[JSR] Jonathan's Space Report, No. 655
Jonathan McDowell
jcm at planet4589.org
Mon Mar 19 23:31:04 EDT 2012
Jonathan's Space Report
No. 655 2012 Mar 19 Somerville, MA USA
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Space Station
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Expedition 30 continues with Soyuz TMA-22 docked at Poisk and Soyuz
TMA-03M docked to the Rassvet module. Ex-30 commander is Dan Burbank;
flight engineers 1 to 5 are Anton Shkaplerov, Anatoliy Ivanishin, Oleg
Kononenko, Andre Kuipers, Don Pettit. The Progress M-14M cargo ship
is docked at the Pirs module. On Mar 17 the International Space
Station was in a 378 x 400 km x 51.6 deg orbit.
The European Space Agency is preparing for the launch of the ATV cargo
vehicle 'Edoardo Amaldi' from Kourou. The ATV-3 vehicle will dock at the
Zvezda module.
REQUEST
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I'm looking for TLE data for Soyuz TM-5 (19204) for 1988 Sep 1 to Sep 7
(a time period that includes the multiple reentry attempts).
The online archive is missing this data, but I know some of you have
hoarded the paper copies...
Note
-----
For those of you in DC, I'll be giving an informal astronomy presentation on Fri
Mar 23, 2-4pm at my exhibit at the Natural History Museum
http://www.mnh.si.edu/exhibits/evolving-universe/
SES-4
------
The SES-4 communications satellite reached its checkout orbit
at the 26W Atlantic Ocean slot on Feb 29. At launch it was owned
by SES Satellite Leasing (Isle of Man); it will be operated by
SES World Skies (den Haag).
Beidou
------
China launched the 11th Beidou Daohang Weixing on Feb 24.
The navigation satellite entered geostationary orbit over 58.7E
on Mar 1. On Mar 17 the orbit was 35777 x 35796 km x 1.9 deg
at 58.6E.
Four geostationary Beidou Daohang Shiyan Weixing (Experimental Beidou
Navigation Satellite) satellites were laucnhed in 2000-2007; since then
the operational Beidou Daohang Weixing system has included one medium
orbit satellite, five GEO satellites and five inclined-GEO satellites.
MUOS 1
------
The US Navy's first Mobile User Objective System (MUOS)
was orbited on Feb 24 by a powerful Atlas 551 vehicle, flight AV-030.
The MUOS payload was delivered to a 3463 x 35786 km x 19.0 deg transfer
orbit. MUOS 1 has a dry mass of 3812 kg and is about 6740 kg fully fuelled;
it is based on the Lockheed Martin A2100 spacecraft and will support
UHF communications.
Following UHF comms experiments with Lincoln Lab's LES satellites in the
1960s, the US Navy began using the UHF payload on the Tacsat satellite
(1969-1972). This was followed by the Marisat Gapfiller payloads (from
1976), the FLTSATCOM system (from 1978) and the 'UHF Follow-On' system (from
1993), which the MUOS system will supersede.
LARES
-----
The LARES satellite launched on the first Vega flight is the latest
in a series of passive, spherical, high (usually) mass-to-surface-area satellites
carrying mirrors and laser retroreflectors for geodetic applications.
Satellite Agency Launch date Mass/kg Current orbit
Diam/m
Starlette CNES, France 1975 Feb 6 48 0.2 804 x 1106 km x 49.8 deg
Lageos NASA, USA 1976 May 4 411 0.6 5837 x 5948 km x109.8 deg
Ajisai NASDA, Japan 1986 Aug 12 685 2.1 1479 x 1497 km x 50.0 deg
Etalon 1 MOM, USSR 1989 Jan 10 1230 1.3 19082 x 19168 km x 64.4 deg
Etalon 2 MOM, USSR 1989 May 31 1230 1.3 19082 x 19161 km x 64.4 deg
Lageos 2 ASI, Italy 1992 Oct 22 405 0.6 5615 x 5951 km x 52.7 deg
Stella CNES, France 1993 Sep 26 48 0.2 796 x 804 km x 98.6 deg
GFZ-1 GFZ,Germany 1995 Apr 9 20 0.2 Reentered 1999 Jun 23
WESTPAC EOS, Australia 1998 Jul 10 24 0.2 814 x 817 km x 98.4 deg
Starshine 1 NRL/GSFC, USA 1999 May 27 40 0.5 Reentered 2000 Feb 18
LRE NASDA, Japan 2001 Aug 29 86 0.5 287 x 34091 km x 28.4 deg
Starshine 3 NRL/GSFC, USA 2001 Sep 30 90 0.9 Reentered 2003 Jan 21
Starshine 2 NRL/GSFC, USA 2001 Dec 5 39 0.5 Reentered 2002 Apr 26
Larets FKA,Russia 2003 Sep 27 10 0.2 675 x 692 km x 97.8 deg
Blits FKA,Russia 2009 Sep 17 7 0.2 818 x 821 km x 98.7 deg
LARES ASI, Italy 2012 Feb 13 400 0.4 1435 x 1452 km x 69.5 deg
The name of the attached payload on the Vega AVUM stage is the LARES
A&H/SS (Avionics and Harness Subsystem) and consists of several boxes
on one `petal' (sector) of the LARES support system. The system is built
by Temis S.r.l. of Milano, while the overall support system is built by
the Milan company OHB CGS (formerly Carlo Gavazzi Space). Overall mass
of the LARES support system is probably 300 kg, and the dry AVUM is
around 660 kg for a total in orbit mass for the object of about 960 kg.
Suborbital flights
-------------------
Cornell's MICA (Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling in the Alfven
resonator) auroral study payload, NASA flight 36.273UE, was launched on
Feb 19. The rocket reached 325 km and deployed a pair of payloads to
study auroral Alfven wave resonances; the aft payload carried wire
antennas measuring 12m tip-to-tip and had a mass of about 45 kg. The
forward payload was 303 kg.
US Global Strike Command launched a Minuteman III from Vandenberg on
Feb 25, carrying a single reentry vehicle which flew to a target
in the Pacific, probably near the Kwajalein Atoll test range.
On Feb 22 the US Navy launched a Trident II D-5 missile from the USS
Tennessee submarine, SSBN 734, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, as
flight DASO-23 (Demonstration and Shakedown Operation). The missile flew
southeast down the Eastern Test Range, inserting the post-boost bus onto
a suborbital trajectory. The bus probably deployed 8 reentry vehicles,
either Mk 4 or Mk 5 type, possibly for impact near Ascension Island.
This was the 137th consecutive success from Trident II; the previous
acknowledged launch was the 135th, mission DASO-22, in March 2011,
implying that an unacknowledged launch occurred sometime in the past
year from the Pacific coast by an unidentifed submarine. The Pacific
launches are not always announced even after the submarine in question
has completed its patrol, for reasons that are not really clear. A
total of 5 launches between 2005 and 2011 have unknown dates: successful
flights nos. 112 (DASO?), 114 (FCET-35?), 115 (FCET-35?), 125
(FCET-40), and 136 (FCET-44?).
Table of Recent (orbital) Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
Jan 9 0317 ZY-3 ) Chang Zheng 4B Taiyuan Imaging 01A
Vesselsat 2 ) Comms 01B
Jan 13 0056 FY-2(07) Chang Zheng 3A Xichang Weather 02A
Jan 20 0038 WGS 4 Delta 4M+(5,4) Canaveral SLC37B Comms 03A
Jan 24 2318 Chibis-M - PM-13M, LEO Science 62C
Jan 25 2306 Progress M-14M Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 04A
Feb 3 0004? Navid Safir Semnan Imaging 05A
Feb 13 1000 LARES ) Vega Kourou ELV Geodesy 06A
Almasat ) Tech 06B
XaTcobeo ) Tech 06
ROBUSTA ) Tech 06
e-st at r ) Tech 06
Goliat ) Tech 06
PWSat-1 ) Tech 06
MaSat-1 ) Tech 06
UNICubeSat-GG ) Tech 06
LARES Support Sys) Tech 06K
Feb 14 1936 SES-4 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 07A
Feb 24 1612 Beidou DW 11 Chang Zheng 3C Xichang Nav 08A
Feb 24 2215 MUOS 1 Atlas V 551 Canaveral Comms 09A
Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches
----------------------------------
Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km
Jan 11 1325 NASA 12.074GT Terrier Malemute Wallops Test 500?
Jan 12 1451 S-520-26 S-520 Uchinoura Atm Sci 298
Jan 28 1815 STIG-A-III STIG-A Spaceport America Test 82
Feb 10 0440 Target Prithvi Chandipur Target 100
Feb 13 0932 MASER 12 VSB-30 ESRANGE Micrograv 260
Feb 19 0541 NASA 36.273UE Black Brant IX Poker Flat Auroral 325
Feb 22 8 x USN Mk 5 RV? Trident II USS Tennessee, ETR Op.Test 1000?
Feb 25 1046 GT206GM Minuteman III Vandenberg LF09 Op.Test 1300?
.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail |
| USA | jcm at cfa.harvard.edu |
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