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Jonathan's Space Report
No. 838 draft                                                    2024 Sep 25    Somerville, MA
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

International Space Station
---------------------------

Expedition 72 began on Sep 23, with Suni Williams (ISS commander), Barry Wilmore,  Matthew
Dominick, Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps, Aleksandr Grebyonkin, Aleksey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner, and Don Pettit.

Dragon Freedom (capsule C212) was launched on the Crew-9 mission on Sep 28 at 1717 UTC, carrying
Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov. It docked with IDA-2 on ISS at 2130 UTC Sep 29.

Progress M-28, docked with ISS, made a 1.7 m/s orbit raising burn on Oct 4.

IGS Radar-8
-----------

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries launched H-IIA flight F49 on Sep 26
with the Japanese Cabinet Office's IGS Radar-8 spy satellite.

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

SAST launched a CZ-2D on Sep 27 with the Shijian 19 recoverable microgravity satellite.
SJ-19 carries a set of plant seeds for free fall germination experiments. It consists
of a recoverable capsule and a service module of apparently new design.
The last similar mission was SJ-10 in 2016.

Vulcan Cert-2
--------------

On Oct 4 ULA launched the second Vulcan VC2S from Canaveral. Althogh
part of an SRB nozzle appears to have failed on ascent, ULA reported
that the spacecraft made orbit and that the Centaur made three burns to
enter a hyperbolic escape orbit. The circa-1500-kg dummy payload remained attached
to the Centaur.

ULA released no quantitative information on its orbital parameters.
Space Force tracked the parking orbit as 492 x 498 km x 30.0 deg.
The Catalina and ATLAS asteroid surveys discovered it as object C43KHJ1,
in a 735 x -237885 km x 26.7 deg escape orbit with C3 = 3.55 km**2/s**2.
It will enter a 0.94 x 1.03 AU x 0.2 deg solar orbit on around Oct 12.

The Centaur will make a very close return approach to Earth on 2029 Feb
27; estimated 2953 km perigee based on preliminary observations.

Erratum
--------

The Vega launch was Sep 5, not Sep 4.


Table of Recent Orbital Launches
 ----------------------------------

Date UT       Name			          Launch Vehicle	 Site		 Mission  INTL.  Catalog  Perigee Apogee  Incl	 Notes
Sep  3 0115   Yaogan 43-02 01 to 06               Chang Zheng 4B          Xichang          Comms?   156   489 x 501 x 35.0
Sep  5 0150   Sentinel 2C                         Vega                    CSG ELV          Imaging  157A  776 x 780 x 98.6
Sep  5 1533   Starlink Group 8-11                 Falcon 9                 Canaveral LC40  Comms    158   288 x 302 x 53.2
Sep  5 1830   Geely Group 03  01 to 10            Chang Zheng 6            Taiyuan         Comms    159   553 x 564 x 50.0
Sep  6 0320   Starshield Group 1-3                Falcon 9                Vandenberg SLC4E Comms    160   300?x300? x 70
Sep 10 0923   Polaris Dawn                        Falcon 9                Kennedy LC39A   Spaceship 161A  196 x1400 x51.6
Sep 11 1623   Soyuz MS-26                         Soyuz-2-1a              Baykonur LC31   Spaceship 162A  
Sep 12 0852   BlueBird 1                          Falcon 9                Canaveral LC40  Comms     163C  505 x  522 x 53.0
              BlueBird 2                                                                  Comms     163D
              BlueBird 3                                                                  Comms     163A
              BlueBird 4                                                                  Comms     163E
              BlueBird 5                                                                  Comms     163B
Sep 13 0145   Starlink Group 9-6                  Falcon 9                Vandenberg SLC4E Comms    164   288 x 298 x 53.2
Sep 14 0558?  Chamran-1                           Qaem-100                Shahroud        Tech      165B  546 x 557 x 64.1
Sep 17 0701   Kosmos-2577                         Angara-1.2              Plesetsk        Imaging?  166A  328 x 344 x 96.8
              Kosmos-2578                                                                 Imaging?  166B  328 x 344 x 96.8
Sep 17 2250   Galileo FOC FM26                    Falcon 9                Canaveral LC40  Nav       167A 22941 x 23009 x 55.4
              Galileo FOC FM32                                                            Nav       167B 22948 x 23005 x 55.4
Sep 19 0114   Beidou DW 59                        Chang Zheng 3B          Xichang         Nav       168A 21182 x 22334 x 55.0
              Beidou DW 60                                                                          168B 21538 x 22199 x 55.0
Sep 20 0411   Jilin-1 Kuanfu 02B-01               Chang Zheng 2D          Taiyuan         Imaging   169A 531 x 547 x 97.6
              Jilin-1 Kuanfu 02B-02                                                       Imaging   169B
              Jilin-1 Kuanfu 02B-03                                                       Imaging   169C
              Jilin-1 Kuanfu 02B-04                                                       Imaging   169D
              Jilin-1 Kuanfu 02B-05                                                       Imaging   169E
              Jilin-1 Kuanfu 02B-06                                                       Imaging   169F
Sep 20 0943   Tianqi 29                           Kuaizhou 1A             Xichang         Comms     170A
              Tianqi 30                                                                   Comms     170B
              Tianqi 31                                                                   Comms     170C  841 x 854 x 44.9
              Tianqi 32                                                                   Comms     170D
Sep 20 1350   Starlink Group 9-17                 Falcon 9                Vandenberg SLC4E Comms    171   286 x 295 x 53.2
Sep 20 2301   Kineis 2A                           Electron                Mahia LC1A      Comms     172A  638 x 640 x 98.0
              Kineis 2B                                                                   Comms     
              Kineis 2C                                                                   Comms     
              Kineis 2D                                                                   Comms     
              Kineis 2E                                                                   Comms     
Sep 24 0231   Jitianxing A-01                     Jielong-3             DFHT, Yellow Sea  Imaging   173   484 x 501 x 97.4
              Fudan-1                                                                     Imaging   173
              Luojia-4 01                                                                 Imaging   173
              Shenqi                                                                      Radar     173
              Xingshidai-15                                                               Imaging   173
              Xingshidai-21                                                               Tech      173
              Xingshidai-22                                                               Tech      173
              Tianyan-15                                                                  Tech      173
Sep 24 2333   AIRSAT-01                            Lijian-1                Jiuquan        Radar     174  507 x 528 x 97.5
              AIRSAT-02                                                                   Radar     174
              Jilin-1 SAR-01A                                                             Radar     174
              Yunyao-1 21                                                                 Meteo     174
              Yunyao-1 22                                                                 Meteo     174
Sep 25 0401   Starlink Group 9-8                   Falcon 9              Vandenberg SLC4E Comms     175   289 x 299 x 53.2
Sep 26 0524   IGS Radar 8                          H-IIA                 Tanegashima      Radar     176A  480 x 480 x 97?
Sep 27 1030   Shijian 19                           Chang Zheng 2D        Jiuquan          LifeSci   177A  320 x 347 x 41.4
Sep 28 1717   Dragon Crew-9                        Falcon 9              Canaveral SLC40  Spaceship 178A  189 x 206 x 51.6
Oct  4 1125   Cert-2                               Vulcan VC2S           Canaveral SLC41  Test      179A  735 x -237885 x 26.7

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

Blue Origin flew New Shepard flight NS-26 on Aug 29, with passengers Ephraim Rabin, Nicolina Elrick,
Eugene Grin, Robert Ferl, Karsen Kitchen and Eiman Jahangir becoming space travellers 699 to 704.

Date UT       Payload           Rocket              Site                 Mission       Apogee    Target

Sep  2 0941   BOLT-1B           Black Brant VC      Andoya               Hypersonic     254      Norwegian Sea
Sep  3 1921   FURST             Black Brant IX      White Sands          Solar UV       300?     White Sands
Sep  6        Agni RV           Agni 4              Chandipur            Op. Test       600      Indian Ocean
Sep 15 0330   Warhead           Toufan              Yemen                Weapon         300?     Israel
Sep 25 0044   RV                DF-31?              Wenchang?            Test          1000?     Pacific Ocean
Sep 28 1800   JAKE              Terrier Oriole??    Wallops I            Target?        100?     Atlantic Ocean
Oct  1 1630?  Warhead           Shahab-3?  (x180)   S Shiraz             Weapon         200?     Israel
                                Emad?
                                Ghadr-110?
                                Kheibar Shekan?
                                Fattah-1?


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