Jonathan's Space Report
No. 841 draft 2025 Jan 1 Somerville, MA
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The 2024 annual report is available at https://planet4589.org/space/papers/space24.pdf
Latest corrected version is v1.2, if you downloaded an earlier version please replace it.
This page will be pulled up to date over the next few days now that I'm back from travel.
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.
Erratum:
Starshield launch 6 on Dec 17 had 22 sats, not 21.
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.
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.
A group of NRO Starshield satellites were launched to 70 deg orbit on Jan 10.
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.
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.
Jielong-3
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A JL-3 was launched from a barge in the Yellow Sea on Jan 13, putting ten Weili Kongjian GNSS-augmentation
navigation satellites in orbit for Centispace.
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 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.
At this point, 2245 UTC, the vehicle was in a roughly -3170 x 146 km x
26.4 deg orbit. Either a RUD or an automated destruct now occurred and
Ship 33 was destroyed. The debris 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.
The planned deployment of 10 dummy V3 Starlink 'simulators' to a suborbital
trajectory did not occur.
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 43.0
Jan 4 0127 Thuraya 4-NGS Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 01A 428 x 54103 x 26.9
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 Starshield 7 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E 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
Jan 13 1647 Starlink Group 12-4 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 08
Jan 14 1909 Transporter 12 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E 09
Jan 15 0611 Blue Ghost 1 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Lunar 10
Resilience Lunar 10
Jan 16 0703 DS-1/Blue Ring Pathfinder New Glenn Canaveral LC36 Tech 11A
Jan 16 2237 Ship 33 Starship Starbase Tech F01 -3170 x 146 x 26.4
Starlink Simulators 1-10
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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