Jonathan's Space Report No. 653 2012 Jan 30 Somerville MA USA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Space Station ------------- Expedition 30 continues with Soyuz TMA-22 docked at Poisk and Soyuz TMA-03M docked to the Rassvet module. Progress M-13M undocked from the Pirs module on Jan 23 at 2210 UTC into a 375 x 405 km orbit. It made two burns to reach a 493 x 508 km orbit, and ejected the Chibis-M scientific microsatellite at 2318 UTC on Jan 24. Progress M-13M was then deorbited at 0225 UTC on Jan 25 into a 56 x 514 km orbit. It entered the atmosphere at 0304 UTC, with the debris falling in the South Pacific at 0318 UTC. Progress M-14M was launched on Jan 25 and docked with the Pirs module at 0009 UTC on Jan 28. FOBOS-GRUNT REENTRY ------------------- At 1636 UTC on Jan 15, FG's orbit was 112 x 124 km x 51.4 deg. According to the Russian `space control network' the spacecraft was expected to have reentered about 1745 UTC on Jan 15, over the Pacific Ocean. Other reports from the Russian `ballistics' calculations suggested a slightly later reentry predicted at 1759 UTC over Goias state in Brazil. On Jan 23 Space-Track released an estimate reported that entry at 80 km was at 1746 UTC +/- 1 min, off the coast of Chile at 46S 87W; this estimate seems likely to be reliable and is probably derived from DSP infrared sensors (and at least gets credit for quoting an error bar). The quoted location matches the final element set's ground track at about 1746:40 UTC - I will combined that estimated time with the quoted 1 minute error bar. On Jan 25 ESA announced a reentry time at 10 km of 1745 UTC, with an uncertainty of +/-7.5 min (1 sigma; personal communication from Heiner Klinkrad). Adopting ESA's estimated descent time of 7 minutes from 80 km to 10 km, this corresponds to an 80 km reentry at 1738 UTC +/- 7.5min, consistent with the Space-Track value within the quoted uncertainties, Unfortunately you can't use the standard orbit propagators to figure out what geographical position the 10-km-altitude time corresponds to, since the atmosphere slows the debris down a lot. Models of the UARS reentry suggested that the denser debris, which might survive reentry, impacts 800 to 1200 km downrange from the 80 km point. Taking that as a model for FG, and including the +/- 1 minute error range for the initial starting point around 1746:40UTC, I derive a range of 84W 45S to 71W 38S for the likely position of dense debris impact based on the Space-Track (USSTRATCOM) data. This region is in the south-east Pacific and stretches across the Chilean coast north of Valdivia and across the Araucania region. to just short of the Chilean/Argentine border northeast of Temuco. Taking the centers of the relevant ranges gives a point just off the Chilean coast, near 76W 41S. I believe it is likely that all the debris hit the ocean, but it's also entirely possible that some pieces reached the ground in the Araucania region of Chile. Only about 100 kg of the 13000 kg satellite was expected to reach the Earth's surface according to Russian sources, while the remainder would have burned up and melted high in the upper atmosphere. As you can see, even ten days post-reentry for a well studied event, it can be tough to figure out exactly where a spacecraft came down when it has undergone natural reentry from an atmosphere-skimming circular orbit. This may be contrasted with deliberate deorbits from higher altitude, like the Progress M-13M entry, where the steep angle of entry into the atmosphere yields a well-understood time and location. WGS 4 ----- The 4th Wideband Global Satcom satellite was launched on Jan 20 into supersynchronous geostationary transfer orbit. The Boeing 702 satellite provides high bandwidth communications for the US military and is operated by US Army Space Command. Chinese launches ---------------- On Jan 9 the zi yuan san hao (ZY-3) mapping satellite was launched, together with the small 28 kg VesselSat 2, built by LuxSpace for Orbcomm's AIS (maritime vessel tracking) system. On Jan 13 ZY-3 was in a 498 x 506 km x 97.5 deg orbit, Vesselsat-2 in a 489 x 500 km orbit and the CZ-4B third stage in a 219 x 487 km orbit. The second Chinese launch this month was the fengyun erhao 07 xing (FY-2 satellite 07), also called FY-2F. This geostationary weather satellite was launched to a 362 x 35773 km x 24.3 deg geostationary transfer orbit. GRAIL and NPP --------------- The two GRAIL lunar satellites have been renamed Ebb and Flow, following a competition in which school students suggested names. The NPP weather satellite has been renamed Suomi NPP after Verner Suomi (1915-1995) who was a pioneer of NASA's early weather satellites and flew the first cloud cover sensors on Vanguard 2 and Tiros 1. Passing rock ------------- Asteroid 2012 BX34 made a close approach to Earth in a 59023 x -80873 km x 80.18 deg hyperbolic orbit (C3 = 87.7 km**2/s**2) at 1525 UTC on Jan 27, over about 150W 56S. This is sufficiently above GEO altitude that it probably didn't come too close to any satellites (the closest pass I've found was to OGO 1 at 19000 km distance). It missed Chandra by 173000 km - phew! Suborbital launches ------------------- The second Terrier/Improved Malemute flight was launched on Jan 11. The T/IM is an uprated version of the Terrier Malemute developed by Sandia Labs, which made at least 46 flights between 1974 and 2004. I'm still waiting to hear what apogee the new flight reached. JAXA's S-520-26 launch from Uchinoura released three lithium clouds for upper atmosphere studies. In the last JSR I missed the Dec 10 launch of Webster Cash's CODEX mission, NASA 36.274UH, which was flown to get soft X-ray spectra of the Vela region. Table of Recent (orbital) Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Dec 1 2107 Beidou DW10 Chang Zheng 3A Xichang Navsat 73A Dec 11 1117 Amos 5 ) Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur Comms 74A Luch 5A ) DataRelay 74B Dec 12 0121 JSE Reda-3 gouki H-IIA 202 Tanegashima Radar 75A Dec 17 0203 Pleiades HR1 ) Soyuz ST-A CSG ELS Imaging 76A Elisa 1 ) Sigint 76 Elisa 2 ) Sigint 76 Elisa 3 ) Sigint 76 Elisa 4 ) Sigint 76 Fasat-Charlie) Imaging 76 Dec 19 1641 Nigcomsat 1R Chang Zheng 3BE Xichang LC2 Comms 77A Dec 21 1316 Soyuz TMA-03M Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 78A Dec 22 0326 ZY-1 02C Chang Zheng 4B Taiyuan Imaging 79A Dec 23 1208 Meridian Soyuz-2-1B Plesetsk Comms F04 Dec 28 1709 Globalstar M084) Soyuz-2-1A Baykonur LC31 Comms 80A Globalstar M080) Comms 80B Globalstar M082) Comms 80C Globalstar M092) Comms 80D Globalstar M090) Comms 80E Globalstar M086) Comms 80F Jan 9 0317 ZY-3 ) Chang Zheng 4B Taiyuan Imaging 01A Vesselsat 2 ) Comms 01B Jan 13 0056 FY-2(07) Chang Zheng 3A Xichang Weather 02A Jan 20 0038 WGS 4 Delta 4M+(5,4) Canaveral SLC37B Comms 03A Jan 24 2318 Chibis-M - PM-13M, LEO Science 62C Jan 25 2306 Progress M-14M Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 04A Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Dec 2 2200 VS30 V08 VS-30 Natal Space sci? 173? Dec 3 0721 ICI-3 VS-30/Orion Svalbard Auroral 354 Dec 10 1030 NASA 36.274UH Black Brant IX White Sands Astronomy 300? Dec 19? MR-30 payload MR-30 Kapustin Yar Test 304 Dec 20 0848 S-310-40 S-310 Uchinoura Ionosphere 180 Dec 23 RV x 6? Bulava K-535, White Sea Salvo test 1000? Dec 23 RV x 6? Bulava K-535, White Sea Salvo test 1000? Dec 27 1200 RV x 6? UR-100NU Baykonur Test 1000? Jan 11 1325 NASA 12.074GT Terrier Malemute Wallops Test 500? Jan 12 1451 S-520-26 S-520 Uchinoura Atm Sci 298 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail | | USA | jcm@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html | | Back issues: http://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: http://www.planet4589.org/mailman/listinfo/jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'