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Jonathan's Space Report
No. 613 draft 2009 Jun 23 Somerville, MA
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Shuttle and Station
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Gennadiy Padalka (Commander, Russia), Mike Barratt (Flight Engineer 1,
NASA), Koichi Wakata (FE2, Japan-JAXA), Roman Romanenko (FE3, Russia),
Frank DeWinne (FE4, European Space Agency) and Bob Thirsk (FE5, Canadian
Space Agency) are aboard the station as Expedition 20. Soyuz TMA-15,
Soyuz TMA-14 and Progress M-02M are also docked to the Station.
LRO and LCROSS
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LRO entered a 220 x 3100 km x 90 deg lunar orbit on Jun 23. The four 80N
thrusters burned from 0947 to 1026 UTC. On Jun 24 at 1056 UTC
a 12 min LOI-2 burn reduced the orbit to 200 x 1680 km; at 1032 UTC
on Jun 25 LOI-3 sent LRO to a 199 x 740 km x 89.93 deg path; and
LOI-4 at 1225 on Jun 26 resulted in a roughly 200 x 200 km orbit.
On Jun 27 it will enter the commissioning orbit of 31 x 209 km x 90.5 deg.
By Aug 3, when this will have been perturbed to 43 x 197 km x 89.7 deg,
LRO will be ready to go lower, entering an orbit which ranges from 47 x 53 km
at its most circular to 35 x 66 km at its most elliptical.
LCROSS flew 3270 km from the Moon at 1030 UTC on Jun 23 and now
is in an orbit that will take it out to 582000 km from the Earth.
USA 193
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It had been thought that all the debris from the USA 193 satellite,
destroyed by an Aegis SM-3 missile on 2008 Feb 21, had reentered.
However during a routine update of debris found in orbit, a new
piece of the satellite has been found in a 234 x 934 km x 56.1 deg
orbit and cataloged as 2006-057GH.
GOES O
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A new Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is in orbit.
GOES O, which will become GOES 14 after acceptance testing, went up on a
Delta 4 Medium+ variant with a 4-meter fairing and two strap-on solid
boosters. The three Delta burns put it sucessively in 187 x 554 km x
28.5 deg, 268 x 34603 km x 26.6 deg, and 6634 x 35155 km x 12.0 deg
orbits. The on-board R-4D apogee engine will raise the orbit to
geostationary. GOES O is a 601 class satellite built by Boeing (El Segundo).
Early orbit checkout is done by NASA Goddard, and then it will be
controlled by the NOAA satellite center in Suitland, Maryland.
Sirius FM5
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Sirius XM Radio's FM5 satellite was launched on Jun 30 from Baykonur.
The Loral 1300-class satellite with a launch mass of 5976 kg and a dry
mass of 2900 kg flew aboard an ILS/Krunichev Proton-M/Briz-M. The Proton
reached a suborbital trajectory (unusually, the coopi.khrunichev.ru site
did not give the parameters, which were probably around -750 x 150 km x
51.6 deg) and separated from Briz. The Briz burns reached 179 x 179 km x
51.6 deg, 270 x 5000 km x 50.3 deg, 325 x 14534 km x 49.6 deg, 425 x
35818 x 49.2 deg and 4201 x 35975 km x 23.0 deg. The Briz propellant
tank was jettisoned into the third orbit of this sequence.
Briz separated from Sirius FM5 at 0423 UTC on Jul 1.
Terrestar 1
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The second launch of a Loral 1300 satellite in two days was the most
massive communications satellite to date, the 6910 kg Terrestar 1,
which carries an 18-meter deployable antenna for S-band mobile communications.
Ariane 5ECA vehicle 547 reached an initial -1159 x 176 km x 11.8 deg
trajectory and then a 235 x 35901 km x 6.0 deg transfer orbit.
(The suborbital part of the trajectory, quoted in the EADS press kit,
has an unusually high inclination for a Kourou launch and may be a typo).
Terrestar Networks is based in Reston, Virginia.
The histories of Terrestar Corp, its subsidiary Terrestar Networks, and
the related L-band companies SkyTerra Communications and SkyTerra LP are
very tangled. As far as I understand it - which is not very far - it
goes like this:
1995-1996: AMSC (American Mobile Satellite Co) launched AMSC-1, and TMI (Telesat
Mobile, Canada) launched M-SAT 1, two similar L-band M-SAT satellites.
2000: AMSC becomes Motient
2001: Motient and TMI spin off MSV (Mobile Satellite Ventures) as a
joint venture to operate the M-SATs
2001? Motient creates Terrestar Networks to build S-band system,
with other investors.
2003?: SkyTerra Communications (SkyTC) is an
investor in MSV and to some extent in Terrestar.
2006: Big ownership swap.
- MSV becomes a subsidiary of SkyTC
- Terrestar Networks becomes a subsidiary of Motient
2007: Motient renamed Terrestar Corp.
2008: MSV renamed SkyTerra LP, planning launch of SkyTerra 1 and 2.
Table of Recent (orbital) Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
May 5 2024 STSS-ATRR Delta 7920-10C Vandenberg SLC2W Tech 23A
May 7 1837 Progress M-02M Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 24A
May 11 1802 Atlantis STS-125 Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 25A
May 14 1312 Herschel ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Astronomy 26A
Planck ) Astronomy 26B
May 16 0057 Protostar-2 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur Comms 27A
May 19 2355 Tacsat 3 ) Minotaur I Wallops LA0B Imaging 28A
Pharmasat ) Bio 28
CP6 ) Tech 28
HawkSat-1 ) Tech 28
Aerocube 3 ) Tech 28
May 21 2153 Meridian-2? Soyuz-2-1a/Fregat Plesetsk LC43/4 Comms 29A
May 27 1034 Soyuz TMA-15 Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 30A
Jun 18 2132 LRO ) Atlas V 401 Canaveral SLC41 Lunar probe 31A
LCROSS ) Lunar probe 31B
Jun 21 2150 Measat 3a Zenit-3SLB Baykonur LC45 Comms 32A
Jun 27 2251 GOES O Delta 4M+(4,2) Canaveral SLC37B Weather 33A
Jun 30 1910 Sirius FM5 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur Radio 34A
Jul 1 1752 Terrestar 1 Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 35A
Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches
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Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km
Apr 10 0810 RV Topol' Plesetsk Op Test 1000?
Apr 15 0450 Prithvi RV Prithvi II Chandipur Test 80?
Apr 17 1118 FalconLaunch 7 FalconLaunch White Sands Test 108
May 7 HIFIRE-0 Terrier Orion? Woomera Hypersonic 200?
May 19 0436 RV Agni 2 Chandipur Test 300?
May 20 RV Sejjil-2 Semnan Test 800
May 22 1032 MAPHEUS Nike Orion Esrange Micrograv 140
May 28 1652 NASA 41.080NR Terrier Orion Wallops Hypersonic 130?
(SOAREX VII)
May 29 1325 Maracati 1 Improved Orion Alcantara Test 93
Jun 6 ABL Target Terrier Lynx San Nicolas Target 100?
Jun 13 ABL Target Terrier Lynx San Nicolas Target 100?
Jun 26 0930 NASA 41.083UO Terrier Orion Wallops Education 117
Jun 29 1001 Mk 12 RV ) Minuteman 3 Vandenberg Op Test 1300?
Mk 12 RV ) (GT195?)
Mk 12 RV )
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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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