms 80B
Globalstar M082) Comms 80C
Globalstar M092) Comms 80D
Globalstar M090) Comms 80E
Globalstar M086) Comms 80F
Jan 9 0317 ZY-3 ) Chang Zheng 4B Taiyuan Imaging 01A
Vesselsat 2 ) Comms 01B
Jan 13 0056 FY-2(07) Chang Zheng 3A Xichang Weather 02A
Jan 20 0038 WGS 4 Delta 4M+(5,4) Canaveral SLC37B Comms 03A
Jan 24 2318 Chibis-M - PM-13M, LEO Science 62C
Jan 25 2306 Progress M-14M Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 04A
Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches
----------------------------------
Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km
Dec 2 2200 VS30 V08 VS-30 Natal Space sci? 173?
Dec 3 0721 ICI-3 VS-30/Orion Svalbard Auroral 354
Dec 10 1030 NASA 36.274UH Black Brant IX White Sands Astronomy 300?
Dec 19? MR-30 payload MR-30 Kapustin Yar Test 304
Dec 20 0848 S-310-40 S-310 Uchinoura Ionosphere 180
Dec 23 RV x 6? Bulava K-535, White Sea Salvo test 1000?
Dec 23 RV x 6? Bulava K-535, White Sea Salvo test 1000?
Dec 27 1200 RV x 6? UR-100NU Baykonur Test 1000?
Jan 11 1325 NASA 12.074GT Terrier Malemute Wallops Test 500?
Jan 12 1451 S-520-26 S-520 Uchinoura Atm Sci 298
.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail |
| USA | jcm at cfa.harvard.edu |
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