[JSR] Jonathan's Space Report, No. 676

Jonathan McDowell jcm at planet4589.org
Wed Mar 20 22:04:29 EDT 2013


Jonathan's Space Report
No. 676                                             2013 Mar 20    Somerville, MA USA
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International Space Station
----------------------------

Expedition 34 continued during early March with commander Kevin Ford and
flight engineers FE-1 Oleg Novitskiy, FE-2 Yevgeniy Tarelkin, FE-4 Roman
Romanenko, FE-5 Chris Hadfield, and FE-6 Tom Marshburn. Ferry ship Soyuz
TMA-06M was docked at the Poisk module; Soyuz TMA-07M is at Rassvet;
cargo ship Progress M-17M is at the Zvezda aft port and Progress M-18M
is at the Pirs module. Dragon CRS-2 is at the nadir Harmony port.

SpaceX recovered nominal operation of Dragon CRS-2 following the
thruster initialization anomaly that happened on orbit insertion. Dragon
made a further orbit change, possibly at around 0540 UTC, on Mar 2,
moving from a 391 x 405 km orbit to a 332 x 507 km orbit, apogee now
well above the ISS in its 401 x 417 km orbit. Another burn at circa 1100
UTC adjusted the orbit to 430 x 447 km and was followed by burns on Mar
3 to complete the rendezvous.

Dragon arrived 350m from the Station at 0840 UTC on Mar 3 and approached
along the R-bar (ISS-Earth vector) to a distance of 10m. It was captured
by the SSRMS at 1031 UTC and bolted to the nadir CBM port of the Harmony
module by 1356 UTC.

On Mar 6 the station SSRMS arm unloaded the HRS Grapple Fixture package
from the Dragon trunk and berthed it on the Mobile Base System.
Meanwhile, the crew unloaded all the cargo in the pressurized section.
Dragon return to Earth is scheduled for Mar 25.

On Mar 13 the Station crew held a change-of-command ceremony as Chris
Hadfield became Commander. Expedition 35 formally began, with Hadfield,
Romanenko and Marshburn, when Soyuz TMA-06M undocked at 2343 UTC on Mar
15 carrying Ford, Tarelkin and Novitskiy.

At 0213 UTC on Mar 16 Soyuz TMA-06M fired its engines to lower orbit
from 399 x 417 km x 51.6 deg to about -25 x 407 km. It reentered the
atmosphere at 0242 UTC and landed in Kazakhstan at about 0306 UTC Mar
16. As of Mar 20 I have not seen a definitive landing time.


SBIRS GEO-2
------------

The second geostationary satellite in the Space-Based Infrared System
was launched into geostationary transfer orbit on Mar 19 on Atlas V
flight AV-037.  The SBIRS GEO satellites are built by Lockheed Martin
and probably have a mass of around 4500 kg. SBIRS carries two infrared telescopes,
one with a staring sensor and one scanning. The SBIRS system also includes
secondary payloads on NRO elliptical orbit (HEO) satellites.

Parking orbit of about 174 x 1060 km x 26.7 deg was reached at 2136 UTC;
GTO of 182 x 35804 km x 22.2 deg at 2149 UTC; and the Centaur separated
at 2204 UTC to let SBIRS begin its independent climb to GEO altitude. 


SBIRS launches:              Current orbit (km x km x deg)
   HEO-1  2006 Jun 28        2082 x 38273 x 63.4
   HEO-2  2008 Mar 13        2166 x 38190 x 63.2
   GEO-1  2011 May  7       35775 x 35798 x  5.7  GEO 93.7E
   GEO-2  2013 Mar 19         182 x 35804 x 22.2

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

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?

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