Jonathan's Space Report
No. 799 draft 2021 Oct 15 Somerville, MA
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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
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Expedition 65 concluded on Oct 17 with the undocking of Soyuz MS-18 and the beginning
of Expedtion 66.
Soyuz MS-18 undocked at 0114:00 UTC Oct 17 with Novitskiy, Shipenko and Peresild;
the ship landed in Kazakhstan at 0435:44 UTC according to Roskosmos.
Chinese Space Station
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Shenzhou 13 was launched on Oct 15, carrying Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Yu Guangfe.
It docked with the nadir docking port on Tianhe at 2248 UTC the same day.
Chinese orbital weapon test
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The Financial Times quotes unnamed US government sources as revealing
that China launched a missile sometime in August that placed a reentry
vehicle (RV) in Earth orbit. The RV completed slightly less than one
orbit and was deorbited for impact at an unspecified location (probably
in China). This is a technique tested by the USSR in the 1960s and
called `Fractional Orbital Bombardment System' (FOBS) by the US defense
community.
Space Force did not catalog any objects from the mission and it did not receive an
international designation. I am assigning it the `uncataloged' designation 2021-U01
in my system in GCAT (https://planet4589.org/space/gcat/).
A denial from China implies that the Chinese think what is being referred to is
the spaceplane test on Jul 16. At the time we thought it was a short range test
but as Marco Langbroek points out it might have been an one-orbit test where the
landing was geographically not far from the takeoff. However, Chinese statements
at the time described the test as suborbital.
Also, Jul 16 was not in August, but it's quite possible the sources are
that sloppy (this does cast doubt on the other details though!).
One counter-indication is that the launch is suspected to have been
a CZ-2C, and Chinese statements indicate that the Jul 19 and Aug 24 CZ-2C launches were
the 76th and 78th of the kind respectively, implying a launch between those
two dates (and ruling out the spaceplane test). The FT report also cites
the US sources as saying the missile missed its target by 'two dozen miles',
while the Jul 16 flight was reported to have sucessfully landed on the target runway.
So, nothing is clear!
Properties of the mission:
Launch date: Unknown date in 2021 Aug (but perhaps Aug includes July?)
Launch vehicle; CZ-2C?
Launch site: Taiyuan or Jiuquan?
Impact site: Unknown
Orbit: Unknown: possibly around 60 x 200 km?
Inclination: Unknown - probably 97 deg?
Shiyan 10
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Reports of the Shiyan-10 satellite's death appear to have been premature.
A small orbit raising burn seems to have occurred on Oct 15.
Table of Recent Orbital Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. Catalog Perigee Apogee Incl Notes
Aug Chinese Orbital RV Chang Zheng 2C? Taiyuan? Test U01 A09890 200?x200?x 97?
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 ) Imaging? 91K?
SSS-2A ) Tech 91L?
Oct 15 1623 Shenzhou 13 Chang Zheng 2F Jiuquan Spaceship 92A S49326
Table of Recent Suborbital Launches
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Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Target
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 Tourism 107 West Texas
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| Jonathan McDowell | |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail |
| USA | twitter: @planet4589 |
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