[JSR] Jonathan's Space Report, No. 756
Jonathan McDowell
jcm at planet4589.com
Mon Nov 5 23:59:24 EST 2018
Jonathan's Space Report
No. 756 draft 2018 Nov 6 Somerville, MA
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International Space Station
---------------------------
Expedition 57 continues aboard the ISS with astronauts Gerst,
Prokop'ev, and Aunon-Chancellor. The Kounotori 7 cargo ship remains at
the ISS. It is scheduled to depart without its EP pallet, and the
battery replacement spacewalks will occur no earlier than December.
The Surrey RemDeb (RemoveDebris) spacecraft ejected its second cubesat
subsatellite, DebrisSat-2, at 0615 UTC on Oct 28. RemDeb then observed
DebrisSat-2 with its laser ranging instrument, a test of so-called
Vision-Based Navigation (VBN) that could be used by an active debris
removal mission to approach its target.
The next Soyuz crew is scheduled for launch on Dec 3.
BepiColombo
-----------
The BepiColombo space probe was launched on Oct 20 from Kourou directly
into Earth hyperbolic escape orbit.
BepiColombo consists of two payloads, the ESA Mercury Planetary Orbiter
(MPO) and the JAXA 'Mio' Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), together
with two other modules, the MTM (Mercury Transfer Module, with electric
propulsion) and the MOSIF (MMO Sunshield and Interface).
MTM has 560 kg of xenon for its ion engine; it will be jettisoned just
before Mercury orbit capture, in Dec 2025. The remaining three pieces
will separate once they are in Mercury orbit. MTM will make a Mercury
flyby and end up in solar orbit; by 2025 my orbit code may be good
enough to figure out what the post-encounter orbit for it will be.
MPO carries camers, spectrometers, a laser altimeter and an
accelerometer among its experiments. MMO has particles, fields and dust
instruments as well as an imager to map exospheric sodium atoms.
Here are some summary details of BC's voyage based on the prelaunch
trajectory; of course, actual details will change a little.
Date UTC
2018 Oct 20 0145 Launch to 170 x -78605 km x 5.5 deg Earth escape hyperbola
2018 Oct 24 1640 Depart Earth Hill sphere, 0.887 x 1.166 AU x 0.7 deg solar orbit
2019 Feb In solar orbit, 0.889 x 1.196 AU x 0.8 deg
2020 Apr 10 2112 Earth flyby 12563 x -76447 km x 159.6 deg hyperbola
2020 Apr 15 0040 In solar orbit 0.626 x 1.012 AU x 1.7 deg
2020 Oct 15 0603 Venus flyby 10746 x -33207 km x 152.4 deg hyperbola
2020 Oct 16 1644 In solar orbit 0.520 x 0.832 AU x 3.1 deg
2020 Aug 10 2013 Venus flyby 746 x -23004 km x 12.6 deg hyperbola
2020 Aug 12 0629 In solar orbit 0.335 x 0.731 AU x 6.5 deg
2021 Oct 2 0537 Mercury-1 flyby 200 x -6101 km x 25.3 deg hyperbola
2021 Oct 2 1500? In solar orbit 0.322 x 0.696 AU x 6.7 deg
2022 Jun 23 1250 Mercury-2 flyby 200 x -6191 km x 18.6 deg hyperbola
2022 Jun 23 2230? In solar orbit 0.304 x 0.631 AU x 7.0 deg
2023 Jun 20 0219 Mercury-3 flyby 200 x -8425 km x 21.8 deg hyperbola
2023 Jun 20 1600? In solar orbit 0.309 x 0.596 AU x 5.9 deg
2024 Sep 5 0752 Mercury-4 flyby 200 x -10801 km x 79.7 deg hyperbola
2024 Sep 6 0100? In solar orbit 0.306 x 0.468 AU x 4.3 deg
2024 Dec 2 0109 Mercury-5 flyby 40000 x -51105 km x 89.5 deg hyperbola
2024 Dec 2 1830? In solar orbit 0.307 x 0.466 AU x 4.4 deg
2025 Jan 9 0356 Mercury-6 flyby 340 x -18193 km x 91.9 deg hyperbola
2025 Jan 10 1600? In solar orbit 0.312 x 0.459 AU x 7.0 deg
2025 Oct? Mercury Transfer Module jettison
2025 Oct 26 Enter Mercury Hill sphere, WSB orbit capture
2025 Oct 27 Mercury orbit 178000 x 434000 x 6.4 deg ellipse
2025? Lower orbit 400 x 11820 km ellipse?
2025? Eject Mio-MMO from MPO/MOSIF
2025? Eject MOSIF from MPO
2025-2026? MPO lower orbit 400 x 1500 km ellipse?
Parker Solar Probe
------------------
As of Oct 23 Parker Solar Probe became closer to the Sun than Mercury
and had picked up speed to 50.3 km/s (heliocentric; 181,000 km/hr).
On Oct 30 it broke the speed record of 68.6 km/s set by Helios 2 in
1976 and at perihelion Nov 6 at 0330 TDB (0328 UTC) it set a new speed record of
95.33 km/s and closeness-to-Sun record of 0.165 AU (24.8 million km).
Relative to Earth (which you should not care about, but I know some of
you do) Parker broke the Helios 2 record of 98.9 km/s early on Nov
5 and set a new record of 109.9 km/s on Nov 7 around 1900 UTC.
Hayabusa-2
----------
On Oct 15 Hayabusa-2 made a descent to only 22 metres above Ryugu
in a touchdown rehearsal named TD1-R1-A.
The next touchdown rehearsal is TD1-R3, was on Oct 25.
Target Marker B, a 0.1m, 0.3 kg ball (one of five carried) was
ejected from a height of 20 metres at 0237 UTC and landed on the surface.
Operations will be suspended for a couple of months in Nov-Dec while
Ryugu is behind the Sun as seen from Earth.
OSIRIS-REX
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NASA's OSIRIS-REX asteroid probe continues its approach to asteroid
Bennu. On Oct 15 the AAM-2 burn changed the probe's speed by 141 m/s and
reduced its Bennu-relative velocity to 5.2 m/s. On Oct 17 the 1.1 kg,
0.4 x 0.4m TAGSAM sampler head cover plate was ejected into solar orbit.
Current heliocentric orbit is 0.896 x 1.355 AU x 6.0 deg. On Oct 18 the
probe was 5500 km from Bennu, but by Nov 6 it was only 170 km out. It
was expected to arrive in Bennu's circa-35-km gravitational sphere of
influence on Nov 30.
New Horizons
------------
New Horizons, which flew past Pluto in 2015, is now 42.8AU from the Sun
and 70 million km from the Kuiper Belt object (486958) 2014 MU69 "Ultima
Thule", which it will fly past on 2019 Jan 1. The object's Hill sphere
is probably about 79000 km in radius and the probe will take 3 hours
to fly through it.
ZU1CE58
--------
5-metre asteroidlet ZU1CE58 passed through perigee 2018 Oct 19 at 1446 UTC,
only 7274 km above the Earth, on a hyperbolic 7274 x -25650 km x 20.6
deg orbit.
HY-2-02
-------
China's Haiyang er hao 02 xing (HY-2B) oceanographic satellite was launched
on Oct 24.
A small secondary satellite was launched along with HY-2B, called 'Tangguo Guan'
(`Candy can'). It is owned by the online retailer AliBaba and will apparently send
promotional messages to shoppers' mobile phones. Mass of Tangguo Guan has
variously been reported as 20 and 29 kg. It apparently remains attached to
the CZ-4B third stage, which lowered its orbit immediately after deploying HY-2B.
Another secondary payload is China Aerospace's SPP (Space Proving Platform),
one of whose experiments is ManWei Tech's DSB-01 which carries the DNA
of eight Chinese people, described as the beginning of a program to explore technologies
for interstellar migration. One of the Chinese news reports
on this project shows an artist's impression of a 1U cubesat, but it's not yet
entirely clear if SPP is really a cubesat or just another payload attached to the third
stage.
Soyuz return to flight
----------------------
A Soyuz-2-1B rocket was launched from Plesetsk on Oct 25, marking the Soyuz family's
return to flight after the Soyuz MS-10 failure.
The payload was Lotos-S No. 804, a signals intelligence payload (probably
to be given the cover name Kosmos-2528). It was launched to a 245 x 900 km x 67.1
deg orbit, which it circularized at 2027 UTC Oct 26 to 900 x 910 km.
Zhuque-1 launch failure
-----------------------
The first orbital launch attempt by the private Chinese company
Landspace failed to reach orbit. The three stage solid rocket Zhuque-1
was launched from Jiuquan on Oct 27. The first two stages, believed to
be based on the DF-26 missile, operated correctly. The third stage
ignited but at 37 s into its burn, 6m 42s after launch, it lost attitude
control, and so provided little net velocity increase. As a result, the
third stage and payload reached a suborbital apogee of 337 km and fell
back to Earth, impacting west of Sumatra about 15 min after
launch.
CFOSat
------
On Oct 29 CALT/Beijing launched CZ-2C flight Y22 from Jiuquan carrying
the China-France Oceanography Satellite. The satellite carries Chinese
SCAT wind scatterometer and the CNES (France) SWIM radar altimeter
instrument. Data processing and much of the instrument operations are
under the aegis of CNES, but the satellite itself is controlled by China
so I'll call it by its Chinese name, Zhongfa Haiying Weixing. The 700 kg
satellite is a CAST-2000 bus built at the DFH factory.
The CZ-2C also deployed a series of cubesats. Four of them were
built by the Tiangyi Research Institute (whose marketing brand is SpaceTy):
TY1-02 is Xiaoxiang yi hao 02 xing (XX-1 S/N 02). It carries a laser
communications payload for Hangxing Guangwang Kongjian Jishu YG
(LaserFleet) of Shenzhen. It is probably a 6U cubesat.
TY1-03 is Xinghe ('Galaxy'), also called Tianfu Guoxing 1. The payload
is a remote sensing satellite for Guoxing Yuhang Keji YG (ADA Space) of
Tianfu New Area in Chengdu. It is probably a 6U cubesat.
TY4-01 is Changsha Gaoxing , named after the Changsha High Tech Zone
city. It is a 50 kg test satellite for Tianyi/SpaceTy's new '0805' bus;
it reportedly carries an amateur radio payload.
TY4-02 is Zhaojin-1, also called Tongchuan-1. It is a 6U cubesat for
Tsinghua University with a gamma ray astronomy detector. It will also be
used by Tongchuan City to test its commercial ground station (Zhaojin
is a suburb of Tongchuan).
In addition to the Tianyi satellites:
Tianqi 1 is the first satellite in the 38-craft Tianqi constellation
by Beijing Guodian HiTech Technology Co. Ltd. (Beijing Guodian Gaokeji YG).
It will relay data from IoT devices. Its size is unknown.
CubeBel-1 is a 2U cubesat from Belarus National University with
a digipeater amateur radio payload and student experiments.
A final cubesat reported to have been deployed on this mission is a
mystery. Some reports suggested it was Hongyan-1, a China Academy of
Space Technology LEO communications platform, but this has not been
confirmed.
Ibuki-2
-------
On Oct 29 JAXA launched H-IIA flight F40 from Tanegashima. The main payload
was GOSAT-2, the second Greenhouse Gases Observating Satellite, also called
Ibuki-2. The 1750 kg satellite - built by Mitsubishi Electric (MELCO) -
carries the FTS-2 Fourier transform spectrometer and the CAI-2 Cloud
and Aerosol Imager instruments which observe from the ultraviolet out to
16 microns in the infrared.
The H2A second stage made a single burn to a 590 x 595 km orbit and deployed
Ibuki-2, then ejected the Ibuki-2 payload adapter and the two-piece lower fairing.
This exposed the lower payload deck, whose satellites were deployed into the
same orbit.
The largest secondary payload was the 330 kg Khalifasat, an imaging
satellite built by the Emirates' Rashid Space Centre in Dubai. It is a
followon to the Dubaisat 1 and 2 satellites launched in 2009 and 2013,
which were developed with South Korean help.
Diwata 2 is an imaging satellite developed by the Phillippines Dept of Science
and Technology with a mass of 56 kg.
Ten-Koh, from Kyushu Institute of Technology, is the LEO Environments Observation
Satellite, a 22 kg polyhedron design based on their earlier Shi'nen-2 probe.
Aoi, or STARS-AO, is a 1U cubesat from Shizuoka University. The STARS series
normally involves tether experiments but this mission features a 1-cm aperture
low light camera for imaging star fields.
AUTCube-2 is a 1U cubesat from the Aichi University of Technology. It
has a bright LED which is intended to make the satellite visible to
ground observers. This has the potential to annoy astronomers, since the orbit
is roughly a noon-midnight SSO and thus will be seen on the ground
during the middle of the night local time. However, it remains to be
seen how bright the satellite will actually be.
The H-2A second stage made a final depletion burn which changed its
inclination from 97.8 deg to 98.9 deg.
PROITERES 2, from the Osaka Institute of Technology, a 45 kg ion propulsion
test satellite, was not part of the launch although it was initially expected to be
and was included in the prelaunch press kit.
Beidou 41
---------
Beidou Daohang Weixing 41 (Beidou Navigation Satellite 41) launched at
1557 UTC Nov 1 from Xichang on a Chang Zheng 3B to 197 x 35815 km x
28.5 deg geotransfer orbit. The CAST-built sat, first of its subtype,
will enter GEO and become satellite G1Q of the Beidou-3 system.
GLONASS-M 57
------------
Another GLONASS navigation satellite was launched from Plesetsk on Nov 3
by Soyuz-2-1B/Fregat. This was the second successful Soyuz launch since
the MS-10 failure. This satellite was expected to be code-named
Kosmos-2529 after launch.
Kepler and Dawn
---------------
On Oct 30 NASA announced that the Kepler space telescope, out of
propellant, is being retired. Kepler was launched in 2009 and has
revolutionized our knowledge of exoplanets, showing that Earth-sized
objects orbit most of the stars in the sky. Kepler is in an
Earth-trailing solar orbit, currently about 68 degrees behind us in the
vicinity of Earth-Sun L5.
The same day, NASA's Dawn space probe, orbiting the dwarf planet (1) Ceres,
fell silent as it too ran out of propellant. Dawn was launched in 2007
and was the first mission to use ion propulsion to visit multiple worlds.
The probe orbited Vesta from Jul 2011 to Sep 2012, and Ceres from Mar 2015
onwards.
Erratum
--------
The intermediate transfer orbit apogee for AEHF 4 was 32578 km, not 22578 km.
Apologies for the typo.
Table of Recent Orbital Launches
----------------------------------
Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. Catalog Perigee Apogee Incl Notes
Sep 16 2306 DebrisSat-1 RemDeb, LEO Tech 9867PM S43621 400 x 404 x 51.7
Sep 16 2308? RemDeb Net RemDeb, LEO Tech 9867PM A09713 Now attached to DebrisSat-1
Sep 19 1407 Beidou DW 37 ) Chang Zheng 3B/YZ-1 Xichang LC2 Navigation 72A S43622 21533 x 22193 x 55.0
Beidou DW 38 ) Navigation 72B S43623 21545 x 22197 x 55.0
Sep 22 1752 Kounotori 7 H-IIB Tanegashima Cargo 73A S43630 187 x 301 x 51.6
Sep 25 2238 Horizons 3e ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 74B S43633 280 x 35741 x 5.9
Azerspace-2/IS-38 ) Comms 74A S43632 246 x 35712 x 6.0
Sep 29 0413 Xiangrikui 1 Kuaizhou-1A Jiuquan Tech 75A S43636 696 x 710 x 98.2 1030LT SSO
Oct 6 0800 STARS-Me ) ISS, LEO Tech 9867PN S43638? 403 x 408 x 51.6
RSP-00 ) Tech 9867PP S43639? 403 x 408 x 51.6
SPATIUM-I) Tech 9867PQ S43640? 403 x 408 x 51.6
Oct 8 0221 SAOCOM-1A Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Radar 76A S43641 607 x 634 x 97.9 1800LT SSO
Oct 9 0234 Yaogan 32 01 zu ) Chang Zheng 2C/YZ-1S Jiuquan Sigint 77A S43642 689 x 705 x 98.3 2100LT SSO
Yaogan 32 02 zu ) Sigint 77B S43643 689 x 704 x 98.3 2100LT SSO
Oct 11 0840 Soyuz MS-10 Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1 Spaceship F01 F01526 -6180?x 93 x 51.6
Oct 15 0423 Beidou DW 39 ) Chang Zheng 3B/YZ-1 Xichang Navigation 78A S43647 21537 x 22193 x 55.0
Beidou DW 40 ) Navigation 78B S43648 21530 x 22193 x 55.0
Oct 17 0415 AEHF 4 Atlas V 551 Canaveral SLC41 Comms 79A S43651 8194?x 35300 x 12.8
Oct 20 0145 BepiColombo ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Probe 80A S43653 170 x-78605 x 5.5
Mio ) Probe 80A A09204 170 x-78605 x 5.5
Oct 24 2257 Hai Yang 2 02) Chang Zheng 4B Taiyuan Rem.Sensing 81A S43655 950 x 965 x 99.4 0600LT SSO
Tangguo Guan ) Comms 81B S43656 641 x 940 x 99.5
SPP ) Tech 81?
Oct 25 0015 Kosmos-2528 Soyuz-2-1B Plesetsk LC43/4 Sigint 82A S43657 900 x 910 x 67.1
Oct 27 0800 Weilai Zhuque-1 Jiuquan Tech F02 F01530 -3090?x 334 x 97.6
Oct 29 0043 Zhongfa Haiyang W.) Rem.Sensing 83A S43662 510 x 523 x 97.5 0700LT SSO
Xiaoxiang-1 02 TY1-02 ) Tech 83 510?x 520?x 97.5
Xinghe TY1-03 ) Imaging 83 510?x 520?x 97.5
Changsha gaoxin TY4-01 ) Chang Zheng 2C Jiuquan Tech/Com 83 510?x 520?x 97.5
Zhaojin-1 TY4-02 ) Astronomy 83 510?x 520?x 97.5
Tianqi-1 ) Comms 83 510?x 520?x 97.5
UNKNOWN ) Tech 83 510?x 520?x 97.5
CubeBel-1 ) Comms 83 510?x 520?x 97.5
Oct 29 0408 Ibuki 2 ) Climate 84B S43672 597 x 617 x 97.9 1300LT SSO
KhalifaSat ) H2A 202 Tanegashima Imaging 84F S43676 592 x 612 x 97.8
Diwata 2 ) Imaging 84H S43678 587 x 599 x 97.8
Ten-Koh ) Tech 84A S43671 600 x 619 x 97.8
Aoi ) Astronomy 84K? S43681? 587 x 599 x 97.8
AUTCube-2 ) Tech 84J? S43679? 585 x 598 x 97.8
Oct 28 0615 DebrisSat-2 RemDeb, LEO Tech 9867PR S43680 399 x 404 x 51.6
Nov 1 1557 Beidou DW 41 Chang Zheng 3B Xichang Navigation 85A S43683 197 x 35815 x 28.5
Nov 3 2017 Kosmos-2529 Soyuz-2-1B/Fregat Plesetsk LC43/4 Navigation 86A S43687 19123 x 19163 x 64.8
Table of Recent Suborbital Launches
-----------------------------------
The suborbital launches table includes known flights above 80 km.
Sandia Labs recently announced that they have begun a new sounding rocket program
for technology tests called HOT SHOT. HOT SHOT 1 was launched on a Terrier Malemute
from Kauai on May 23 and reached an apogee of 360 km.
Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Target
Sep 17 1409 FOP-5?/Celestis SpaceLoft XL Spaceport America Tech 114 Spaceport America, NM
Sep 27 1215 NAMMO Nucleus Nucleus Andoya U3 Test 107 Norwegian Sea
Oct 1 0000? Warhead Zulfiqar Kermanshah?,Iran Weapon 200? Syria
Oct 1 0000? Warhead Zulfiqar Kermanshah?,Iran Weapon 200? Syria
Oct 1 0000? Warhead Qiam-1 Kermanshah?,Iran Weapon 200? Syria
Oct 1 0000? Warhead Qiam-1 Kermanshah?,Iran Weapon 200? Syria
Oct 8 Ghauri RV Ghauri Somniani? Training 400? Arabian Sea?
Oct 11 1100? RV DF-11? Jiuquan Test 500? Urumqi?
Oct 11 RV x 4? Sineva? Sub, Barents Sea Exercise 1000? Kura
Oct 11 RV x 4? Sineva? Sub, Barents Sea Exercise 1000? Kura
Oct 11 RV x 4? Volna? Sub, Sea of Okhotsk Exercise 1000? Chiza
Oct 11 RV x 4? Volna? Sub, Sea of Okhotsk Exercise 1000? Chiza
Oct 26 FTM-45 Target UNKNOWN Kauai Target 150? Pacific
Oct 26 FTM-45 KV Aegis SM-3-IIA DDG-113, Kauai Interceptor 150? FTM-45 intercept
.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Jonathan McDowell | |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail |
| USA | twitter: @planet4589 |
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