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Jonathan's Space Report
No. 850 draft                                                      2025 Sep 17  Somerville, MA, USA
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ISS
----

Expedition 73 continues.

Cygnus NG-23 arrived at ISS on Sep 18; Canadarm-2 grappled it at 1124 UTC and berthed it at the Unity module
nadir CBM port at 1410 UTC.

The five J-SSOD-23 cubesat payloads were deployed from the Kibo module on Sep 19.

Chinese Space Station
----------------------

Astronauts Chen Z. and Wang J. made a spacewalk on Sep 25 from the Wentian module.
Hatch open was at 1145 UTC and hatch close was at 1735 UTC, for a duration of 5h50m.

Starlink launches
------------------

Starlink Group 10-61 (28 Ku sats) was launched on Sep 18 from Canaveral.
Starlink Group 17-12 (24 Ku sats) was launched on Sep 19 from Vandenberg.
Starlink Group 10-27 (28 Ku sats) was launched on Sep 21 from Canaveral.
Starlink Group 10-15 (28 Ku sats) was launched on Sep 25 from Canaveral.
Starlink Group 17-11 (24 Ku sats) was launched on Sep 26 from Vandenberg.
Starlink Group 11-20 (28 Ku sats) was launched on Sep 29 from Vandenberg.

Other Falcon 9 launches
------------------------

On Sep 22 SpaceX launched NROL-48, the 11th NRO Proliferated Architechture launch of Starshield satellites.

Bion-M
------

The Bion-M No. 2 mission, with its cargo of mice, landed near Orenburg at about 0700 UTC Sep 19.
The jettisoned service module burnt up over the Arctic.

Zoljanah
--------

Iran launched an unknown vehicle from Semnan on Sep 18; reports suggest it was the Zoljanah
launch vehicle on its third flight test. The last test in 2022 was a suborbital flight with a dummy
upper stage. It seems possible that this test may have been an orbital attempt, although remarks by
Iranian officials raise the possibility that it was a suborbital ICBM test based on the Zoljanah hardware.
However, in any case, the vehicle ran into problems during first stage flight and failed a few kilometers up.

Kuiper KA-03
------------

ULA launched an Atlas 5 (serial AV-108) on Sep 25 with 27 more Kuiper internet satellites aboard.


IMAP launch press kit
---------------------

I have been frustrated by the lack of quantitative information in the NASA, NOAA and Princeton
press kits for the spacecraft on the IMAP mission. So, here is my own attempt:

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 from KSC on 1130:50 UTC Sep 23
carrying three payloads to a trans-Lagrange trajectory with C3 of about
-0.68 km2/s2.  IMAP, SWFO-L1 and Carruthers will end up at Sun-Earth L1;
the F9 second stage will likely enter solar orbit. The F9 first stage landed on
the droneship Just Read The Instructions.

IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) is  mission 5 in the
NASA STP (Solar Terrestrial Probe) series; PI D. McComas (Princeton). It
was built and is operated by APL, and its mission is to study the flow
of the interstellar gas near the Earth using energetic neutral atom   
(ENA) imagers. IMAP is a cylinder 0.9m tall 2.4m dia plus a
magnetometer boom, length 2.5m (for total span 4.9m) with a launch mass
of 900 kg wet including 144 kg of hydrazine for its 12 L3Harris MR-111G
hydrazine thrusters.

The instruments are:
IMAP-Lo (UNH) - a  low energy ENA imager with a 9 degree field of view (FOV), covering the 0.005-1 keV energy range.
IMAP-Hi (LANL and others) - a  pair of high energy ENA imagers covering the 0.4-15.6 keV range, scanning the ecliptic plane and poles
IMAP-Ultra (APL) - a  pair of high energy ENA imagers covering the 3-300 keV range, with 2 deg angular resolution
MAG (Imperial College) - a vector triaxial fluxgate magnetometer, with 500nT range.
SWAPI (Princeton) - the Solar Wind and Pickup Ions instrument to study H and He ions in the 0.1 to 20 keV/q energy range
HIT (GSFC) -High Energy Ion Telescope,  ion and electron energetic particle spectrometer,  energy range 2-40 MeV/nuc.
GLOWS (CBK PAN, Poland) - Global Solar Wind Structure, map heliospheric resonant backscatter glow of H Lyman-alpha 1216A and He 584A.
SWE (LANL)  Solar Wind Electrons -  3D distribution of thermal and suprathermal e, 1 eV-5 keV.
CoDICE (SwRI) Compact Dual Ion Composition Experiment,  mass/charge of ions. Electrostatic analyser with a TOF/E system to
measure 3D velocity distribution function, charge and mass of 0.5 to  80 keV/q ions (CoDICE-LO) and
energetic particle spectrometer (CoDICE-HI) for mass and direction of 0.03-5 MeV/nucleon ions and 20-600 keV e.
IDEX (CU-LASP)  Interstellar dust experiment; impact ionization / time of flight MCP detector to measure mass spectrum of component elements.


Carruthers Geocorona Observatory  is a NASA STP Mission of Opportunity,
led by PI L. Waldrop (UIUC) and built by BAE Systems (former Ball). It
carries GCI (Geocoronal Imager). a set of ultraviolet imagers developed
by UC Berkeley to study hydrogen Lyman-alpha emission from the Earth's
exosphere, sensitive in approximately the 110-140 nm band.  Mass 240 kg
wet; size 1.72 x 1.08 x 0.97m . The GCI consists of the NFI (Narrow
Field Imager), with a 3.6 deg field of view imaging out to 7 Earth
radii, and the WFI (Wide Field Imager) with an 18 degree field of view
out to 30 Earth radii.   


SWFO-L1 (Space Weather Follow On - L1) is a NOAA-NESDIS space weather
observatory built by BAE Systems/Boulder using the Evolve bus. Mass is
377 kg wet 304 kg dry. Size is roughly 1.5 x 1.5 x 2.0m with a 5.6m long
magnetometer boom.

Its instruments are:

CCOR-2 (NRL) Compact Coronagraph, imaging 3.5 to 26 solar radii with 65 arcsec resolution and a 4 Mpix camera sensitive in the  470-740 nm band.
SWIPS (SwRI), Solar Wind Plasma Sensor, electrostatic analysers for velocity, density, temperature of low energy ions, 0.2-32 keV/e,  and protons at 180-2500 km/s.
STIS (Berkeley), Suprathermal Ion Sensor, measuring 25 keV - 6 MeV high energy ions
MAG (UNH/SwRI/), a fluxgate magnetometer with 64 vectors per second.



Chinese Commercial Launches
----------------------------

A China Long March Rocket Co. Jielong-3 was launched from the DFHT barge
near Rizhao on Sep 24 with the 6th batch of Geely autonomous-driving-support satellites.
Beijing Daxue (Peking U.)'s Shikongxing 1 was also aboard.
The Jielong-3 4th stage was deorbited soon after launch and appears to be the source of
a large debris object found in Argentina later that day.

SAST launches
--------------

On Sep 26 SAST launched a CZ-4C from Jiuquan with the Feng Yung 3 hao 08 xing polar weather satellite
to sun-synch orbit with 01:41 local time descending node.

On Sep 27 SAST launched a CZ-6A from Taiyuan with five SatNet LEO Group 11
(Weixing hulianwang digui 11 zu weixing) internet satellites.

On Sep 29 SAST launched a CZ-2D from Xichang  to a 35 deg orbit with the Shiyan 30-01 and 30-02 satellites,
built by SAST for `tests of Earth observation technology'. The CZ-2D second stage was left in a similar orbit.

E-Space
--------

The five secret commercial satellites launched by Electron on Aug 23
have finally been identified in Space-Track as Calistus A to Calistus E,
with the launching state identified as Rwanda. This flag-of-convenience
basically confirms the satellites belong to E-Space.  None have yet
manuevered.


SDA
---

The 21 SDA/York Space Systems satellites launched  on Sep 10 have been cataloged as
"Praetorian SDA-601" to "Praetorian SDA-621".  (Actually the Space Track entry uses an underscore
after "SDA" not a dash, but that messes with my software so I refuse to adopt that orthography.)


Table of Recent Orbital (and near-Orbital) Launches
---------------------------------------------------

Date UT       Name			          Launch Vehicle	 Site		 Mission  INTL.  Catalog  Perigee Apogee  Incl	 Notes

Sep 10 1412   Praetorian SDA-601 to 621                Falcon 9           Vandenberg SLC4E Comms   203  940 x 943 x 81.3
Sep 11 1554   Progress MS-32                           Soyuz-2-1a         Baykonur LC31    Cargo   204A 187 x 219 x 51.7
Sep 12 0156   Nusantara Lima                           Falcon 9           Canaveral LC40   Comms   205A 249 x 15729 x 26.5
Sep 13 0210   Kosmos-2595 (Glonass)                    Soyuz-2-1b/Fregat  Plesetsk LC43/3  Nav     206B 19136 x 19156 x 64.8
              Kosmos-2596 (Mozhaets-6)                                                     Nav     206A
Sep 13 1755   Starlink Group 17-10                     Falcon 9           Vandenberg SLC4E Comms   207  255 x 269 x 97.6
Sep 14 2211   Cygnus NG-23                             Falcon 9           Canaveral LC40   Cargo   208A 242 x 245 x 51.6
Sep 16 0106   WHJSW 07-01 to 07-04?                    Chang Zheng 2C/YZ-1S Jiuquan        Comms   209  807 x 811 x 50.0
Sep 18 0930   Starlink Group 10-61                     Falcon 9           Canaveral LC40   Comms   210  263 x 274 x 53.2
Sep 18 1500?  Zoljanah test payload                    Zoljanah           Semnan           Test    F08 -6370? x 10? x 55?
Sep 18?       USA 556                                                   LDPE-2, GSO        Unk    22144S 35700 x 36000 x 2?
              USA 557                                                                      Unk    22144T 35700 x 36000 x 2?
Sep 19 0850   GHS-01                                                    ISS, LEO           Tech   98067 410 x 411 x 51.6
              Dragonfly                                                                    Tech   98067 410 x 411 x 51.6
Sep 19 1040   ASC                                                                          Tech   98067 410 x 411 x 51.6
              Hamorun                                                                      Tech   98067 410 x 411 x 51.6
              Horai                                                                        Tech   98067 410 x 411 x 51.6
Sep 19 1631   Starlink Group 17-12                     Falcon 9           Vandenberg SLC4E Comms   211  256 x 269 x 97.6
Sep 21 1053   Starlink Group 10-27                     Falcon 9           Canaveral LC40   Comms   212  261 x 271 x 53.2
Sep 22 1738   USA 558 to 579                           Falcon 9           Vandenberg SLC4E Comms   213  250?x260? x70?
Sep 24 0756   Geely Group 06                           Jielong-3        DFHT, Rizhao       Comms   214  583 x 605 x 50
              Shikongxing 1
Sep 24 1130   IMAP                                     Falcon 9           Kennedy LC39A    Science 215 188 x 1164400 x 28.4
              SWFO-L1                                                                      Science 215 188 x 1164400 x 28.4
              Carruthers                                                                   Science 215 188 x 1164400 x 28.
Sep 25 0839   Starlink Group 10-15                     Falcon 9           Canaveral LC40   Comms   216 265 x 277 x 53.2
Sep 25 1209   Kuiper KA-03                             Atlas V 551        Canaveral LC41   Comms   217 455 x 466 x 51.9
Sep 26 0426   Starlink Group 17-11                     Falcon 9           Vandenberg SLC4E Comms   218 254 x 267 x 97.6
Sep 26 1928   Feng Yun 3-08                            Chang Zheng 4C     Jiuquan          Meteo   219A 798 x 814 x 98.6
Sep 27 1240   WHDW 11-01 to 11-05                      Chang Zheng 6A     Taiyuan          Comms   220  996 x 1006 x 86.5
Sep 29 0204   Starlink Group 11-20                     Falcon 9           Vandenberg SLC4E Comms   221 258 x 271 x 53.2
Sep 29 0300   Shiyan 30-01                             Chang Zheng 2D     Xichang LC3      Radar?  222A 584 x 591 x 35
              Shiyan 30-02                                                                 Radar?  222B

Table of Recent Suborbital Launches
-----------------------------------

Aug 28 0243   TOMEX+ 41.123CE   Terrier Imp.Orion   Wallops LA2 ARC      Atmospheric     154?    Atlantic
Aug 28 0244   TOMEX+ 41.124CE   Terrier Imp.Orion   Wallops LA2 MRL      Atmospheric     154?    Atlantic
Aug 28 0248   TOMEX+ 36.335CE   Black Brant 9       Wallops LA2 50K      Atmospheric     135?    Atlantic
Sep 17        USN RVs           Trident II D-5      SLBM, ETR LP6        Test            1000?   S Atlantic
Sep 18 1300   NS-35             New Shepard         W Texas              Micrograv       105     W Texas
Sep 18?       USN RVs           Trident II D-5      SLBM, ETR LP6        Test            1000?   S Atlantic
Sep 20?       USN RVs           Trident II D-5      SLBM, ETR LP6        Test            1000?   S Atlantic
Sep 21 2328?  USN RVs           Trident II D-5      SLBM, ETR LP6        Test            1000?   S Atlantic
Sep 23 0000   JENNA             HASTE               Wallops LA0C         Hypersonic      200?    Atlantic
Oct  1 0028   JUSTIN            HASTE               Wallops LA0C         Hypersonic      200?    Atlantic

.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
|  Jonathan McDowell                 |                                    |
|  Somerville MA 02143               |  inter : planet4589 at gmail       |
|  USA                               |  twitter: @planet4589              |
|                                                                         |
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