[JSR] Jonathan's Space Report, No. 630
Jonathan McDowell
jcm at www.planet4589.org
Sat Jul 17 12:34:25 EDT 2010
Jonathan's Space Report
No. 630 2010 Jul 17 Somerville, MA
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Shuttle and Station
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Soyuz TMA-19 undocked from Zvezda at 1913 UTC on Jun 28 and backed away
to a distance of 30m, then flew around the station and redocked at the
Rassvet module at 1938 UTC. This freed the Zvezda port for the planned
arrival of Progress M-06M, which was launched on Jun 30. At around 1630
on Jul 2 Progress M-06M approached the station, but radio interference
caused the onboard computers to abort the rendezvous and the vehicle
flew past at a distance of around 3 km. It returned to ISS on Jul 4 and
successfully docked at 1617 UTC.
Progress M-04M had undocked from Zvezda on May 10 and moved to a 338 x 351 km orbit
to carry out experiments. It made one orbit maintenance burn on Jun 10,
raising its orbit to 347 x 353 km. On Jul 1 it completed its mission with a
deorbit burn at 1354 UTC and impact in the south Pacific at 1440 UTC.
Progress M-05M remains docked to the Pirs module.
Deep Impact
------------
The Deep Impact Flyby Spacecraft, carrying out the EPOXI mission, flew
past Earth on Jun 27. Closest approach of 30480 km was at 2203 UTC; the
encounter changes DI's solar orbit from 0.97 x 1.03 AU x 6.6 deg to 0.98
x 1.22 AU x 3.2 deg and puts it on course to encounter comet
103P/Hartley-2 on Nov 4. DI was launched on 2005 Jan 12, delivered an
impactor craft to 9P/Tempel-1 on 2005 Jul 4, and made previous Earth
flybys on 2007 Dec 31 and 2008 Dec 29. Beginning in late 2007, it also
carried out studies of extrasolar planets with its high resolution
camera - congrats to my friends Sarah Ballard and Jessie Christiansen
for their recent papers on the results (Astrophysical Journal 716, 1047
and 710, 97).
Rosetta
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The Rosetta comet probe, on its way to Churyumov-Gerasimenko, flew
past asteroid (21) Lutetia at a distance of 3162 km, at 1545 UTC on
Jul 10. Lutetia is the largest asteroid yet visited by a spacecraft,
with a size of roughly 100 km. Lutetia is in a 2.04 x 2.83 AU x 3.1 deg
orbit around the Sun; Rosetta is in a 0.98 x 5.09 AU x 4.4 deg orbit.
Echostar XV
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The Echostar XV satellite was launched on Jul 10 to provide Dish Network
broadcasting. An International Launch Services Proton-M/Briz-M put
the Loral 1300 satellite in a 5981 x 35835 km x 18.7 deg transfer orbit.
By Jul 15 the satellite was in a 34421 x 35827 km x 0.3 deg orbit
approaching geostationary status.
PSLV
----
India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle made a successful flight from the
Satish Dhawan Space Center on Sriharikota Island on Jul 12, placing the
Cartosat 2B and Alsat-2A satellites in polar orbit. Cartosat 2B is an
imaging satellite for ISRO (the Indian Space Research Organization) with
0.8 meter resolution. Alsat-2A was built by EADS Astrium for the Centre
National des Techniques Spatiales of Algeria (which is possibly now part
of the Agence Spatiale Algerienne, although I'm not fully clear on its
organizational status), and carries a 2.5-meter resolution camera. Also
deployed by the PSLV-C15 mission were several smaller payloads:
AISSat-1, built by UTIAS-Toronto for the Norwegian space center FFI with
a ship-tracking payload; Studsat, a 1 kg picosatellite with a simple
imager for remote sensing built by students in Bangalore and Hyderabad,
and led by the Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology in Bangalore; and
TISat-1 (Ticino Satellite 1), a 1 kg cubesat built by SUPSI (Scuola
Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera Italiana) in the
Italian-speaking Ticino region of Switzerland;.
Suborbital flights
------------------
NASA flight 36.265UG carried the second flight of the CIBER-I infrared
astronomy payload which will search for light from early galaxies. The
US Air Force flew a single reentry vehicle from Vandenberg to Kwajalein
on Jun 30 using a Minuteman 3, the second such launch in two weeks. On
Jun 29, a 'foreign military asset' (possibly an R-17 Scud) was launched
from the Missile Defense Agency's seaborne mobile launch platform in the
Pacific and on reentry was intercepted at low altitude in the atmosphere
by a THAAD missile.
On 1960 Nov 23, Skylark SL49 was launched from Woomera carrying the
first space experiment from Leicester University. The Leicester group,
led by Ken Pounds, went on to become one of the main UK space science
teams, from the Ariel V satellite in the 1970s to participation in
NASA's Swift mission today. A conference to celebrate 50 years of the
group was held at Leicester this month, and unluckily for those present
I was there to record the reunion of X-ray astronomers young and old:
http://www.planet4589.org/jcm/trips/10/uk/part2/index.html
Table of Recent (orbital) Launches
----------------------------------
Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
Jun 2 0159 SERVIS 2 Rokot Plesetsk LC133/3 Tech 23A
Jun 2 1553 Beidou DW4 Chang Zheng 3C Xichang Navigation 24A
Jun 3 2200 Arabsat 5B Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 25A
Jun 4 1845 Dragon Qual Unit Falcon 9 Canaveral SLC40 Test 26A
Jun 10 0801 STSAT-2B Naro-1 Naro Tech F02
Jun 15 0139 SJ-12 Chang Zheng 2D Jiuquan Science? 27A
Jun 15 1442 Prisma-Mango ) Dnepr Yasniy Tech 28B
Prisma-Tango ) Tech 28B
Picard ) Solar phys 28A
BPA-1 ) Navigation 28C
Jun 15 2135 Soyuz TMA-19 Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 29A
Jun 21 0214 Tandem-X Dnepr Baykonur LC109 Radar 30A
Jun 22 1900? 'Ofeq-9 Shaviyt-1 Palmachim Imaging 31A
Jun 26 2141 Arabsat 5A ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 32A
Chollian ) Comms/Weather 32B
Jun 30 1535 Progress M-06M Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 33A
Jul 10 1840 Echostar XV Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 34A
Jul 12 0352 Cartosat 2B ) PSLV-CA Sriharikota Imaging 35A
Alsat 2A ) Imaging 35D
AISSAT-1 ) Navigation 35C
TISat-1 ) Tech 35B
Studsat ) Tech 35G
Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches
----------------------------------
Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km
Jun 6 2225 BVT-1? GBI Vandenberg Test 300?
Jun 8 USN RV x 8? Trident II SSBN 738, ETR Op Test 1000?
Jun 8 USN RV x 8? Trident II SSBN 738, ETR Op Test 1000?
Jun 9 USN RV x 8? Trident II SSBN 738, ETR Op Test 1000?
Jun 9 USN RV x 8? Trident II SSBN 738, ETR Op Test 1000?
Jun 16 1001 GT200-GM1? Minuteman III Vandenberg LF10 Op Test 1300?
Jun 24 1000 NASA 41.088UO Terrier Orion Wallops LA2 Education 120?
Jun 29 0732 FTT-14 Target FMA (Scud?) MLP, Kauai Target 80?
Jun 30 1040 GT201GM RV Minuteman III Vandenberg LF04 Op Test 1300?
Jul 11 NASA 36.265UG Black Brant IX White Sands Astronomy 320?
.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : jcm at www.planet4589.org |
| USA | jcm at cfa.harvard.edu |
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