Jonathan's Space Report No. 745 2018 Feb 8 Somerville, MA --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- International Space Station --------------------------- Expedition 54 continues with ISS Commander Aleskandr Misurkin and flight engineers Mark Vande Hei, Joe Acaba, Anton Shkaplerov, Scott Tingle and Norishige Kanai. Vande Hei and Tingle made spacewalk EVA-47 on Jan 23, using suits EMU 3003 and 3004, to replace the LEE-B robot hand on the Canadarm-2. They removed LEE 201 and stowed it on External Stowage Platform 2; they then took LEE 204 off ESP-2 and installed it on the arm, making it the new LEE B. Unfortunately, according to a report by nasaspaceflight.com, the new LEE has been having problems and the swap may need to be reversed. The Quest airlock was depressurized around 1145 UTC and repressurized at 1913 UTC. Misurkin and Shkaplerov, in suits Orlan-MKS 4 and Orlan-MK 6, made spacewalk VKD-44 on Feb 2. They depressurized Pirs by around 1511 UTC and opened the hatch at 1534 UTC. The astronauts floated to the aft end of Zvezda and replaced a receiver box on the large ONA (Lira) antenna. The ONA can be moved into four defined positions at 90 degrees from one another; it was launched in 2000 with the antenna stowed pointing down, blocking the aft docking port, and then moved 90 deg to position 1, where I believe it has stayed since. The ONA was moved back to launch position for the work. The old box was jettisoned into orbit at 1941 UTC. After the new ShA-317A-II box was installed, ONA refused to return to its original position 1, snagging on an old ATV rendezvous target. Eventually it was freed, but ended up in position 3, 180 degrees from that intended; this was deemed acceptable for the time being. The astronauts closed the hatch at 2347 UTC and repressurized the airlock at 2353 UTC. This was a record duration Russian EVA using the Roskosmos criterion of hatch open/hatch closed, 8hr 13 min; it is the 4th longest EVA ever by this criterion, after STS-102 EVA1, STS-49 EVA-3, and ISS US EVA-18. By the criterion I use myself (50 mbar depress to repress) it is the second longest spacewalk by anyone, 8hr 42min - the record is held by Helms and Voss on STS-102 EVA-1 at 9h 00min. It should be noted that Helms and Voss spent a lot of time in the depressurized airlock instead of being outside - I count that, because I see work in a depressurized environment as the interesting thing. If you only care about being actually outside the spacecraft, I believe (my figures are not so accurate for this) the record is 8h 23min, shared by Thout and Hieb during STS-49 EVA-3. In these egress-to-ingress rankings Misurkin is in 13th place at about 7h42min, and Shkaplerov shares 14th place with Hoshide at about 7h38min. Ariane anomaly -------------- Ariane flight VA241, using vehicle L5101, was launched from Kourou on Jan 25 carrying the SES-14 and Al Yah 3 communications satellites. The rocket appears to have flown on a wildly incorrect azimuth, heading southeast instead of east, and although the payloads were inserted into geotransfer orbit with a near-correct apogee and perigee, the orbital inclination was 20 degrees instead of 3 degrees. This will require the satellites to use a lot of extra propellant to reach their final geostationary locations. Arianespace has not yet explained the error but it is hard to see any way for this to happen other than a mission planning/preparation error in which the rocket was commanded to fly on an incorrect launch azimuth. In general accordance with the rules I defined in JSR 669, with this launch falling at the low end of the 'orbit usable but not nominal' range, I am giving the launch a 0.65 score. This gives the Ariane 5 overall a score of 96.8 percent over 97 launches; the Ariane 5 ECA model has 97.9 percent over 65 launches. Falcon Heavy ------------ The first Falcon Heavy launch was successfully carried out on Feb 6 at 2045 UTC. The vehicle used center core stage B1033, with two side cores made from reused Falcon 9 first stages: B1023 and B1025. The side cores landed back simultaneously at landing zones LZ-1 and LZ-2, located on the site of the Cape's old Pad 13. The center core aimed for the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You, but missed it by 100 metres when two of the three engines to be used for the landing burn failed to restart. Stage 2 fired to enter a low parking orbit, probably around 185 x 185 km x 29.0 deg, at 2053 UTC. After a coast to the equator, stage 2 made its second burn at 2113 UTC to place itself in a 184 x 6953 km x 29.0 deg orbit, taking it into the Van Allen belts. Falcon spent two orbits of the Earth in this elliptical path. On approach to second perigee, at 0230 UTC Feb 7, the stage was passing over Los Angeles when it reignited for the third burn, placing it on an escape trajectory. Attached to the second stage payload adapter was Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster car, together with a SpaceX prototype spacesuit containing a mannequin named Starman, and several cameras. I assume the Roadster remains attached to the second stage and has not separated, but this has not been confirmed. The escape orbit is 717 x -79898 km x 28.9 deg with a C3 of 12.0 km**2/s**2. Roadster passes the orbit of the moon 0419 GMT Feb 8; it leaves the Earth-Moon system (Hill sphere) 1800 GMT Feb 11 to enter a 0.99 x 1.71 AU x 1.1 deg heliocentric orbit. Roadster passes the orbit of Mars in Jul 2018, reaching aphelion on Nov 19. Congratulations to SpaceX and thanks to them for providing trajectory data; asteroid observers are trying to pick up the object. ASNARO-2 -------- On Jan 17 the Japanese space agency JAXA launched the third Epsilon rocket carrying the Asnaro-2 radar satellite to orbit. Asnaro-2 is operated by the trade ministry's USEF space applications center. CZ-11 ----- The CALT Chang Zheng 11 rocket made its third flight on Jan 19, placing two more Jilin-1 video satellites in orbit as well as 4 cubesats. - Jilin-1 Shipin 07, 08 xing (Jilin-1 Video 7 and 8), imaging sats for Chang Guang Satellite Technology Ltd (CGSTL) in Changchun, Jilin province. - Hunan xiangjiang xinqu hao weixing (Hunan Xiangjiang New Area satellite, also Tianyi-2), a 6U cubesat with technology experiments. developed by Tianyi Research Institute in Changsha, Hunan province, - Quan Tu Tong 1 (also Tianyi-6), a 6U cubesat for search-and-rescue service experiments built by Changsha-based Tianyi for Beijing-based Quan Tu Tong Co (``Full Map Network Co.'') It carries navigation, comm, imaging, AIS, and amateur radio payloads - KIPP, a 3U cubesat for Kepler Communications of Toronto, to server as a pathfinder for their proposed constellation. The satellite is named in honor of a fictional robot, from the movie 'Interstellar'. - Huia'an hao Enlai xing, a 2U cubesat from schoolkids at Huai'an Youth Comprehensive Development Base, Jiangsu province, and named in honour of Zhou Enlai who was from the area. It has a drag brake experiment. The satellites were launched to 500 km SSO; as with the previous CZ-11 mission, some objects were also placed in higher apogee 530 x 1070 km orbits; these are probably separation motor covers. SBIRS ----- United Launch Alliance flew Atlas mission AV-076 on Jan 20 to place the SBIRS GEO-4 missile early warning satellite in geotransfer orbit. The Centaur stage made an additional maneuver at 0202 UTC to lower its perigee, and reentered around 1013 UTC over the Pacific SW of Hawaii. RocketLab --------- The RocketLab Electron launch vehicle reached a successful orbit on only its second mission on Jan 21. The `Still Testing' mission carried RocketLab's Humanity Star (a 1-meter polyhedron designed for high visibility) and three cubesats - Dove Pioneer (satellite 0F1C) for Planet, and two SpireGlobal Lemur-2 satellites. Dove and Humanity Star were deployed in elliptical orbit; a previously undisclosed third stage then fired to circularize the orbit at 500 km and deployed the Lemurs. I have included 'Still Testing' in the launch list as a satellite, since the stage probably carried diagnostic equipment to measure the launch environment. Yaogan-30 group 4 ------------------ The fourth triplet of Yaogan-30 Group satellites, CX-5-10 to CX-5-12, were launched on Jan 25. A small sub-payload was also deployed, Weina-1, also called CX-6-6. GovSat-1 -------- SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 on Jan 31, delivering the GovSat-1 payload to geotransfer orbit. GovSat-1, also known as SES-16, is an OrbitalATK Geostar-3 payload for X- and Ka- band military communications. It is owned by LuxGovSat S.A., a joint venture of the Luxembourg government and SES. Kanopus/Soyuz ------------- The third orbital launch from Russia's Vostochniy spaceport was a success, following the failure of a Soyuz-2-1B/Fregat launch in November. This time the rocket was a Soyuz-2-1A/Fregat. The Soyuz third stage was suborbital; the Fregat made two burns to a circular 505 km orbit and deployed two imaging satellites in the Russian government's Kanopus-V series. After two more Fregat burns to a 580 km orbit, 9 small satellites were deployed: four 8 kg, 24-cm S-NET satellites for the Technical University of Berlin, four 3U cubesats for Spire Global, and a reflight of the D-Star One communications cubesat design for German Orbital Systems, whose first D-Star One was lost in the failure of the previous Vostochniy launch. SS-520-5 -------- JAXA/ISAS launched the SS-520-5 rocket from Uchinoura on Feb 3. The 2.6 tonne vehicle is the lighest orbital launch vehicle by a wide margin (ISAS' 9-tonne Lambda 4S was previously the record holder). Payload is a single 3U cubesat with a store-forward communications experiment. TRICOM-1R, for the University of Tokyo, was named Tasuki after reaching its 187 x 2012 km x 30.1 deg orbit. Zuma redux ---------- Bill Harwood (CBS) notes that NRO has denied ownership of Zuma. However, it could still be that NRO is the customer for the data and the contractor, e.g. Northrop Grumman, was to operate the satellite on NRO's behalf. Other possibilities are that, after 50 years of subsuming its space activities within NRO, CIA is back to having its own satellites; or that a new US secret agency has started space activities. Some have suggested the possibility that the satellite is actually for a foreign ally of the US, but this seems unlikely to me as the most obvious suspects have been pretty open about their military satellites. Orbituary --------- The 8-tonne Zenit second stage rocket from the December launch of Angosat-1 reentered at 2337 UTC Jan 27 over the Ucayali region of Peru. This is likely to be one of the two biggest uncontrolled reentries this year, along with Tiangong-1 whose reentry is currently expected in late March. (thanks to Collin Krum for the idea for the section name.) Table of Recent Orbital Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. Catalog Perigee Apogee Incl Notes Jan 8 0100 Zuma (USA 280) Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Radar? 01A S43098 1000?x 1000?x 50.0 Jan 9 0324 Gaojing-1 03 ) Chang Zheng 2D Taiyuan Imaging 02A S43099 523 x 536 x 97.6 Gaojing-1 04 ) Imaging 02B S43100 510 x 529 x 97.6 Jan 11 2318 Beidou DW 26 ) Chang Zheng 3B Xichang Navigation 03A S43107 21538 x 22194 x 55.0 Beidou DW 27 ) Navigation 03B S43108 21543 x 22194 x 55.0 Jan 12 0359 Cartosat 2ER ) PSLV-XL Satish Dhawan FLP Imaging 04A S43111 495 x 510 x 97.6 0930LT INS-1C ) Imaging 04 495 x 508 x 97.6 LEO Vantage 1 ) Comms 04C S43113 495 x 508 x 97.6 ICEYE-X1 ) Radar 04D S43114 495 x 508 x 97.6 VividX2 ) Imaging 04E S43115 495 x 508 x 97.6 Arkyd-6A ) Imaging 04V S43130 495 x 508 x 97.6 CICERO 7 ) Weather 04AJ S43143 495 x 508 x 97.6 Landmapper-BC3 ) Imaging 04H S43118 495 x 508 x 97.6 PICSAT ) Astronomy 04W S43131 495 x 508 x 97.6 Tyvak-61C ) Astronomy 04AK S43144 495 x 508 x 97.6 CANYVAL-X1/X2 ) Tech 04 495 x 508 x 97.6 CNUSail-1 ) Tech 04 495 x 508 x 97.6 STEP Cube Lab ) Tech 04 495 x 508 x 97.6 KAUSAT-5 ) Imaging 04 495 x 508 x 97.6 KHUSAT-3 ) Tech 04 495 x 508 x 97.6 Fox-1D (AO-92) ) Comms 04AC S43137 495 x 508 x 97.6 Micromas-2A ) Science 04X S43132 495 x 508 x 97.6 DemoSat-2 ) Comms 04 495 x 508 x 97.6 SpaceBEE-1 ) Comms 04 495 x 508 x 97.6 SpaceBEE-2 ) Comms 04 495 x 508 x 97.6 SpaceBEE-3 ) Comms 04 495 x 508 x 97.6 SpaceBEE-4 ) Comms 04 495 x 508 x 97.6 Lemur-2-PeterWebster) AIS/Weather 04P S43124 495 x 508 x 97.6 Lemur-2-DaveWilson ) AIS/Weather 04R S43126 495 x 508 x 97.6 Lemur-2-McCafferty ) AIS/Weather 04N S43123 495 x 508 x 97.6 Lemur-2-BrownCow ) AIS/Weather 04Q S43125 495 x 508 x 97.6 Flock 3p'-1 ) Imaging 04L S43121 495 x 508 x 97.6 Flock 3p'-2 ) Imaging 04K S43120 495 x 508 x 97.6 Flock 3p'-3 ) Imaging 04J S43119 495 x 508 x 97.6 Flock 3p'-4 ) Imaging 04M S43122 495 x 508 x 97.6 Microsat-TD ) Imaging 04T S43128 346 x 371 x 96.9 Jan 12 2211 USA 281 Delta 4M+(5,2) Vandenberg SLC6 Radar 05A S43145 1052 x 1053 x 106.0 Jan 13 0710 Ludi Kancha Weixing 3 Chang Zheng 2D Jiuquan Imaging 06A S43146 496 x 506 x 97.3 1330LT Jan 17 2106 ASNARO 2 Epsilon Uchinoura Radar 07A S43152 493 x 506 x 97.4 0546LT Jan 19 0412 Jilin-1 Shipin 07 ) Chang Zheng 11 Jiuquan Imaging 08A S43155 523 x 547 x 97.5 1030LT Jilin-1 Shipin 08 ) Imaging 08B S43156 523 x 547 x 97.5 1030LT KIPP ) Comms 08 S43157? 523 x 547 x 97.5 1030LT Huai'an ) Education 08 S43158? 523 x 547 x 97.5 1030LT Quan Tu Tong 1 ) SAR 08 S43159? 523 x 547 x 97.5 1030LT Hunan xiangjian xinqu ) Tech 08 S43160? 523 x 547 x 97.5 1030LT Jan 20 0048 SBIRS GEO-4 Atlas V 411 Canaveral SLC40 Missile Warn 09A S43162 185 x 35851 x 16.9 Jan 21 0143 Dove Pioneer ) Imaging 10A S43163 288 x 533 x 82.9 Lemur-2-Tallhamn-ATC ) Electron Mahia AIS/Weather 10B S43164? 497 x 533 x 82.9 Lemur-2-Marshall ) AIS/Weather 10C S43165? 497 x 533 x 82.9 Still Testing ) Tech 10E? S43166? 497 x 533 x 82.9 Humanity Star ) Advertising 10F? S43168 288 x 533 x 82.9 Jan 25 0539 Chuangxin-5 10 ) Chang Zheng 2C Xichang Sigint? 11B S43170 591 x 602 x 35.0 Chuangxin-5 11 ) Sigint? 11C S43171 591 x 602 x 35.0 Chuangxin-5 12 ) Sigint? 11D S43172 591 x 602 x 35.0 Chuangxin-6 6 ) Tech? 11A S43169 594 x 602 x 35.0 Jan 25 2220 SES-14 ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 12A? S43174 230 x 43164 x 20.7 Al Yah 3 ) Comms 12B? S43175 344 x 43203 x 20.5 Jan 31 2125 GovSat-1 Falcon 9 Canaveral SLC40 Comms 13A S43178 300?x 35800?x 25.0? Feb 1 0207 Kanopus V-3 ) Soyuz-2-1A/Fregat Vostochniy Imaging 14A S43180 500 x 511 x 97.5 2323LT Kanopus V-4 ) Imaging 14B S43181 500 x 510 x 97.5 2323LT S-NET 1 ) Comms 14 S43182? 571 x 589 x 97.7 S-NET 2 ) Comms 14 S43183? 571 x 589 x 97.7 S-NET 3 ) Comms 14 S43184? 571 x 589 x 97.7 S-NET 4 ) Comms 14 S43185? 571 x 589 x 97.7 Lemur-2-Kadi ) AIS/Weather 14 S43186? 570? x 590?x 97.7? Lemur-2-TheNickMolo ) AIS/Weather 14 S43187? 570? x 590?x 97.7? Lemur-2-Jin-Luen ) AIS/Weather 14 S43188? 570? x 590?x 97.7? Lemur-2-UramChanSol ) AIS/Weather 14 S43189? 570? x 590?x 97.7? D-Star One Phoenix ) Tech 14 S43190? 570? x 590?x 97.7? Feb 2 0751 Zhang Heng 1 ) Chang Zheng 2D Jiuquan Science 15A S43192 489 x 509 x 97.3 1411LT Ada ) Imaging 15 S43193? 493 x 504 x 97.2 Maryam ) Imaging 15 S43194? 488 x 508 x 97.3 Ulloriaq ) AIS/Imaging 15 S43195? 486 x 508 x 97.3 GOMX-4B ) Tech 15 S43196? 483 x 507 x 97,3 Shaonian Xing ) Tech 15 S43197? 483 x 507 x 97,3 FengMaNiu 1 ) Tech 15 S43199? 485 x 507 x 97.3 Feb 3 0503 Tasuki SS-520 Uchinoura Com 16A S43201 186 x 2012 x 30.9 Feb 6 2045 Elon's Roadster Falcon Heavy Kennedy LC39A Test 17A S43205 717 x-79898 x 28.9 Table of Recent Suborbital Launches ----------------------------------- Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Target Dec 12 1659 New Shepard CC2 New Shepard West Texas Test 99 West Texas Dec 19 RV/Warhead Burkan 2H Sa'dah Weapon 150? Riyadh Dec 26 0330? RV Topol'-E? Kapustin Yar Test 1000? Balkhash? Jan 18 0423 RV Agni V Kalam Island Test 1000? Indian Ocean Jan 19 1217 DXL-3 Black Brant 9 Poker Flat XR Astron 230 Alaska Jan 26 1411 Super Soaker 1 Terrier Imp Orion Poker Flat Aeronomy 160? Alaska Jan 26 1458 Super Soaker 2 Terrier Imp Orion Poker Flat Aeronomy 100? Alaska Jan 26 1459 Super Soaker 3 Terrier Imp Orion Poker Flat Aeronomy 160? Alaska Jan 31 FTM-29 Target IRBM Target? C-17, Pacific? Target 300? Pacific Jan 31 FTM-29 KV SM-3 Block IIA Kauai Interceptor ? Intercept (failed) Feb 5 Target B-611? Jiuquan? Target 300? Urumqi? Feb 5 Interceptor DF-21 Urumqi? Interceptor 100? Intercept Feb 6 0300 Agni RV Agni I Kalam Island Test 300? Bay of Bengal .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | | | Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail | | USA | twitter: @planet4589 | | | | 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'