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Jonathan's Space Report
No. 623 draft 2010 Feb 8 Somerville, MA
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Shuttle and Station
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Space Shuttle OV-105 Endeavour launched from Kennedy Space Center in
Florida at 0914 UTC on Feb 8. This is Shuttle mission STS-130, Station
flight 20A. From the top of Prospect Hill in Somerville, Massachusetts
we got a great view of Endeavour rising above the horizon, vanishing at
main engine cutoff as it arced over the Boston city skyline, and then
intermittently reappearing again at least four times, for about 2
seconds out of every 10. It's been suggested that this is the RCS jets
firing but I've seen this on five launches now and it seems too periodic
- maybe it's venting from the ET?
At 0922 Endeavour entered a 58 x 229 km x 51.6 deg orbit. Then at 0951
the OMS engines ignited for a 1min33s, 43.3m/s burn to raise perigee out
of the atmosphere. By 2010 UTC, after a further burn, Endeavour was in
a 206 x 233 km x 51.7 deg orbit.
The Expedition 22 crew currently consists of Jeff Williams, Maksim
Suraev, Oleg Kotov, T.J. Creamer and Soichi Noguchi.
Soyuz TMA-16 is docked at Poisk; Soyuz TMA-17 is
docked with the nadir port on Zarya, Progress M-03M is at the Pirs port,
Progress M-04M is at the Zvezda aft port, and the PMA-2 and PMA-3 ports
are empty.
Solar Dynamics Observatory
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SDO launch date is currently Feb 10. Go SDO!
Missile tests
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The DRDO (India's defense missile agency) launched the fourth Agni III
missile from the IC4 pad on Inner Wheeler Island in Orissa on Feb 7. It
flew south or southwest over the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean,
splashing down in the southern hemisphere after a 3500 km range flight
to orbital parameters of around -4070 x 350 km x (80 to 131) deg - the
exact direction of the flight is not known.
Table of Recent (orbital) Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
Feb 3 0345 Progress M-04M Soyuz-U Baykonur Cargo 03A
Feb 8 0914 Endeavour (STS-130) Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 04A
Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches
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Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km
Feb 3 Kavoshgar-3 Kavoshgar Iran Bio 100?
Feb 7 0520 Agni III RV Agni III Chandipur R&D flight 350
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| Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : jcm@host.planet4589.org |
| USA | jcm@cfa.harvard.edu |
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