Jonathan's Space Report
No. 847 draft 2025 Jun 23 Somerville, MA
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International Space Station
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Expedition 73 continues.
SpaceX launched Dragon C213 'Grace' on Jun 25 for the Axiom Space Axiom-4 mission,
commanded by Peggy Whitson (Axiom Space), with ISRO's Group Capt. Shubanshu Shukla as
pilot. Mission specialists were ESA's Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski
and Hungary's Tibor Kapu. Axiom-4 docked with ISS at the IDA3 port at 1031 UTC Jun 26.
The crew and ship undocked at 1115 UTC Jul 14. They landed at about 0931:41 UTC Jul 15
off the coast of San Diego near 117.7W 32.6N. The trunk was jettisoned after
the deorbit burn and reentered over the eastern Pacific near 129W 41N.
The Progress MS-29 cargo ship undocked from Poisk at 1843 UTC Jul 1 and was deorbited
at 2152 UTC, with entry over the S Pacific at about 2230 UTC.
Progress MS-31 was launched from Baykonur on Jul 3. It docked with the Poisk module
at 2125 UTC Jul 5.
On Jul 16 at 1445 UTC Progress MS-30 reboosted the ISS orbit by 1.1 m/s.
Chinese Space Station
---------------------
Cheng Dong and Chen Zhongrui made a spacewalk on Jun 26 to install more debris
shields. Hatch open was at 0704 UTC and hatch close at 1329 UTC.
On Jul 4, Tianzhou-8 made a small reboost to the orbit of the station.
On Jul 8 at 0709 UTC, the Tianzhou 8 cargo ship undocked from the station.
It was deorbited the same day and reentered at 2246 UTC.
Tianzhou-8 deployed two small satellites while it was docked to the ISS,
Naxing-4A on 2024 Dec 4 and Naxing-4B on 2025 Apr 7.
On Jul 14 Tianzhou 9 was launched from Wenchang. The ship's cargo included
new spacesuits for use aboard the Chinese space station. Tianzhou 9 docked
with the Tianhe aft port at 0052 UTC Jul 15, after a 3h18m flight.
Starlink
--------
Starlink Group 10-16 (27 Ku sats) was launched on Jun 25 from Canaveral.
Starlink Group 10-34 (27 Ku sats) was launched on Jun 28 from Canaveral.
Starlink Group 15-7 (26 Ku sats) was launched on Jun 28 from Vandenberg.
Starlink Group 10-25 (27 Ku sats) was launched on Jul 2 from Canaveral.
Starlink Group 10-28 (28 Ku sats) was launched on Jul 8 from Canaveral.
Starlink Group 15-2 (26 Ku sats) was launched on Jul 16 from Canaveral.
Transporter 14
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SpaceX launched the Transporter 14 rideshare mission on Jun 23 to 1308 LTDN sun-sync
orbit. One group of satellites was released in a 512 x 520 km orbit; a
second group in a 592 x 593 km orbit; and the Mission Possible capsule was released
in a suborbital trajectory after the second stage's deorbit burn.
As of Jul 18, no Space Force orbit data or cataloging information had been released for the
Transporter 14 launch.
Payloads were:
Optical/IR earth observing: MOBIUS 1 (Galaxia, Canada); JACK-001
(Cosmoworks, S Korea); Hyperfield-1B (Kuva, Finland); GHGSAT-C13 (GHG,
Canada); DUTHSat (DUTH, Greece); MMS-1 (Gilmour, Australia); Skybee-A02
(constellr, Germany); Lemur-2 Krish (Mission Control Space Serv,
Canada/Spire); BIFROST (FMI/FMV, Denmark/Sweden); Sejong-2 (Hancom, S
Korea); IRIDE-MS-HEO 2,3,4,5,6,8 and 9 (Argotec/ASI, Italy); VanZyl-2
(Hydrosat, USA); GRUS 3 Alpha (AXELSPACE, Japan).
Radar earth observing: ICEYE-X52, X53, X54, X55, X56, X57 (ICEYE, Finland and USA);
Capella 17 (Capella, USA)
Meteorology: HORIS-1 and 2 (MyRadar, USA)
Rendezvous/docking/servicing: Otter Pup 2 (Starfish, USA); UND ROADS (U North Dakota, USA).
Manufacturing and Recoverable microgravity: Forgestar-1 (Space Forge, UK); W-4 (Varda, USA);
ADDCUBE (Harris, USA); Mission Possible (Exploration Co., Germany).
Hosted payload platform: YAM-10 (Loft, USA)
Tugs: ION SCV-018 and ION SCV-020 (D-Orbit, Italy)
Astronomy: ARCSTONE (NASA LaRC), PADRE (Berkeley)
Navigation: Pulsar IOV (Xona, USA); Time Flies (TrustPoint, USA)
IoT comm satellites: Connecta IOT 9 to 12 (Plan S, Turkey); Good
Ancestor Kilakila (Good Ancestor Foundation, USA); Fossasat-21 (Fossa,
Spain); Lyra-3 (Echostar Australia); two Lemur-2 (Lacuna Space, UK and
Spire)
Amateur radio: PARUS-T2 (TASA, Taiwan)
Maritime and aviation tracking and elint: SATMAR (Alen Space, Spain);
Startical IOD-2 (Startical, Spain); Arvaker 2 adn 3 (Kongsberg/FFI,
Lithuania and Norway)
Military comms: Dragoon (York Space, USA)
Other comms: Hubble-4 to 7 (Hubble Networks)
Small test satellites: RIDUSAT (UNHAN, Indonesia); Satoro-T3 (Satoro, Taiwan/Singapore);
AE2a and AE3Va (ArkEdge, Japan).
Other technology satellites Quick3 (DLR/Jena, Germany; quantum key comms);
Te Punaha Atea 1 (U Auckland, NZ; various);
Other SpaceX launches
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EUMETSAT's Meteosat Third Generation - Sounder 1 (MTG-S1) is a 3800 kg geosynchronous weather satellite built by
Thales. It was launched to supersynchronous transfer orbit by Falcon 9 on Jul 1.
Israel's 4500 kg Dror-1 communications sat was launched on Jul 13 to supersynchronous geotransfer orbit.
The satellite was built by IAI. It is probably owned by the Israeli Space Agency, or possibly
the Israeli Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology. The satellite is thought to be based
on the AMOS-HP bus and has a solar panel span of 17.8m.
Amazon Kuiper's third batch of satellites, KF-01, was launched on Jul 16 by Falcon 9. 24 satellites
were deployed.
Electron
--------
Rocket Lab launched an Electron from Mahia on Jun 26 with a cluster of Hawkeye 360 commercial
sigint satellites, Hawk 12A, 12B and 12C, and a Hawkeye 360 next-gen test satellite, Kestrel-0A.
Rocket Lab launched an Electron from Mahia on Jun 28; payload is thought to be the Echostar
Australia (Sirion) Lyra-2 communications satellite. It flew to a 1924 LTDN sun-sync orbit. The kick stage
was left in the deployment orbit.
H2A
---
JAXA/MHI's final H2A launch, H2A F50, put the 2900 kg Ibuki-GW (GOSAT-GW) greenhouse gas observing satellite
in a 0125 LTDN sun-sync orbit on Jun 28. Ibuki-GW carries a microwave radiometer (AMSR-3) and
a grating imaging spectrometer (TANSO-3) to map greenhouse gases.
SAST launches
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SAST launched a CZ-4C from Xichang on Jul 3 carrying the Shiyan 28B-01 satellite to an unusually
low inclination (11 deg) orbit. The satellite and rocket stage were cataloged by US Space Force
six days after launch.
Kosmos-2589
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The Kosmos-2589 satellite, in elliptical synchronous orbit, released a
subsatellite on Jun 19, which I am guessing will be called Kosmos-2590.
Kosmos-2590 manuevered away from Kosmos-2589 and then carried out a
reappoach to it. On Jul 16 the separation was around 50 km.
Kosmos-2558
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The Kosmos-2558 satellite appears to have released a manueverable subsatellite on Jun 26; the subsatellite
manuevered to re-rendezvous with the parent. I suspect the subsatellite will be called Kosmos-2591.
From Jun 27 to Jul 4 it maintained a 100 km separation from Kosmos-2558; it then increased its separation.
Kosmos-2581/2582/2583
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The Kosmos-2581, 2582 and 2583 small satellites remained within 5 km of each other from Jun 30 to Jul 15.
The object released (at low velocity) from Kosmos-2583 on Mar 18 did not manuever and its orbit is slowly
decaying.
LDPE-2
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The LDPE-2 tug, drifting in subsynchronous orbit, released another subsatellite, USA 548, in late June.
USA 548's orbit is secret but LDPE 2 was in a 35703 x 35708 km x 4.8 orbit, 80 km below GEO, at the time
of release.
LDPE-2 was launched on 2022 Nov 1 and has released 9 subsats to date:
Satellite Release date LDPE orbit at release
USA 340 (TETRA 1?) 2023 Jan? 35915 x 35950 km x 3.0 deg
USA 341 2023 Jan? 35900?x 35950?km x 3.0 deg?
LINUSS1/LINUSS2 2023 Jan? 36084 x 35170 km x 2.5 deg
USA 344 2023 Apr? 35870?x 35900? km x 3.7 deg
USA 399 2024 Aug? 35860 x 35870 km x 4.0 deg
USA 546 2025 Jun? 36090 x 36100 km x 4.7 deg
USA 547 2025 Jun? 35700 x 35710 km x 4.8 deg
USA 548 2025 Jun? 35700 x 35710 km x 4.8 deg
ZX-9C
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The Chinasat ZX-9C comms satellite is now in GEO at 92E, confirming that the low-apogee transfer orbit
released on Space-Track was erroneous.
SJ-21/SJ-25
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China's SJ-21 and SJ-25 satellites are performing close manuevers in GEO at 127.5E.
On Jun 12, SJ-25 approached SJ-21 to within 10 km. Then SJ-21 began rendezvous manuevers to within 1 km of SJ-25,
completing a brief rendezvous on Jun 13 and then retreating to a distance of 150 km. On Jun 30,
SJ-21 made a second rendezvous with SJ-25 and may have docked with it for a refuelling experiment.
Table of Recent Orbital (and near-Orbital) Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. Catalog Perigee Apogee Incl Notes
Jun 17 0336 Starlink Group 15-9 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 129 265 x 279 x 70.0
Jun 17? USA 547 LPDE-2, GEO Tech? 22144M 35700 x 36100 x 4.7?
Jun 18 0555 Starlink Group 10-18 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 130 264 x 273 x 53.2
Jun 19 0300 Kosmos-2589? Angara A5 Plesetsk LC35 Tech? 131A 20270 x 51108 x 1.1
Jun 19 Kosmos-2590? K2589, Earth orbit Tech? 131C 20264 x 51087 x 1.0
Jun 20 1237 Zhongxing 9C Chang Zheng 3B Xichang LC2 Comms 132A 241 x 35802 x 27.5
Jun 23 0558 Starlink Group 10-23 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 133 264 x 273 x 53.2
Jun 23 1054 Kuiper KA02 01 to 27 Atlas V 551 Canaveral LC41 Comms 134 455 x 459 x 51.9
Jun 23 2125 Transporter 14 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Rideshare 135 592 x 593 x 97.8
Jun 25 0631 Axiom Ax-4 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 136 189 x 208 x 51.6
Jun 25 1954 Starlink Group 10-16 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 137 266 x 274 x 53.2
Jun 26 1400? Kosmos-2558 subsatellite Kosmos-2588, LEO Inspector? 22089C 454 x 456 x 97.2
Jun 26 1728 Hawk 12A/12B/12C Electron Mahia LC1A Sigint 138 512 x 532 x 97.4
Kestrel-0A Sigint 138 512 x 532 x 97.4
Jun 28 0426 Starlink Group 10-34 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 139 266 x 274 x 53.2
Jun 28 0708 Lyra 2? Electron Mahia LC1B Comms 140A 649 x 662 x 96.0
Jun 28 1633 Ibuki-GW H-IIA Tanegashima Climate 141A 666 x 668 x 98.1
Jun 28 1713 Starlink Group 15-7 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 142 264 x 278 x 70.0
Jun 30? USA 548 LPDE-2, GEO Tech? 22144N 35700 x 36100 x 4.7?
Jul 1 2104 MTG-S1 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Weather 143A 334 x 65207 x 21.2
Jul 2 0628 Starlink Group 10-25 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 144 266 x 274 x 53.2
Jul 3 0935 Shiyan 28B-01 Chang Zheng 4C Xichang LC3 Tech? 145A 793 x 796 x 11.0
Jul 3 1932 Progress MS-31 Soyuz-2-1a Baykonur LC31 Cargo 146A 190 x 219 x 51.7
Jul 8 0821 Starlink Group 10-28 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 147 265 x 273 x 53.2
Jul 13 0504 Dror-1 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 148A 202 x 61959 x 24.2
Jul 14 2134 Tianzhou-9 Chang Zheng 7 Wenchang LC201 Cargo 149A 202 x 340 x 41.5
Jul 16 0205 Starlink Group 15-2 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 150 265 x 279 x 70.0
Jul 16 0630 Kuiper KF-01 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC30 Comms 151 456 x 464 x 51.9
Table of Recent Suborbital Launches
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New Shepard NS-33 launched at about 1440 UTC Jun 29 to around 105 km apogee;
flight duration 10m8s. James Sitkin, Leland Larson, Owolabi Salis,
Frederick Rescigno Jr, Allie Kuehner, and Carl R Kuehner III became space
travellers 745 to 750.
Date UT Payload Rocket Site Mission Apogee Target
May 31 1339 NS-32 New Shepard W Texas Tourist 105 W Texas
Jun 20 0827 SEED 1 Terrier Imp.Mal. Kwajalein Ionos 155 Pacific
Jun 24 FTX-26a Target IRBM-T3? C-19, N Pacific Target 1000? N Pacific
Jun 26 0930 RockOn Terrier Imp.Orion Wallops Education 114? Atlantic
Jun 28 0811 SEED 2 Terrier Imp.Mal. Kwajalein Ionos 157 Pacific
Jun 29 1440 NS-33 New Shepard W Texas Tourist 105 W Texas
Jul 5 0600 MaxiDusty 2 Imp. Malemute? Andoya Atmos. 125 Norwegian Sea
Jul 15 0300 S-310-46 S-310 Uchinoura Ionos. 127 Pacific
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| Jonathan McDowell | |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail |
| USA | twitter: @planet4589 |
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