Jonathan's Space Report
No. 841 2025 Jan 23 Somerville, MA
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Annual Report
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The 2024 annual report is available at https://planet4589.org/space/papers/space24.pdf
Latest corrected version is v1.3, if you downloaded an earlier version please replace it.
JSR Fundraiser
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A major change - I am planning to move the Space Library to a new home.
And I need some help - in 35 years I've never asked for funding or
subscriptions for my Space Report, to keep it independent, but now I
need to raise additional funds. This is the first and I hope last time I will
ask you for money. And no pressure - we'll still be friends if you don't donate.
For 35 years I've been sharing information about space exploration with
the world completely for free. Jonathan's Space Report is known for its
reliability and objectivity. My websites on the General Catalog of Space
Objects, the Starlink launch statistics, and other aspects of
spaceflight are relied on by journalists, public officials and
enthusiasts like you across the world, and all the data on the sites is
provided under a free CC-BY licence. I've been able to do this because I
have a day job and I do the Space Report in my spare time. But I am
planning to formally retire at the end of this year, move the extensive physical
library of space documents on which I rely to a new longer-term home in
a yet to be determined location in the UK, and do Space Report related
work full-time (and likely, as before, unpaid).
Buying the new home for the 100 square m (1000 sq ft) Jonathan's Space
Research Library is, it turns out, currently a little bit beyond my
financial means. Now that NASA, Harvard astronomy and MIT Aero Astro
have disposed of their libraries, my collection is arguably the most
extensive (at least top 5 worldwide) technical astronautics history
collection remaining and I think it should be preserved. I am asking for
donations rather than trying to monetize the Report because I want to
retain its editorial independence. So if you have relied on my free
information and are willing to donate a little, I would be very
grateful. Every extra dollar will help ensure the future of more and
more of the library and preserve a treasure trove of documents on the
history of spaceflight. Donors will be welcome to (on an occasional
basis!) visit, browse, and do research in the library once the
relocation is complete.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/fund-jonathans-space-report-library-transition
International Space Station
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Expedition 72 continues with Suni Williams (ISS commander), Barry Wilmore, Aleksey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner,
Don Pettit, Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov.
Hague and Williams performed US EVA-91 on Jan 16 to replace a rate gyro
assembly and perform repairs to the NICER X-ray telescope. The (very
scientifically successful) NICER had some light leaks that are now fixed
with little eyepatches, and it is again returning science data. Spacewalk
duration was 6h8m (depress to repress), 5h 57m (hatch open to close).
The repair occurred during the American Astronomical Society meeting
in Maryland, and I saw the NICER team members practically jumping up and down with
excitement at their booth as the spacewalk proceeded. Congrats gang!
Progress MS-28 made a 1.8m/s orbit raise burn at 1745 UTC Jan 11.
Chinese Space Station
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The Chinese station made a two-burn orbit raise on Jan 9-10, with a total
delta-V of around 6 m/s. The burn probably used the Tianzhou-8 freighter's engines.
Astronauts Cai and Song made their second spacewalk on Jan 20, installing more debris
shields. Hatch open was at 0855 UTC and hatch close at 1712 UTC.
Starlink launches
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Starlink Group 11-3 (22 sats) was launched from Vandenberg on Dec 29 to a 53 deg orbit.
Starlink Group 12-6 (21 sats) was launched from Kennedy on Dec 31 to a 43 deg orbit.
Starlink Group 6-71 (24 sats) was launched from Canaveral on Jan 6 to a 43 deg orbit.
Starlink Group 12-11 (21 sats) was launched from Kennedy on Jan 8 to a 43 deg orbit.
Starlink Group 12-12 (21 sats) was launched from Canaveral on Jan 10 to a 43 deg orbit.
Starlink Group 12-4 (21 sats) was launched from Canaveral on Jan 13 to a 43 deg orbit.
Starlink Group 13-1 (21 sats) was launched from Kennedy on Jan 21 to a 43 deg orbit.
Starlink Group 11-8 (27 sats) was launched from Vandenberg on Jan 21 to a 53 deg orbit.
Transporter-12
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The Transporter 12 rideshare mission was launched on Jan 14 by Falcon 9 from Vandenberg.
Payloads were (including those still awaiting deployment aboard tugs):
Satellite deployment tugs: D-Orbit ION Amazing Antonius, ION Eminent Emmanuel, Impulse LEO Express 2
Imaging: UAE MBZ-SAT, 36 Planet Flock 4g, Planet Pelican-2, Eundorosat Balkan-1, Czech Saturnin-1,
INTA Anser L-S, Satellogic Newsat-45, Satlantis Garai-A, constellr SkyBee-1, DRD Canada Jay C/D1/D2,
SatGus, Firefly 1 to 3, IRIDE-MS2 HEO-1
Radar: ICEYE (4 sats, including one for UAE)
Other remote sensing: GESat Gen1, Forest-3, AlAinSat-1, BlueBon
Radio spectrum monitoring: BRO-16
Recoverable Microgravity: Varda W-2, Inversion Ray 1
IoT Comms: FossaSat F0018, F0019, F0020, Lyra 1, Connecta IOT 5,6,7,8, Centauri 7,8, LOGSATS-2, Skylink-1,2
Amateur comms: HADES-R, HYDRA-T
AIS Ship tracking: NORSAT-4, Sedna-2
Comms technology: Elevation-1 (E-band), SIGI 1, Posat-2, Poquito
Meteorology: Care Weather Veery-0F
Navigation: FGN-100-d1
Misc technology payloads: Edison-1, NPS Otter, LIME, TES-22, InnoCube, TROLL, PARUS-T1, IRIS-F2, IRIS-F3,
AE1c, AE1d
Space Surveillance: SCOT-Digantara,
Student satellites: HCT-SAT-1 (UAE), Hype AGH, Prometheus
Hosted payloads: Six SPIRE Lemur-2
Unknown: FUSION 1, satellite with unknown (Japanese?) owner, mission, size.
Blue Ghost and Resilience
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Firefly Space's Blue Ghost lunar lander was launched aboard a Falcon 9 on Jan 15 to an
elliptical orbit with apogee at lunar distance.
iSpace's second Hakuto-R lunar lander, Resilience, was also launched aboard the same rocket.
The Falcon 9 upper stage ejected a double payload adapter after Blue Ghost separation
and then restarted to place the iSpace lander on a somewhat different trajectory.
Space-Track TLEs show BG and adapter in a 189 x 322453 km x 35.0 deg
orbit and Hakuto-R and the upper stage in a 176 x 362529 km x 35.2 deg
orbit.
Other Falcon 9 launches
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Four Astranis micro-GEO communications satellites were launched to supersync geotransfer orbit by F9 on Dec 29.
Space42/Thuraya's Thuraya 4-NGS L-band mobile comms sat was launched on Jan 4 to supersync transfer orbit.
On Jan 10 a Falcon 9 placed 22 NRO Starshield satellites in a 70 deg orbit.
CALT launches
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CALT launched a CZ-3B on Jan 6 with the SAST SJ-25 servicing satellite, expected to dock with
an old geosat to extend its life. By Jan 16 SJ-25 was in a 10 degree inclined GEO at 120E.
SAST launches
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SAST launched a CZ-2D on Jan 17 to sun-synch orbit carrying the PAK EO-1 Earth observing satellite
for Pakistan's SUPARCO space agency. The launch also carried the Tianlu satellite for Earth limb observing
and the Lantan satellite for ocean color monitoring.
China Long March Rocket Co
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A Jielong-3 was launched from the Dongfang Hangtian barge in the Yellow Sea on Jan 13
and placed ten Weili Kongjian satellites in orbit for Centispace. The satellites carry
a GNSS augmentation payload.
Galactic Energy
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Galactic Energy launched Gushenxing-1 No. Y16 from Jiuquan on Jan 20, placing more Yunyao-1
GNSS-RO meteorology satellites in orbit.
PSLV
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ISRO launched PSLV flight C60 on Dec 30, carrying the SPADEX A and B test satellites which will
carry out docking experiments. The PSLV PS4 fourth stage carries the POEM-4 hosted payload package.
SPADEX A and B made a series of close approaches during early January, and docked at 0049 UTC Jan 16.
New Glenn
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Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket made its first launch on Jan 16. The second stage
successfully reached a 161 x 2400 km x 30 deg orbit and then restarted to boost
itself to a 2396 x 19256 km x 30 deg orbit. The stage carried Blue Ring Pathfinder (BRP)
and ballast. BRP did not separate; it tests systems for the future Blue Ring space tug.
Congrats to Blue Origin on reaching orbit on the first try. The first stage attempted
to land in the Jacklyn barge in the Atlantic, but did not succeed - details of this
are not yet available.
Starship Flight 7
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Starship Flight 7 was launched at 2237 UTC Jan 16 from Starbase, Texas,
but failed to reach orbit. I will assign designation 2025-F01 to the
launch. Super Heavy Booster 14 reached an apogee of 91 km, performed
a boostback burn, and was caught by the launch tower. Ship 33 separated
from Booster 14 at 2m40s. There are three 'center' and three 'outboard'
Raptor engines on Ship. At T+7:40 one center engine went out, followed
at T+8:02 by a second center one and T+8:04 by the adjacent outboard
one. At T+8:18 Ship lost a second outboard engine. At T+8:24 the final
one of the three center engines failed, and loss of signal with the
vehicle occurred at T+8:26, at an altitude of 146 km, 27s prior to
planned end of propulsion. Ship exploded during descent a few minutes
later, according to video evidence from the Bahamas. The debris from
Ship 33 was observed a couple of minutes later over the Turks and
Caicos, and would have reentered over the ocean north of Puerto Rico
and the British Virgin Is around 2249 UTC. However, reports suggest
some high drag debris may have landed in the Turks and Caicos
themselves, and an FAA investigation is underway.
At the point of loss of signal, 2245 UTC, the vehicle was in a roughly -3170 x 146 km x
26.4 deg orbit, quite a way from being orbital.
The Ship was to have ejected 10 dummy models of the Starlink V3 satellite onto
a marginally suborbital trajectory, but broke up before this could happen.
Erratum:
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Starshield launch 6 on Dec 17 had 22 sats, not 21.
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
Dec 17 1317 USA 441 to 462 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Imaging? 243 310? x 310? x 70
Dec 17 2226 O3b MPOWER 7 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Comms 244 2674 x 7002 x 8.8
O3b MPOWER 8 Comms 244
Dec 18 0200 Tarara 1 Kairos Kii Tech F04 -6378 x 40? x 97
Ishiki Tech F04
SC-Sat-1 Tech F04
PARUS-T1A Tech F04
Unknown cubesat Tech F04
Dec 19 1018 Tianqi-33 Gushenxing-1S DFHT, HuangHai LP6 Comms 245A 863 x 852 x 45.0
Tianqi-34 Comms 245B
Tianqi-35 Comms 245C
Tianqi-36 Comms 245D
Dec 20 1512 TJS 12 Chang Zheng 3B Xichang Sigint? 246A 201 x 35783 x 28.5
Dec 21 1134 Bandwagon-2 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Rideshare 247
ADD Project 425 SAR-2 Radar 247A?
Dec 21 1417 Strix-2 Electron Mahia LC1B Radar 248A 555 x 581 x 97.6
Dec 23 0535 Starlink Group 12-2 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Comms 249 284 x 292 x 43.0
Dec 25 0745 Resurs-P No. 5 Soyuz-2-1b Baykonur LC31 Imaging 250 286 x 466 x 97.3
Dec 27 0103 DEAR-3 Lijian-1 Jiuquan Micrograv F05 -6300 x 150? x 97
CASAA-Sat Tech F05 -6300 x 150? x 97
Yixian-A Tech F05 -6300 x 150? x 97
Yinglong-1 Met F05 -6300 x 150? x 97
Yangwang-2 Astron F05 -6300 x 150? x 97
Yunyao-1 37? to 42? Meteo F05 -6300 x 150? x 97
Dec 29 0158 Starlink Group 11-3 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 251 273 x 281 x 53.2
Dec 29 0500 UtilitySat Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 252 400 x 65000 x 12.5
NuView Bravo Comms 252
NuView Alpha Comms 252
AGILA Comms 252
Dec 30 1630 SPADEX A PSLV-CA Satish Dhawan FLP Tech 253A 469 x 476 x 55
SPADEX B Tech 253B 469 x 476 x 55
POEM 4 Tech 253C 357 x 475 x 55
Dec 31 0539 Starlink Group 12-6 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Comms 254 269 x 277 x 43
Jan 4 0127 Thuraya 4-NGS Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 01A 428 x 54103 x 26
Jan 6 2000 Shi Jian 25 Chang Zheng 3B Xichang LC 3 Servicing 02A 187 x 35830 x 28.5
Jan 6 2044 Starlink Group 6-71 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 03 272 x 279 x 43.0
Jan 8 1527 Starlink Group 12-11 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Comms 04 272 x 281 x 43.0
Jan 10 0353 USA 463 to 484 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Unk 05 300? x 300? x 70
Jan 10 1911 Starlink Group 12-12 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 06 284 x 292 x 43.0
Jan 13 0300 Weili Kongjian 01 zu Jielong-3 DFHT, Yellow Sea Nav 07 636 x 652 x 55.0
Jan 13 1647 Starlink Group 12-4 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 08 286 x 289 x 43.0
Jan 14 1909 Transporter 12 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E 09
Jan 15 0611 Blue Ghost 1 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Lunar 10 189 x 322453 x 35.0
Resilience Lunar 10 176 x 362529 x 35.2
Jan 16 0703 DS-1/Blue Ring Pathfinder New Glenn Canaveral LC36 Tech 11A 2409 x 19224 x 30.0
Jan 16 2237 Ship 33 Starship Starbase Tech F01 -3170 x 146 x 26
Starlink Simulators 1-10
Jan 17 0407 PAK EO-1 Chang Zheng 2D Jiuquan Imaging 12 516 x 528x 97.5
Tianlu-1 Rem.Sens.12
Lantan-1 Rem.Sens.12
Jan 20 1011 Yunyao-1 37 Gushenxing-1 Jiuquan Met 13 528 x 547 x 97.6
Yunyao-1 38 Met 13
Yunyao-1 39 Met 13
Yunyao-1 40 Met 13
Jitianxing A-05 xing Imaging 13
Jan 21 0524 Starlink Group 13-1 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Comms 14 305 x 312 x 43.0
Jan 21 1545 Starlink Group 11-8 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 15 269 x 277 x 53.2
Table of Recent Suborbital Launches
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Date UT Payload Rocket Site Mission Apogee Target
Dec 12 1630 LRHW CHGB Canaveral LC46 Test 150? Atlantic
Dec 14 0100 STONEHENGE HASTE Wallops I. Hypersonic 300? Atlantic
Jan 6 0300 RV Hwasong-16Na? Chongdong? Test 100 Sea of Japan
Jan 14 0015 HTB-2 T-T-Oriole Wallops I Target 200? Atlantic
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| Jonathan McDowell | |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail |
| USA | twitter: @planet4589 |
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