[JSR] Jonathan's Space Report, No. 694
Jonathan McDowell
jcm at planet4589.org
Fri Feb 28 17:46:52 EST 2014
Jonathan's Space Report
No. 694 2014 Feb 28 Somerville, MA
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International Space Station
---------------------------
Expedition 38 continues under commander Oleg Kotov and flight engineers
Sergey Ryazanskiy, Mike Hopkins, Koichi Wakata, Rich Mastracchio, and
Mikhail Tyurin. The Soyuz TMA-10M ferry ship is being prepared to
return Kotov, Ryazanskiy and Hopkins to Earth in March; it is docked at
the Poisk module. Soyuz TMA-11M is docked at Rassvet, Progress M-21M
is docked at Zvezda and Progress M-22M is docked at Pirs. Progress M-20M
was deorbited on Feb 11 following a week of indepedent operations,
with impact in the South Pacifc at 1555 UTC.
Stefan Barensky has drawn my attention to the fact that Progress M-22M
carried a 1U cubesat to the ISS for later deployment. The payload is
Chasqui 1 from Peru's Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria. It will be
ejected manually during a spacewalk later this year.
The Cygnus ship 'Gordon Fullerton' carried two bags of cubesats to ISS.
Each bag contained the equivalent of 16 3U cubesats, loaded in eight
Nanoracks 2x3U cubesat deployers. The first bag's worth of eight
deployers has been installed on the MPEP (Multi-Purpose Experiment
Plaform) which goes on a slide in the Kibo module airlock. The MPEP was
moved outside Kibo and then maneuvered by the Kibo robot arm (JEM RMS) to the
deploy position, where two satellites at a time (one deployer's worth)
were ejected.
(Thanks to Will Marshall of PlanetLabs for some of the details here).
The first two Flock-1 satellites, 3U Dove-class Earth imaging cubesats
for the San Francisco based company PlanetLabs, were deployed by the JEM
RMS at about 0831 UTC on Feb 11. By Feb 15 all 16 satellites from the first
Nanoracks bag had been ejected. Thanks to Henry Hallam at PlanetLabs for updating
me on deployment times and spacecraft names.
The post deployment names of the Flock satellites in order of deployment are
Flock1-1, Flock1-2, etc.
The 'Gordon Fullerton' was unberthed from the Harmony module at around
1020 UTC Feb 18 and released by the robot arm at 1142 UTC. It lowered
its orbit at 1324 UTC; at 1745 UTC a second burn put Cygnus on a reentry
trajectory. The delta-V of these burns has not been announced. Cygnus
underwent destructive reentry over the Pacific with loss of signal at
1823 UTC Feb 19.
The MPEP was returned to the Kibo module on Feb 19 and Wakata loaded a new set
of NanoRacks cubesat deployers on it on Feb 20. On Feb 25 Wakata sent the MPEP
back out of the Kibo airlock and JAXA controllers grappled it with the JEM-RMS,
moving it to the deploy position again. Deployments of the second batch
of satellites began later the same day. All the PlanetLabs satellites
had been ejected by early on Feb 28. The five remaining satellites, of 1U and 2U
size, were ejected from a single deployer at 0730 UTC Feb 28. They are -
Ardusat-2 from Nanosatisfi Inc., San Francisco, with an Arduino processor
SkyCube-1 from Southern Stars Group LLC, San Francisco, with an Earth imager
UAP-SAT from Universidad Alas Peruanas, Lima.
Litsat-1 from the Lithuanian Space Association, Vilnius, Lithuania.
LituanicaSat-1 from Kaunas Tech Univ. in Kaunas, Lithuania.
Kosmos-1220
-----------
The Kosmos-1220 satellite burned up over Tayma in northwestern Arabia on
Feb 16 at 0140 UTC. Kosmos-1220 was a vehicle in the Soviet Union's US-P
(Controlled Satellite - Passive) series, which featured radio antennae
to monitor radio emissions from US Navy ships; it was powered by large
solar panels. The US-P satellites operated in 400 km orbits. In many
cases American radars detected evidence of explosions at the end of
their missions, with dozens of pieces of debris appearing in nearby
orbits. Strangely, for some vehicles there were multiple debris events
over a period of months, long after the apparent end of mission; the
explosions do not seem to have completed disrupted the spacecraft -
their purpose and nature remain mysterious. Were the explosions
deliberate or, perhaps, a consequence of a design flaw in the propulsion
system?
Kosmos-1220 was launched on 1980 Nov 4 and ended its main mission on
1981 Mar 27 when it raised its orbit to 406 x 465 km. A year later, on
1982 Jun 20, it exploded generating 81 pieces of debris, all but five of
which reentered during the 1980s. One small piece, 1980-089CJ (SSN
25795) remains today in a 486 x 647 km x 65.0 deg orbit. Most of the
debris was small, but not all: 1980-089AS (SSN 13349) had a radar cross
section of 17 square metres, larger than the main remnant of the
Kosmos-1220 spacecraft itself (10.3 sq m) - perhaps it was a solar
panel or the main cruciform antenna. 89AS reentered on 1982 Dec 15.
GPS IIF-5
---------
United Launch Alliance flew a Boeing Delta 4 from Cape Canaveral on Feb 21
carrying a Block IIF Global Positioning System satellite to 20000 km circular
orbit. The payload is GPS Space Vehicle Number 64, the 5th in the IIF series
to be launched.
ACRIMSAT
--------
I have been informed that the small ACRIMSAT satellite which has been
studying the total solar output since 1999 (see JSR 416) failed on 2013
Dec 14 due to battery problems, months after a review recommended its
continued operation. The ACRIM series of experiments, critical data for
climate change studies, flew on Solar Max (1980), Spacelab-1 (1983),
UARS (1991), and ACRIMSAT. The similar TIM instrument on the SORCE
satellite (2003) continues operating, but will it survive until a
replacement instrument flies on the JPSS satellite no sooner than 2017?
GPM-C
-----
The GPM-C (Global Precipitation Mission-Core) satellite was launched
from Tanageashima on Feb 27. The joint US-Japanese satellite carries the
JAXA/NICT/NEC Toshiba Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar and the
GSFC/Ball GPM Microwave Imager. Launch mass is 3850 kg; the satellite
was built by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and will be registered
as a US satellite.
GPM-C was placed into a 390 x 395 km x 65.0 deg orbit with a single burn of the H-2A second
stage. The second stage then deployed a cluster of small Japanese satellites. Three
are microsatellites,
ShindaiSat, from Shinshu Univ., 33 kg
STARS-2, from Kagawa Univ., 22 kg
Teikyosat-3, from Teikyo Univ, 22 kg
and four are 1U cubesats with masses between 1 and 2 kg:
ITF-1, from Tsukuba Univ.
OPUSat, from Osaka Prefectural University
Invader, from Tama Art University
K-SAT2, from Kagoshima University.
STARS-2 is composed of two sections and a tether, which if it deploys successfully
will be 300 metres long.
Erratum - Athena-Fidus
----------------------
Stefan Barensky points out that the Athena-Fidus story is more complicated than I
had reported. The satellite is for both military and civilian government communications;
in France the civilian space agency CNES and the military procurement agency DGA
are both responsible, while in Italy the corresponding ASI and Segredifesa/DNA
agencies are involved. And the correct name for ASI is Agenzia Spaziale Italiana.
Table of Recent (orbital) Launches
----------------------------------
Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
Jan 5 1048 GSAT-14 GSLV Sriharikota SLP Comms 01A
Jan 6 2206 Thaicom 6 Falcon 9 v1.1 Canaveral SLC40 Comms 02A
Jan 9 1807 Cygnus Orb-1 Antares 120 Wallops MARS 0A Cargo 03A
Jan 24 0233 TDRS 12 Atlas V 401 Canaveral SLC41 Comms 04A
Feb 5 1623 Progress M-22M Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1/5 Cargo 05A
Feb 6 2130 ABS 2 ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 06A
Athena-Fidus ) 06B
Feb 11 0831 Flock1-1 ) - ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067DG
Flock1-2 ) Imaging 98-067DH
Feb 11 1241 Flock1-3 ) - ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067DJ
Flock1-4 ) Imaging 98-067DK
Feb 12 0830 Flock1-5 ) - ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067DL
Flock1-6 ) Imaging 98-067DM
Feb 13 0820 Flock1-11 ) - ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067DN
Flock1-12 ) Imaging 98-067DP
Feb 14 0415 Flock1-13 ) - ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067DQ
Flock1-14 ) Imaging 98-067DR
Feb 14 1145 Flock1-15 ) - ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067DS
Flock1-16 ) Imaging 98-067DT
Feb 14 2109 Turksat-4A Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC81/24 Comms 07A
Feb 15 0700 Flock1-7 ) - ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067DU
Flock1-8 ) Imaging 98-067DV
Feb 15 1055 Flock1-9 ) - ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067DW
Flock1-10 ) Imaging 98-067DX
Feb 21 0159 GPS SVN 64 Delta 4M+(4,2) Canaveral SLC37B Navigation 08A
Feb 25 1700 Flock1-17 ) ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067DY
Flock1-18 ) Imaging 98-067DZ
Feb 26 0420 Flock1-21 ) ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067EC
Flock1-22 ) Imaging 98-067ED
Feb 26 0735 Flock1-19 ) ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067EA
Flock1-20 ) Imaging 98-067EB
Feb 27 0150 Flock1-23 ) ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067EC
Flock1-24 ) Imaging 98-067ED
Feb 27 0740 Flock1-25 ) ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067EE
Flock1-26 ) Imaging 98-067EF
Feb 27 1837 GPM-C ) H-2A Tanegashima LP1 Climate 09A
ShindaiSat ) Tech 09
STARS-2 ) Tech 09
Teikyosat-3 ) Bio 09
ITF-1 ) Tech 09
OPUSat ) Tech 09
Invader ) Edu 09
K-SAT 2 ) Tech 09
Feb 28 0420? Flock1-27 ) ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067EG
Flock1-28 ) Imaging 98-067EH
Feb 28 0730 SkyCube 1 ) ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067
Litsat 1 ) Tech 98-067
LituanicaSat-1 ) Tech 98-067
Ardusat-2 ) Tech 98-067
UAP-SAT ) Tech 98-067
Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches
----------------------------------
Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km
Jan 3 Arrow KV Arrow 3 Palmachim Test 100?
Jan 15 0909 FTX-18 target Terrier Orion Wallops Target 130?
Jan 15 0909 FTX-18 target Terrier Orion Wallops Target 130?
Jan 15 0909 FTX-18 target Terrier Orion Wallops Target 130?
Jan 20 0522 Agni 4 RV Agni 4 Chandipur IC4 Test 900?
.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Jonathan McDowell | |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail |
| USA | twitter: @planet4589 |
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