Jonathan's Space Report No. 687 2013 Oct 9, Somerville, MA --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- International Space Station ---------------------------- Expedition 37 is underway with commander Fyodor Yurchikin, FE-5 Luca Parmitano, FE-6 Karen Nyberg, FE-1 Oleg Kotov, FE-2 Sergey Ryazanskiy and FE-3 Michael Hopkins; the latter three were launched in Soyuz TMA-10M on Sep 25. Ryazanskiy is the grandson of space pioneer Mikhail Ryazanskiy, chief Soviet guidance designer of the Sputnik era (thanks to A. Krasil'nikov for confirming this). Soyuz TMA-10M docked with the Poisk module 5h 46min after launch. Ferry ship Soyuz TMA-09M is at Rassvet. Cargo ship ATV-4 is at the Zvezda module and Progress M-20M is at the Pirs module. On Sep 22 the Cygnus cargo ship was in a 407 x 413 km orbit preparing for a second attempt to rendezvous with ISS. On Sep 23 orbit was raised to 417 x 421 km, and on Sep 27 lowered to 399 x 413 km to start the approach. On Sep 29 Cygnus completed its rendezvous with ISS, reaching a 250m hold point at 0908 UTC and the 10 meter capture point at 1050 UTC. The SSRMS arm captured Cygnus at 1100 UTC. The astronauts have begun unloading the ship's cargo. Fengyun-3 ---------- The third Fengyun-3 satellite, 'di san ke fengyun san hao', was launched from Taiyuan Space Center on Sep 23 into an 801 x 815 km x 98.8 deg orbit with a 1010 local time descending node. Kuaizhou -------- The Kuaizhou-1 satellite was launched by China's new Kuaizhou small quick-response launch vehicle on Sep 25. "Kuaizhou" means "fast vessel" and might best be translated as "Clipper" or "Swift Boat". The solid fuel vehicle is thought to be built by CASIC in collaboration with the Harbin Institute of Technology and may be a derivative of the DF-21 family, like the failed KT-1 launch vehicle of 2002-2003. Development of the rocket began in 2010. Its initial orbit was 275 x 293 km x 96.7 deg, raised on Sep 27 to 299 x 306 km. The satellite payload is operated by the State Remote Sensing Center. Falcon 9 -------- The first launch of the Falcon 9 v1.1, a significant upgrade of the Falcon 9 rocket, was successful and placed the CASSIOPE payload and several small satellites in orbit. CASSIOPE is a Canadian Space Agency satellite carrying two payloads: the CASCADE high bandwith Ka-band communications relay package and the ePOP suite of instruments to study the polar ionosphere. The satellite is built by MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA Ltd.) using a Bristol Aerospace spacecraft bus. POPACS consists of a spacecraft in the form of a 3U cubesat which splits after deployment into 4 spacer sections that release three 0.10m diameter aluminium spheres which are to be used as passive atmospheric density calibration probes. Cornell University's CUSat satellite carries a differential GPS navigation system and pulsed plasma thrusters. It was originally intended to separate into two pieces but I understand this will not now happen. DANDE, the Drag and Atmospheric Neutral Density Explorer, is a payload from the University of Colorado. The 38 kg sphere carries a particle spectrometer to measure the outer atmosphere wind speed and direction, and a drag measurement system. It is attached to an 8 kg Lightband adapter which will be jettisoned later. Objects 55A to 55V have been cataloged, it will take a while to figure out which is which. The 20 cataloged objects are in (234-444) km x (1380-1598) km x 81.0 deg orbits, showing a scatter of 60 m/s which indicates a possible unexpected energetic event. According to SpaceX, the debris objects are probably insulation material that escaped from the second stage after a planned demonstration restart of the second stage was aborted and a prolonged venting of propellant (observed from southern Africa) began. Although more data is needed - things will become much clearer in a few weeks - my current guess is that CASSIOPE is 55B, Falcon 9 is 55G and all remaining tracked objects (55A, 55C, 55E to 55V) are Falcon insulation debris; I believe DANDE, CUSAT and POPACS have not yet been cataloged. However, on Oct 8 SpaceTrack started relabelling the objects, so orbital data should be treated with care until things have settled down. The Falcon 9 v1.1 stage 2 is thought to be stretched 2.5m long compared to the original version, with an additional 15000 kg of propellant carried, lengthening the burn time from 346s to 375s. The new Merlin 1D-vac engine has a large increase in thrust, 801 kN compared to 342 kN for the older Merlin 1C. Astra 2E -------- The Astra 2E communications satellite was launched by International Launch Services Proton on behalf of SES. This was the first Proton launch since its dramatic July failure, and the flight appears to have been fully successful. The Briz-M stage was inserted to a -496 x 171 km x 51.5 deg orbit and made burns to 174 x 175 km x 51.5 deg, 268 x 4999 km x 50.3 deg, 336 x 15157 km x 49.6 deg, 455 x 35740 km x 49.1 deg and 4177 x 45715 km x 22.9 deg where it released Astra 2E, which is a Eurostar E3000 satellite carrying Ka-band and Ku-band transponders. By Oct 8 Astra 2E was in GEO drift orbit at 35702 x 37533 km x 0.1 deg over 42E. LADEE ----- LADEE is in a 1460 x 375352 km x 38.6 deg Earth orbit. It passes its third and final Earth perigee of 1453 km altitude at 1056 UTC on Oct 1; on Oct 6 at 1802 UTC it entered the lunar gravitational sphere of influence. The orbit insertion burn at 1057 UTC on Oct 6, which placed LADEE in a 24-hour-period 269 x 15772 km selenocentric orbit inclined 157 deg to the lunar equator. The LOI-2 burn is scheduled for 1038 UTC Oct 9 to lower the orbit to 247 x 2177 km. A further burn on Oct 12 at 1040 UTC will circularize the orbit at 248 x 251 km. Juno ----- The Juno mission completed has its first orbit of the Sun, heading out to the inner asteroid belt at 2.2AU and back for a 552 km flyby of Earth at 1922 UTC Oct 9, which sends it out again into a 0.98 x 5.44 AU x 4.5 deg solar orbit on its way to Jupiter orbit insertion. Table of Recent (orbital) Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. Sep 1 1916 Yaogan 17 ) Chang Zheng 4C Jiuquan LC603 SIGINT 46A YW-17 subsat 1) SIGINT 46B YW-17 subsat 2) SIGINT 46C Sep 7 0327 LADEE Minotaur V Wallops I. LA0B Lunar probe 47A Sep 11 2323 Gonets-M No. 14 ) Rokot Plesetsk LC133/3 Comms 48A Gonets-M No. 16 ) Comms 48B Gonets-M No. 17 ) Comms 48C Sep 14 0500 Hisaki Epsilon Uchinoura Astronomy 49A Sep 18 0810 AEHF 3 Atlas V 531 Canaveral SLC41 Comms 50A Sep 18 1458 Cygnus Demo Antares 110 Wallops I. LA0A Cargo 51A Sep 23 0307 Fengyun-3 3 Chang Zheng 4C Taiyuan LC9 Weather 52A Sep 25 0437 Kuaizhou-1 Kuaizhou Jiuquan Imaging? 53A Sep 25 2058 Soyuz TMA-10M Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 54A Sep 29 1600 Cassiope ) Falcon 9 v1.1 Vandenberg SLC4E Comm/Sci 55B? POPACS 1 ) Sci 55 POPACS 2 ) Sci 55 POPACS 3 ) Sci 55 DANDE ) Sci 55 CUSat 1 ) Tech 55 CUSat 2 ) Tech 55 Sep 29 2138 Astra 2E Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 56A Suborbital launches ------------------- The announcement by the US Navy of Trident missile tests in the Atlantic on Sep 10 and 12 confirms the suggestion in the previous issue that the Sep 10 observations of reentering objects from the Canary Islands were indeed Trident reentry vehicles. The Aegis missiles launched on Sep 19 were stated to have reached a record altitude for the type, in excess of the 250 km achieved in the 2008 USA 193 antisatellite test. As a guess for now, I'm entering the altitude as "300 km?" in my records. (Many apogees I quote for suborbital flights are educated estimates, as indicated by the question marks. If you have better numbers, feel free to let me know.) Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Sep 3 0616 Radar target Silver Sparrow F-15, Med. Sea Target 150? Sep 6 0520 Bulava RV Bulava K-550, White Sea Test 100? Sep 10 MBRV? Unknown Wake Island Target 300? Sep 10 MBRV? eMRBM C-17, Pacific Target 300? Sep 10 Aegis KV SM-3 USS Decatur,Pacific Interceptor 150? Sep 10 THAAD KV THAAD Meck Island Interceptor 100? Sep 10 THAAD KV THAAD Meck Island Interceptor 100? Sep 10 2110? USN RV Trident D-5 SSBN, Atlantic O. Test 1000? Sep 10 2110? USN RV Trident D-5 SSBN, Atlantic O. Test 1000? Sep 12 USN RV Trident D-5 SSBN, Atlantic O. Test 1000? Sep 12 USN RV Trident D-5 SSBN, Atlantic O. Test 1000? Sep 15 0920 Agni RV Agni V Wheeler I. IC4 Test 800? Sep 19 0030 Target ARAV-C++ Kauai Target 150? Sep 19 0032? Aegis KV SM-3-1B USS Lake Erie Interceptor 300? Sep 19 0032? Aegis KV SM-3-1B USS Lake Erie Interceptor 300? Sep 22 1001 Mk 21 RV? Minuteman 3 Vandenberg LF10 Op. test 1300? Sep 26 1033 Mk 21 RV? Minuteman 3 Vandenberg LF09 Op. test 1300? .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | | | Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail | | USA | twitter: @planet4589 | | | | JSR: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html | | Back issues: http://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: http://www.planet4589.org/mailman/listinfo/jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'