Jonathan's Space Report No. 798 2021 Oct 14 Somerville, MA ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note: I have added a new set of lists on my website covering various aspects of human spaceflight. See http://planet4589.org/space/astro/web/index.html International Space Station --------------------------- Expedition 65 continues under the command of Thomas Pesquet (ESA). Flight engineers are Shane Kimbrough (NASA), Megan McArthur (NASA), Akihiko Hoshide (JAXA), Oleg Novitsky (Roskosmos), Pyotr Dubrov (Roskosmos), Mark Vande Hei (NASA) and Anton Shkaplerov (Roskomos). These eight are currently accompanied by the visiting film crew Shipenko and Peresild for a total of 10 people on ISS. For a couple of minutes during the NS-18 suborbital flight there were a total of 14 people in space. This equalled the record set during Inspiration 4, when its four crew were supplemented by three on Shenzhou 12 and seven on ISS. Soyuz MS-18 undocked from the Rassvet module at 1221:36 UTC Sep 28 and redocked with Nauka at 1304:15 UTC, inaugurating Nauka's SSVP docking adatper. Cargo ship Dragon CRS-23 undocked from the IDA-2 port at 1312 UTC Sep 30. It lowered its orbit at about 1708 UTC to 253 x 406 km, and made its deorbit burn at 0207 UTC Oct 1, landing off the coast of Florida at about 80.6W 29.8N at roughly 0257 UTC. The trunk was ejected a few minutes before deorbit and remains in the 253 x 406 km orbit. Soyuz MS-19 was launched on Oct 5 at 0855 UTC, carrying commander Anton Shkaplerov and two passengers, movie director Klim Shipenko and actor Yulia Peresild. The ship docked at the Rassvet module at 1222 UTC the same day. On Oct 6 the Japanese RMS removed the J-SSOD-19 deployer from the Kibo airlock, and J-SSOD-19 ejected two Australian and two Phillipine cubesats. Oct Oct 12 the Japanese RMS removed the Nanoracks NRCSD-21 deployer from the Kibo Airlock. NRCSD-21 deployed the cubesats CAPSAT, SPACE HAUC and PR-CUNAR2. Chinese Space Station ----------------------- The Tianzhou 2 cargo ship undocked from the aft port of the Tianhe module at 0225 UTC Sep 18, and redocked with the forward port, vacated by Shenzhou 12 two days earlier. China reported the process lasted `about 4 hours', which I assume means redocking sometime prior to 0630 UTC. The Tianzhou 3 cargo ship was launched at 0710 UTC Sep 20 and docked with the aft port of Tianhe at 1408 UTC the same day. Inspiration4 ------------ The Dragon trunk ejected from Inspiration4 is being tracked in a 360 x 369 km x 51.7 deg orbit. Jilin-1 GF02D ------------- EXPACE launched a Kuaizhou-1A rocket from Jiuquan on Sep 27 with Changuang Weixing Jishu's Jilin-1 Gaofen 02D high resolution imaging satellite. This is a return to flight of the KZ-1A following its Sep 2020 launch failure with Jilin-1 Gaofen 02C. Shiyan 10 --------- CALT launched a Chang Zheng 3B from Xichang on Sep 27 with the Shiyan 10 test satellite Two objects were cataloged in a 51 degree inclination geotransfer orbit. After a long delay, China announced that although the rocket had followed the correct trajectory, the Shiyan 10 payload itself had failed during the ascent. Landsat 9 ----------- The Landsat 9 imaging satellite was launched on Sep 27. The satellite is similar to Landsat 8 and is built by Northrop Grumman (former Spectrum Astro/Gilbert). It has optical, near and mid infrared imagers. The Centaur also carried the ESPA Flight System (EFS), an ESPA ring fixed between the Centaur and Landsat carrying several cubesat dispensers. EFS ejected four 6U cubesats: Cesium Astro's CS1 and CS2, for intersatellite communication experiments in partnership with the US Defense Department's Defense Innovation Unit. The University of Colorado's CUTE (Cubesat UV Transit Experiment) to study exoplanet atmospheres Boston University's CUPID with a soft X-ray telescope to study charge exchange emission from the interaction of the solar wind with the Earth's exosphere. This emission is a frequent annoyance to X-ray astronomers likeme as it is a hard-to-predict contribution to the background noise in our images in telescopes like Chandra. Chang'e-5 --------- The Chang'e-5 orbiter, which made a 16500 km lunar flyby on Sep 12 after returning from Sun-Earth L1, looks likely to make a further lunar encounter on Nov 17. Rant on Registration --------------------- The US government needs to improve its procedure for generating the list of its satellites that it registers with the UN. This will be a long, ranty, thread. Since the start of the space age it has been standard practice that all Earth satellite launches, even `secret' ones, have been publicly announced. In 1962, around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US was alarmed when it discovered the USSR had launched several unannounced satellites into low orbit. Were they, perhaps, orbital nukes? No, it turned out, they were failed interplanetary probes. Nevertheless this reinforced the idea that unannounced launches were a bad idea. Relatedly, a UN register of space objects was established; UN Resolution 1721B and, later, the UN Registration Convention came into force. The US has mostly, but not perfectly, complied with the requirements of the convention. Recently there's been a new problem in the US registrations. The registration documents are clearly generated from the US satellite catalog maintained by SpaceForce 18SPCS. This is not good enough. Why? Let's look at an example - the Electron 4 mission of Dec 2018, launch 2018-104. This placed 11 United States payloads in orbit, and two New Zealand rocket stages. All 13 objects are being tracked by Space Force, and we know which 2 objects are the rocket stages. So, we have 11 tracked objects that we know are the 11 US payloads. But, for 5 of these payloads we don't know which object is which. Tracked objects E, F, K, L and P are the satellites Ceres, RSat, Cubesail, Albus and NMTSat in some order, but we don't know which order. In the US satellite catalog, catalog numbers corresponds to objects being tracked, and they only get a name associated with them if Space Force knows what the tracked object is. So, if you search for the NASA 'Albus' satellite or the New Mexico Tech 'NMTSat' in the satellite catalog you won't find anything. If you count the number of US payloads launched in 2018, these won't be included and you'll get too low an answer. More recently, there are the V-R3X payloads from launch 2021-006 which aren't even identified as US objects in the catalog, even though we know they are objects BC, BG and DQ in some order. So, they are not included in US registration document ST/SG/SER.E/977 - but they should be. This is (arguably) not Space Force's fault. It's their catalog and this is what works for them, I guess. BUT: the requirement on the State Dept. for UN registration is NOT 'tell me which of your satellites you are tracking'. It's 'tell me which satellites you have put in orbit'. So it is NOT OK for them to use the satcat as a complete list for this purpose - because it is not OK for them to leave out satellites like Albus just because we don't know which catalog number it is. We know the US launched Albus and it is in orbit, so it should be registered with the UN. I would argue the same is true of the Thinsats deployed from Cygnus even though SpaceForce decided they weren't going to bother cataloging them at all because they reentered after a few days. They met the usual criterion for registration with the UN and should be registered. This used not to be a big problem because very few launched US payloads were not identified with a catalog number. But now with all these cluster cubesat launches, it's much more common. I estimate there are 28 unregistered US satellites in 2018, and 9 in 2019, although only 1 in 2020. There look to be a bunch in 2021 but not all the reg documents are in yet. One possibility is that Space-Track could maintain a separate public table of object information versus launch number for objects known to be in orbit but not associated with a catalog number. It shouldn't be too hard to do better. I keep a list of the unregistered satellites on my website (objects marked [US] in square parentheses in https://planet4589.org/space/gcat/data/cat/psatcat.html If one person can do this in his spare time, it seems like the US government should be able to manage it. Do better, America! End of rant. OneWeb ------ 36 more satellites were launched from Vostochniy on Oct 14. CHASE ----- China's H-alpha Solar Explorer was launched on Oct 14. The 500 kg Xihe satellite, operated by Nanjing University and developed by SAST/Shanghai, will take high resolution spectra of the H-alpha spectral line of the solar spectrum. This is red-light emission produced by the element hydrogen, and is stronger in the active areas (sunspots etc) of the Sun. 10 other small satellites were also deployed. - Tianyuan-1 is a 6U cubesat from Nanjing U of Sci and Tech. which is testing a small solid motor and a microthruster - QX-1 (Shangye qixang tance xingzuo shiyan weixing) is a commercial GNSS radio occultatin meteorology test satellite from DFH Shenzhen - MD-1 (Guidao daqi midu tance shiyan weixing) is a satellite frm DFH Shenzhen to study atmospheric density - Tianshu-1 is low orbit GNSS augementation technology test satellite from Huoyan Digital Intelligence Tech Service Co Ltd of Shanghai - Jiaotong shiyan weixing is a test of VDES (next-generation ship tracking maritime comms) owned by SISE/Shanghai and built by Lizheng Sat.App.Tech.; it has a mass of 103 kg and has a 40 mN Hall thruster to raise its orbit to 900 km - HEAD-2E and HEAD-2F are commercial AIS ship tracking sats for HEAD Aerospace/ Beijing - SSS-1 (Daxeusheng xiaowexing) is a 30 kg student satellite from Beihang University and is part of an Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (ASPCO) student satelite project SSS-1 has a deployable boom, an ADS-B receiver, and an intersatellite comms experiment for use with SSS-2A - SSS-2A is a 3U cubesat developed by Shanghai Jiaotong Univ - Jin Zijing 2 (Golden Bauhinia 2) is a small satellite for imaging developed by Beijing Zero Gravity Lab for Hong Kong Aerospace Tech Group NS-18 ----- New Shepard booster PM4 launched capsule CC2.0-2 RSS First Step to 107 km apogee on Oct 13, carrying Chris Boishuizen, Glen de Vries, Audrey Powers and William Shatner. The 10m 9s flight spent 2m 29s above 80 km. BepiColombo ----------- The ESA/JAXA BepiColombo probe flew past Mercury on Oct 1. It entered Mercury's gravitational sphere at 1427 UTC Oct 1, made closest approach of 196 km altitude at 2336 UTC, and departed the gravitational sphere at 0845 UTC Oct 2. Errata ------ - FPMU is the Floating Potential Measurement Unit - Initial inclination of Inspiration 4 is 51.6 deg (not km!) - Correct spelling of the Inspiration 4 medical officer's surname is Arceneaux. These have been amended in the archival version of the report. Table of Recent Orbital Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. Catalog Perigee Apogee Incl Notes Sep 3 0159 BSS-1 ) Firefly Alpha Vandenberg SLC2W Tech F08 F01599 -6370? x 15?x 137 Serenity ) Edu F08 F01607 -6370? x 15?x 137 Hiapo ) Edu F08 F01608 -6370? x 15?x 137 Qubik 1 ) Tech F08 F01600 -6370? x 15?x 137 Qubik 2 ) Tech F08 F01601 -6370? x 15?x 137 GENESIS L ) Com F08 F01605 -6370? x 15?x 137 GENESIS N ) Com F08 F01604 -6370? x 15?x 137 Spinnaker 3 ) Tech F08 F01609 -6370? x 15?x 137 Sep 7 0301 Gao Fen 5-02 Chang Zheng 4C Taiyuan Imaging 79A S49122 680 x 691 x 98.3 Sep 9 1150 Zhongxing 9B Chang Zheng 3B Xichang Comms 80A S49125 206 x 35792 x 24.6 Sep 9 1959 Kosmos-2551 Soyuz-2-1V Plesetsk LC43/4 Imaging 81A S49127 295 x 307 x 96.4 Sep 10 0455 RAAF M2 B RAAF M2 A, LEO Tech 23J S47973 545 x 558 x 45.0 Sep 14 0355 Starlink 3042-3043 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 82 212 x 339 x 70.0 Starlink 3045-3048 Starlink 3050-3060 Starlink 3068-3069 Starlink 3071-3074 Starlink 3077-3078 Starlink 3080-3091 Starlink 3093 Starlink 3095-3096 Starlink 3100-3104 Starlink 3106-3107 Starlink 3109 Starlink 3116 Starlink 3118-3119 Sep 14 1807 OneWeb SL0292 Soyuz-2-1b/Fregat Baykonur LC31 Comms 83A-AK 445 x 472 x 87.4 OneWeb SL0303 OneWeb SL0306-0307 OneWeb SL0320-0322 OneWeb SL0324-0328 OneWeb SL0331 OneWeb SL0333-0346 OneWeb SL0348 OneWeb SL0350-0352 OneWeb SL0354-0355 OneWeb SL0357 Sep 16 0002 Inspiration4 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 84A S49220 570 x 579 x 51.6 Sep 20 0710 Tianzhou 3 Chang Zheng 7 Wenchang LC201 Cargo 85A S49222 199 x 325 x 41.5 Sep 27 0619 Jilin-1 Gaofen 02D Kuaizhou 1A Jiuquan Imaging 86A S49256 532 x 545 x 97.5 Sep 27 0820 Shiyan 10 Chang Zheng 3B Xichang LC3 Tech 87A S49258 177 x 40105 x 51.0 Sep 27 1812 Landsat 9 ) Atlas V 401 Vandenberg SLC3E Imaging 88A S49260 649 x 686 x 98.2 CUTE ) Astronomy 88D S49263 550 x 574 x 97.6 CuPID ) Astronomy 88E S49264 550 x 573 x 97.6 Cesium CS1) Tech 88B? S49261 551 x 581 x 97.6 Cesium CS2) Tech 88C? S49262 550 x 581 x 97.6 Oct 5 0855 Soyuz MS-19 Soyuz-2-1a Baykonur LC31 Spaceship 89A S49269 195 x 227 x 51.6 Oct 6 0920 Binar-1 ) ISS, LEO Tech 98067SR S49272 413 x 421 x 51.6 Maya-3 ) Tech 98067SS S49273 413 x 421 x 51.6 Maya-4 ) Tech 98067ST S49274 413 x 421 x 51.6 Oct 6 1055 CUAVA-1 ISS, LEO Tech 98067SU S49275 413 x 421 x 51.6 Oct 12 1100 CAPSat ISS, LEO Tech 98067SV S49276? Oct 12 1230 SPACE HAUC) ISS, LEO Tech 98067SW S49277? PR-CuNaR2 ) Tech 98067SX S49278? Oct 14 0940 OneWeb SL0332 Soyuz-2-1b/Fregat Vostochniy PU1S Comms 90A-AM S49279 413 x 421 x 87.4 OneWeb SL0347 OneWeb SL0349 OneWeb SL0353 OneWeb SL0356 OneWeb SL0358-SL0388 Oct 14 1051 Xihe (CHASE) ) Chang Zheng 2D Taiyuan Solar 91A S49315? 503 x 522 x 97.5 QX-1 ) Meteo 91B? Tianshu-1 ) Tech? 91C? JTSY ) Comms 91D? HEAD-IIE ) Comms 91E? Guidao Daqi Midu TSW) Sci 91F? SSS-1 ) Tech 91G? HEAD-IIF ) Comms 91H? Tianyuan-1 ) Tech? 91J? Zijinjing-2 ) Tech? 91K? SSS-2A ) Tech 91L? Table of Recent Suborbital Launches ----------------------------------- Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Target Sep 5 HE warhead Zulfiqar Sanaa? Weapon 150? Ras Al-Tanura Sep 9 1725 EVE 8 Black Brant IX White Sands Solar EUV 293 White Sands Sep 11 2207 HOT SHOT 4? Terrier Imp.Mal. Wallops I Tech 200? Atlantic Sep 12 1730 BVT-03 GBI Vandenberg Test 300? Pacific Sep 15 Hyunmoo-4-4 Hyunmoo-4-4 SS-088, Anhui Test 150? Pacific? Sep 17 USN RVs Trident D-5 SSBN 742, ETR Test 1800? Atlantic Sep 17 USN RVs Trident D-5 SSBN 742, ETR Test 1800? Atlantic Oct 8 1740 CLASP 2.1 Black Brant IX White Sands Solar UV 272 White Sands Oct 13 1449 NS-18 New Shepard West Texas Tourist 107 West Texas .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | | | Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail | | USA | twitter: @planet4589 | | | | JSR: https://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html | | Back issues: https://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: https://www.planet4589.org/mailman/listinfo/jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'