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Jonathan's Space Report
No. 764 draft 2019 Apr 8 Somerville, MA
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JSR 763 is now permalinked at http://planet4589.org/space/jsr/back/news.762.txt
International Space Station
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Correction to previous description of battery work: the new-but-failed battery
that was removed on Apr 3 was the one in channel 4A3 slot 5, not the one in slot 3.
On Apr 5 the SPDM moved NiH battery 0072 from AP005 on P4 IEA 4A slot 6 to slot 5.
On Apr 8 McClain and St-Jacques performed spacewalk EVA 54. The airlock was
depressurized by about 1125 UTC with hatch open at 1126 and the suits on battery
power at 1131. At 1229 the adapter plate removed from 4A slot 6 and placed on
top of the plate in slot 2 at 1240 UTC. This opens up slot 6 for one of the old
batteries.
The spacewalkers then carried out cabling to provide external wireless support and
backup power to Canadarm-2.
The airlock was repressurized at 1800 UTC.
On Apr 11 the SPDM moved NiH battery 0069 from EP7 slot Y to the newly empty
slot 6 on P4 4A. Then, battery 0070 was moved from the Dextre EOTP to slot Y.
So the 4A side has the following right now:
Slot 1 Li-ion 15? Slot 2 Adapter 07 + Adapter 05
Slot 3 Li-ion 17? Slot 4 Adapter 06 + NiH 0071
Slot 5 NiH 0072 Slot 6 NiH 0069
On Apr 17 the 10th Antares rocket took off from the Mid-Atlantic
Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, placing Cygnus NG-11 (the S.S.
Roger Chaffee) in low orbit at 2053 UTC and separating from the payload
at 2055 UTC. The Chaffee reached the ISS on Apr 19, with SSRMS
grapple at 0928 UTC and berthing on Unity nadir at about 1130 UTC.
The NG-11 mission carries a large number of nanosatellites hosted on a
variety of dispenser systems.
Four Planetary Systems Corp. CSD 3U deployers were attached to the Antares
second stage, and ejected their payloads, SASSI2 and 12 ThinSats, at 2059 UTC Apr 17.
Unusually, the payloads and the second stage were not cataloged by US space
tracking, and were expected to have reentered by around Apr 22.
SASSI-2 (Student Aerothermal Spectrometer Satellite of Illinois and Indiana,
correctly written as SASSI-superscript-2) is a 3U cubesat from the University
of Illinois to study the diffuse bow shock of a satellite in low orbit.
The ThinSats are a new design from NearSpaceLaunch for the Virginia Commercial
Space Flight Authority and carry student experiments. Twelve Thinsats were
deployed. Each is made of a number of Thinsat cases 0.01 x 0.11 x 0.11m in size
connected by solar panel ribbons 0.30m long 0.05m wide. The satellites are
launched folded up and deploy after ejection in an accordion-like fashion.
The twelve satellites include:
Three Thinsat 3T (1B,1G,1K), consisting of three Thinsat cases connected by two ribbons.
Overall mass 1 kg, size 0.01 x 0.1 x 1.3m.
Six Thinsat 6T (1C,1D,1F,1H,1J,1L), consisting of six Thinsat cases connect by five ribbons.
Overall mass 2 kg, size 0.01 x 0.1 x 2.7m
Three Thinsat D+4T (1A, 1E, 1I), consisting of five Thinsat cases (one of them a double-width
0.03 x 0.11 x 0.11m case) connected by 4 ribbons. Overall mass 2 kg, size (0.01-0.03) x 0.1 x 2.2m.
The JAXA J-SSOD No. 11 dispenser will be delivered to the Kibo module for later deployment.
It contains three 1U cubesats developed by Kyushu Tech students:
Uguisu, for Kyushu Tech
Raavana-1, for the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Modern Technologies, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka;
Nepalisat-1, for the Nepal Academy of Space Technology, Kathmandu.
The Nanoracks NRCSD-16 payload will also be delivered to the Kibo module for later deployment.
It includes:
Aeternitas (1U, Old Dominion University, Virginia);
Libertas (1U, University of Virginia);
Ceres (1U, Virginia Polytechnic);
KRAKsat (1U, Kraksat team and Akademia Gorniczo-Hutnicza, Krakow, Poland) with
a ferrofluid attitude control system experiment.
Swiatowid (2U, SatRevolution, Wroclaw, Poland), with a 4m res Earth imager.
IOD-1 GEMS, Orbital Microsystems (Boulder, Colorado and Harwell, UK; 3U from ClydeSpace),
with a passive microwave weather sensor.
EntrySat (2U from Institut superieur de l'aeronautique et de l'espace, Toulouse), to study
the atmospheric reentry environment.
The Nanoracks NRCSD-E mission 7 is attached to the Chaffee's service module.
Its payloads are:
Aerocube-10a, a 1.5U cubesat from the Aerospace Corp containing
29 small subsatellites (AC-10a Probe 01 to 29), each 0.016 kg and 0.1m in diameter,
which will be ejected to serve as radar targets to study atmospheric density.
AC-10a also has an optical beacon to serve as a target for AC-10b.
Aerocube-10b, a 1.5U cubesat with a steam thruster, to carry out proximity
manuevering near AC-10a.
Seeker, a 3U cubesat from NASA JSC to serve as an inspector satellite maneuvering
in the vicinity of the Chaffee.
Kenobi, a 3U cubesat from NASA JSC which will remain attached to the NRCSD-E and
will relay data from Seeker.
Finally, the SEOPS LLC Slingshot system will be attached to the Chaffee before it
departs ISS, and will deploy further cubesats whose identities have not yet been
revealed. These cubesats will be delivered to ISS on the next Dragon.
PSLV
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It has now been confirmed that the two NanoAvionics cubesats
M6P and BlueWalker-1 were ejected into the wrong orbit
(435 x 514 km instead of 493 x 510 km), probably due to
a deployment hang-up delaying the ejection until after the final
PSLV-PS4 burn.
Arabsat 6A
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The Arabsat 6A communications satellite was launched by the first operational
Falcon Heavy on Apr 11. The two side cores landed back at Cape Canaveral
and the center core landed downrange on the OCISLY droneship. The second
stage carried on to parking orbit and then after a second burn
to highly elliptical supersynchronous transfer orbit.
During the voyage back to port the core stage toppled over onto the deck
of the OCISLY, but contrary to some early reports it remained on the
ship.
B'reshit
--------
The SpaceIL lunar lander made several orbit circularization burns from Apr 4 to Apr 10.
On Apr 6 apogee was lowered from 10000 km to 750 km; on Apr 8 at 0548 UTC
the orbit was reduced to 211 x 467 km, and on Apr 10 about 1700 UTC to 16 x 200 km.
On Apr 11 at 1912 UTC B'reshit began its landing burn, but after failure
of an IMU the main engine cut off. It was restarted too late to save the landing,
with impact (possibly near 18E 32N) at 1923 UTC Apr 11.
Hammaguir
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From 1952 to 1967, France's main space launch site was the CIEES (Centre
Interarmees d'Essais d'Engins Speciaux) B2 site at Hammaguir, Algeria.
(The older CIEES B0 and CIEES B1 were at Colomb-Bechar to the northeast,
and were used for small military missile tests). Until 2015, as far as I
can tell, no map of the CIEES B2 had been publicly available. The French
space agency CNES then released a 1965 map for the 2015 celebrations of
the anniversary of the first French satellite launch. Thanks to this,
which I just became aware of (courtesy of @syncloss on twitter), it is
now possible to identify the locations of the launch pads at CIEES B2.
Launch area Rockets
Blandine 30.8591N 3.0850W Veronique, Vesta
Bacchus 30.8497N 3.0691W Centaure, Dragon, Belier, Antares
Brigitte (Agate pad) 30.7782N 3.0566W Agate, Topaze, Rubis
Brigitte (Diamant pad) 30.7782N 3.0539W Emeraude, Saphir, Diamant
Beatrice 30.7986N 3.0154W Cora
Table of Recent Orbital Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. Catalog Perigee Apogee Incl Notes
Apr 1 0357 EMISAT ) PSLV-QL Satish Dhawan SLP Sigint 18A S44078 736 x 758 x 98.4 0930LT SSO
BlueWalker 1 ) IoT Comms 18AD S44105 434 x 515 x 97.5
M6P ) IoT Comms 18AF S44109 434 x 515 x 97.5
Astrocast-0.2 ) IoT Comms 18F S44083 494 x 510 x 97.5
Danu Pathfinder 1 ) AIS Comms 18AB S44103 490 x 507 x 97.5
Lemur-2-JohanLoran ) AIS/ADS-B/Met 18G S44084 494 x 510 x 97.5
Lemur-2-Beaudacious ) AIS/ADS-B/Met 18H S44085 493 x 510 x 97.5
Lemur-2-Elham ) AIS/ADS-B/Met 18J S44086 493 x 510 x 97.5
Lemur-2-Victor-Andrew) AIS/ADS-B/Met 18K S44087 493 x 510 x 97.5
Flock 4a-1/ Dove 2218) Imaging 18B S44079 494 x 510 x 97.5
Flock 4a-2/ Dove 2201) Imaging 18C S44080 494 x 510 x 97.5
Flock 4a-3/ Dove 2206) Imaging 18D S44081 494 x 510 x 97.5
Flock 4a-4/ Dove 2220) Imaging 18E S44082 494 x 510 x 97.5
Flock 4a-5/ Dove 2227) Imaging 18T S44095 493 x 507 x 97.5
Flock 4a-6/ Dove 220b) Imaging 18S S44094 494 x 507 x 97.5
Flock 4a-7/ Dove 222d) Imaging 18R S44093 494 x 507 x 97.5
Flock 4a-8/ Dove 2213) Imaging 18Q S44092 494 x 507 x 97.5
Flock 4a-9/ Dove 2224) Imaging 18W S44098 493 x 507 x 97.5
Flock 4a-10/Dove 2205) Imaging 18V S44097 493 x 507 x 97.5
Flock 4a-11/Dove 2223) Imaging 18U S44096 493 x 507 x 97.5
Flock 4a-12/Dove 2209) Imaging 18AE S44108 494 x 507 x 97.5
Flock 4a-13/Dove 220c) Imaging 18AA S44102 492 x 507 x 97.5
Flock 4a-14/Dove 222c) Imaging 18Z S44101 492 x 507 x 97.5
Flock 4a-15/Dove 2207) Imaging 18Y S44100 493 x 507 x 97.5
Flock 4a-16/Dove 222b) Imaging 18X S44099 493 x 507 x 97.5
Flock 4a-17/Dove 2212) Imaging 18L S44088 493 x 510 x 97.5
Flock 4a-18/Dove 2215) Imaging 18M S44089 493 x 510 x 97.5
Flock 4a-19/Dove 2235) Imaging 18N S44090 493 x 510 x 97.5
Flock 4a-20/Dove 2232) Imaging 18P S44091 493 x 510 x 97.5
AISAT-1/PSLV-C45-PS4 Tech/Comms 18AC S44104 435 x 515 x 97.5
Apr 4 1101 Progress MS-11 Soyuz-2-1A Baykonur LC31 Cargo 19A S44110 407 x 411 x 51.6
Apr 4 1703 O3b FM17 ) Soyuz ST-B/Fregat CSG ELS Comms 20A S44112 7809 x 7839 x 0.0
O3b FM18 ) Comms 20B S44113 7818 x 7839 x 0.0
O3b FM19 ) Comms 20C S44114 7830 x 7840 x 0.0
O3b FM20 ) Comms 20D S44115 7839 x 7841 x 0.0
Apr 5 0156 SCI Hayabusa-2, Ryugu space Weapon 14076 D00957 Ryugu impact
Apr 5 0214 DCAM-3 Hayabusa-2, Ryugu space Imaging 14076 D00958 Ryugu space
Apr 11 2235 Arabsat 6A Falcon Heavy Kennedy LC39A Comms 21A S44186 320 x89807 x 23.0
Apr 17 2046 S.S. Roger Chaffee ) Antares 230 MARS LA0B Cargo 22A S44188 285 x 380 x 51.6
SASSI-2 ) Science 22C?
ThinSat 1A ) Tech 22D?
ThinSat 1B ) Tech 22E?
ThinSat 1C ) Tech 22F?
ThinSat 1D ) Tech 22G?
ThinSat 1E ) Tech 22H?
ThinSat 1F ) Tech 22J?
ThinSat 1G ) Tech 22K?
ThinSat 1H ) Tech 22L?
ThinSat 1I ) Tech 22M?
ThinSat 1J ) Tech 22N?
ThinSat 1K ) Tech 22P?
ThinSat 1L ) Tech 22Q?
Table of Recent Suborbital Launches
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Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Target
Apr 5 2214 AZURE 1 Black Brant XIA Andoya Auroral 320 Norwegian Sea
Apr 5 2216 AZURE 2 Black Brant XIA Andoya Auroral 320 Norwegian Sea
Apr 11 1651 CLASP 2 Black Brant IX White Sands Solar UV 274 White Sands
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| Jonathan McDowell | |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail |
| USA | twitter: @planet4589 |
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