[JSR] Jonathan's Space Report, No. 678

Jonathan McDowell jcm at planet4589.org
Sat Apr 27 13:32:10 EDT 2013


Jonathan's Space Report
No. 678                                                    2013 Apr 27, Lisboa
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


International Space Station
----------------------------

Expedition 35 continues with astronauts  Hadfield, Romanenko and Marshburn, Vinogradov,
Misurkin and Cassidy.

Ferry ship Soyuz TMA-07M is at Rassvet; Soyuz TMA-89M is at Poisk.
Cargo ship Progress M-18M is at the Pirs module.

On Apr 19 astronauts Vinogradov, in spacesuit Orlan MK-6, and Romanenko,
in Orlan MK-4, began Russian ISS spacewalk VKD-32. The Pirs hatch was
opened at 1403 UTC. The astronauts installed the Obstanovka
('Situation') experiment on the Zvezda module. First, two PVK mechanical
adapter/processor boxes were attached to the station, MAD-1 and MAD-2.
Then the astronauts went to the back of Zvezda and swapped out a laser
retroreflector used in European ATV dockings, returning the old
reflector to the Pirs airlock. After their trip to the back end of
Zvezda where the rocket engines are, they wiped their suits down with
towels in case of rocket fuel contamination, and then jettisoned the
towels and the Obstanovka cable reel into space at 1719 UTC. Then they
took two probe containers from Pirs and unpacked them to stick the
ShKD-1 and ShKD-2 sensor complex booms onto their respective MAD
adapters. The probe containers were then jettisoned at 1903 and 1906
UTC. After deploying the booms, the astronauts retrieved the Biorisk
MSN-3-C2 exposure package and then moved over to the Poisk module to
retrieve one of two panels from the Vinoslivost exposure experiment.
Unfortunately at 2016 UTC Vinogradov lost hold of the Vinoslivost panel
and it floated away. The astronauts returned to Pirs at 2028 UTC and
closed the hatch at 2041 UTC, with repressurization of the airlock
underway by 2044 UTC.

Progress M-17M, which undocked from Zvezda on Apr 15, completed its
Radar-Progress experiments and fired its engine to deorbit on Apr 21.
The burn at 1407 UTC lasted 173s and reduced velocity by 90.0 m/s,
lowering the orbit from 354 x 411 km to 63 x 394 km, with debris
impacting the Pacific at around 1502 UTC.

A new cargo ship, Progress M-19M, was launched on Apr 24 into a 184 x
213 km x 51.6 deg orbit, soon raised to 293 x 353 km x 51.6 deg as it
began a two-day rendezvous with ISS. One of the vessel's rendezvous antennas
did not deploy but it docked successfully with Zvezda's aft port at 1225 UTC
on Apr 26.


Bion
----

The Bion-M No. 1 life sciences satelite (spacecraft 12KSM no. 1) was launched Apr 19. 
Bion-M consists of a Vostok-type pressurized reentry sphere and a Yantar'-type
service and propulsion module. The sphere carries mice, gerbils, geckos, and snails
as well as the FRAGMENTER and BIOKONT-B microorganism containers, the OMEGAHAB
aquarium with fish and algae, the FITO plant containers, some microgravity
materials experiments and accelerometers to measure the microgravity level.

The Aist-2 small satellite is attached to the service module's side, while
on the front of the sphere is the PSO (Platforma Stredstv Otdeleniya, Separation Mechanism Platform)
structure which carries a set of cubesat deployers. 

Launch from Baykonur into a 252 x 554 km x 65.0 deg orbit was followed by separation from the
Soyuz-2-1A rocket's third stage. 

The OSSI-1 cubesat, developed by a Korean artist, was
ejected from the PSO at 1613 UTC on Apr 19, and has been cataloged in a
258 x 549 km x 64.9 deg orbit. Bion then manuevered to a 557 x 581 km
circular orbit and at about 0825 UTC on Apr 21 ejected other secondary payloads from its PSO -
BEESAT-2 and 3, two 1U cubesats from the Technical Univ. of Berlin;
SOMP, the Student Oxygen Measurement Payload from Technical Univ. of
Dresden; and Dove-2, a 3U cubesat from Cosmogia Inc. of San Francisco.

The 39 kg Aist-2 is developed by TsSKB-Progress and the Samara Aerospace University, It carries
a magnetometer, acclerometers and a micrometeor experiment, and was the last of the secondary
payloads to be deployed, at 1402 UTC on Apr 21.

Antares
-------

The Orbital Sciences Corporation's Antares launch vehicle made its first
flight on Apr 21. The rocket was an Antares 110 model, with a first stage
using two Kuznetsov NK-33 engines refurbised and modified by Aerojet as the AJ26-62.   
The first stage core is built at Yuzhmash in the Ukraine, and the completed
first stage is integrated by Orbital at its Wallops Island facility. The second 
stage is an ATK Castor 30A solid motor built mainly in Bacchus, Utah (the old
Hercules). The Antares is launched from Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional
Spaceport, operated by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority on
part of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) at Wallops Island, Virginia.
Pad 0A was built on the site of the old WFF Launch Area 0A used for the failed 
commercial Conestoga launch in 1995; it is next to Pad 0B, used for Minotaur
launches.

The main payload for the Antares A-ONE mission is the 3800 kg Cygnus Mass Simulator,
built at Orbital's Dulles factory. The CMS carries instrumentation to measure
the launch vehicle environment (vibration, acoustic and thermal). It separated from
the second stage two minutes after orbit insertion.

The CMS also carries ISIPOD deployers which ejected four secondary cubesat payloads before
the Stage 2/CMS separation.
Three of them are 1U cubesats from NASA's Ames Research Center, designed to demonstrate
use of a commercial mobile phone as a spacecraft avionics/computer system. This follows a similar
attempt by Surrey Satellite with the STRaND-1 satellite lauched on Feb 25, which
ran into problems and seems to have stopped transmitting. The three cubesats,
preciously, are named Alexander, Graham and Bell. The latter two are Phonesat 1.0 V1A
and Phonesat 1.0 V1B, each built around a Nexus One Android-based smartphone. Alexander
is Phonesat 2.0, based on a Nexus S phone and with
an S-band radio, solar panels, GPS receiver, magnetorquers and reaction wheels.

The final payload is a 6 kg 3U cubesat, Dove-1, a demonstration
satellite for the San Francisco-based startup company Cosmogia Inc.
which is headed by former NASA employees who had earlier been involved
in developing the Phonesats. The satellite, like its sister Dove-2
launched on the Bion mission, will return on-board system health data
and validate the design for future Dove satellites, which will carry
remote sensing payloads. Dove-1 is expected to reenter on Apr 27.

GaoFen 1
--------

China's first launch of the year carried the GF-1 (Gao fen, `high
resolution') imaging satellite into a 630 x 653 km sun-synchronous
orbit. Three piggyback satellites were also carried: Turksat-3USAT, a 3U
cubesat from Istanbul Technical University; CubeBug-1 (also called
Capitan Beto), a 2U cubesat from Argentina, and NEE-01 Pegaso, a 1U
cubesat for the Ecuadorian space agency EXA.


Glonass
--------

A Soyuz-2-1B with a Fregat upper stage placed a single Glonass-M
navigation satellite in a 19330 x 19640 km orbit on Apr 26. 



Table of Recent (orbital) Launches 
 ----------------------------------
Date UT       Name            Launch Vehicle        Site            Mission    INTL.  

Feb  1 0656   Intelsat IS-27     Zenit-3SL        SL Odyssey, Pacific Comms     F01
Feb  6 1604   Globalstar M078 )  Soyuz-2-1A        Baykonur LC31/6   Comms      05A
              Globalstar M093 )                                      Comms      05B
              Globalstar M094 )                                      Comms      05C
              Globalstar M095 )                                      Comms      05D
              Globalstar M096 )                                      Comms      05E
              Globalstar M097 )                                      Comms      05F
Feb  7 2136   Amazonas 3       ) Ariane 5ECA       Kourou ELA3       Comms      06A
              Azerspace        )                                     Comms      06B
Feb 11 1441   Progress M-18M     Soyuz-U           Baykonur          Cargo      07A
Feb 11 1802   Landsat 8          Atlas V 401       Vandenberg SLC3E  Imaging    08A
Feb 25 1231   SARAL       )                                         Altimeter   09A
              Sapphire    )                                         SpSur       09C
              NEOSSat     )      PSLV-CA           Sriharikota     Astron/SpSur 09D
              UniBRITE    )                                         Astronomy   09G
              TUGSAT-1    )                                         Astronomy   09F
              AAUSAT3     )                                         Ship nav    09B
              STRaND-1    )                                          Tech       09E
Mar  1 1510   Dragon CRS-2       Falcon 9          Canaveral SLC40   Cargo      10A
Mar 19 2121   SBIRS GEO-2        Atlas V 401       Canaveral SLC41  Early Warn  11A
Mar 26 1907   Satmex 8           Proton-M/Briz-M   Baykonur LC200/39 Comms      12A
Mar 28 2043   Soyuz TMA-08M      Soyuz-FG          Baykonur LC1/5   Spaceship   13A
Apr 15 1836   Anik G-1           Proton-M/Briz-M   Baykonur LC200/39 Comms      14A
Apr 19 1000   Bion-M No. 1 )     Soyuz-2-1A        Baykonur LC31/6  Life Sci    15A
              OSSI-1       )                                                    15B
              BEESAT-2     )                                                    15G
              BEESAT-3     )                                                    15E
              SOMP         )                                                    15F
              Dove-2       )                                                    15C
              AIST-2       )                                                    15D
Apr 21 2100   Cygnus Mass Sim )  Antares 110       Wallops MARS 0A  Tech        16A
              Alexander       )                                     Tech        16C
              Graham          )                                     Tech        16E?
              Bell            )                                     Tech        16D
              Dove-1          )                                     Tech        16B
Apr 24 1012   Progress M-19M     Soyuz-U          Baykonur LC1/5    Cargo       17A
Apr 26 0413   Gao Fen 1     )                                       Imaging     18A
              NEE-01 Pegaso )    Chang Zheng 2D   Jiuquan           Tech
              Turksat-3USAT )                                       Tech
              CubeBug-1     )                                       Tech
Apr 26 0523   Glonass-M No. 47   Soyuz-2-1B/Fregat Plesetsk         Nav         19A


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

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

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


Feb  7 0821   NASA 49.001UE    T-T Oriole N.       Poker Flat        Auroral      754
Feb 13 0910   ARAV-B Target    Terrier Oriole      Kauai             Target       150?
Feb 13 0915?  FTM-20 KV        Aegis SM-3          CG-20, Pacific    Interceptor  150?
Feb 15        NASA 41.104GT    Terrier Imp Orion   White Sands       Tech         130?
Feb (many)    Julan RV?        Scud              An Nasriyah, Syria  Weapon        80?
Feb 25 0600?  Arrow KV         Arrow 3           Palmachim?          Interceptor  100?
Mar 11 0610?  Shark            Terrier Lynx        Wallops I         Target       300?
Apr  4 2155   Kunpeng-1        Tianying-3E         Hainan            Ionosphere   191
Apr  7 0455   Agni RV          Agni 2              Wheeler I.        Op. Test     200?
Apr 10        Haft-IV RV       Shaheen 1           Somniani?         Op. Test     100?
Apr 12 0425   TEXUS 50         VSB-30              Kiruna            Micrograv    261

.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
|  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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