Jonathan's Space Report No. 607 2009 Mar 2 Somerville, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Station -------------------- The Expedition 18 crew of Michael Fincke, Yuriy Lonchakov and Sandra Magnus continue work on board ISS. Progress M-66 is docked to the Pirs module. OCO --- NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory mission has failed. Launch from Vandenberg was on Feb 24, but the Taurus XL's payload fairing failed to separate. It is believed that the rocket and payload crashed near the Antarctic. Dawn ---- En route to the asteroid belt, the Dawn space probe has flown past Mars. Closest approach of 543 km at a Mars-relative velocity of 5.31 km/s was at 0028 UTC (SCET) on 2009 Feb 18. Dawn's hyperbolic orbit relative to the Mars equator was about 543 x -20665 km x 119.5 deg; its solar ecliptic orbit was changed from 1.22 x 1.68 AU x 1.8 deg to 1.37 x 1.84 AU x 6.1 deg. Dawn entered Mars' nominal gravitional sphere of influence at 2009 Feb 15 1200 UTC and left it at Feb 20 1300 UTC. Dawn's next appointment is its arrival in Vesta orbit during 2011 Sep. I encourage readers to check out Marc Rayman's entertaining Dawn Journal at http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/journal.asp Satellite collision ------------------- The first debris objects from Kosmos-2251 and Iridium 33 have been cataloged. As of Mar 2, 128 Iridium and 274 Kosmos pieces were in the catalog. Iranian satellite launch time ----------------------------- Phillip Clark's Worldwide Satellite Launches newsletter quotes a translation of an interview with a scientist connected to the Omid project, giving the launch time of Omid as 2206 Iran time, which is 1836 UTC. This is two minutes later than the time I estimated in the last issue. Telstar 11N ----------- Space International Services of Moscow launched a 'Land Launch' Zenit-3SLB rocket from Baykonur with the Telstar 11N satellite on board. The Blok DM-SLB third stage made three burns, from a -2268 x 373 km x 51.4 deg initial state to a 175 x 651 km x 51.4 deg parking orbit, a 202 x 35575 km x 50.7 deg intermediate orbit, and a planned 1494 x 35797 km x 34.6 deg deployment orbit. The Telstar 11N then used its own engine to raise its orbit to 6415 x 35803 km x 17.7 deg on the way to GEO. Telstar 11N is owned by Telesat, which is based in Ottawa. Although it is probably operated by Telesat's Bedminster, New Jersey office which is the corporate successor to the original AT&T Telstar satellite operation, it seems that it should be counted as a Canadian-owned satellite. North Korean satellites ----------------------- The Korean Committee of Space Technology of the Choson Minjujuui Inmin Konghwaguk (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) has announced the planned launch of the Kwangmyongsong-2 satellite. Kwangmyongsong-1 was launched in 1998 Aug but failed to reach orbit, despite North Korean claims to the contrary. The new satellite will use a rocket called Unha-2 ("Galaxy-2"). The 1998 rocket was the Paektusan-1 (using the McCune-Reischauer transliteration scheme; Taepo-Dong was a name assigned by US intelligence and is not the North Korean name of the rocket). Wikipedia tells me that Paektusan ("White-headed mountain", also called Baekdu or Baitoushan) is the tallest mountain in Korea. The new statement reveals that the name of the launch site is the Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground. The site, in Hwadae county of Hamgyong Pukdo province, is near Cape Musu-dan and was previously referred to in Western analysis as Musudan-ri. The KCST itself is an organization I haven't heard referred to before - it is either newly formed, or more probably, its existence is newly declassified by the North Koreans. (I'm not sure what the Korean name for it would be - something like Choson Wiwonhoe Uju Kisul perhaps? I hope Korean-speaking readers can help out here.) The Paektusan-1 uses as its first stage a North-Korean-modified R-17 (Scud) derived missile whose US intelligence designation is Nodong. We still don't know its true name, so I'll continue calling it Nodong, which is the name of a village near Tonghae and also means 'worker'. (In McCune-R it's probably written Rodong, but the Nodong name has stuck.) Another large rocket was launched on 2006 Jul 4; in the west it is called Taepodong 2 (TD-2). It's conceivable that this is the Unha-1, but I'll resist the temptation to rename it at this stage. Although the TD-2 is usually thought to be a new family of first stage, I am not convinced of this and think it may be another Nodong-series vehicle like Paektusan and like the Iranian Safir. I expect the same to be true of Unha-2; we may soon find out. Kosmos-2445 ----------- Kosmos-2445, a Russian Defense Ministry reconnaissance satellite (possibly designated 11F695U Kobal't-M), landed on Feb 23 after 101 days in space. Two debris objects separated on Feb 23 around 1330 UTC; they reentered within a day. The main spacecraft was probably deorbited around 1540-1550 UTC and landed around 1615 UTC. Raduga-1 -------- A Russian military communications satellite in the Globus series (cover name Raduga-1) was launched on Feb 28 by a Khrunichev Proton-K with an Energiya DM-2 upper stage. The previous launch in the series was a modified Raduga-1M launched with the more modern Proton-M/Briz-M rocket; the use of the older rocket suggests that this one is indeed just a Raduga-1 and not a Raduga-1M. The new Raduga-1 was in geosynchronous orbit in the 90 E region late on Feb 28. Chang'e-1 --------- China's lunar probe, Chang'e-1, was deorbited at 0736 UTC on Mar 1 and impacted the lunar surface at 1.50S 52.36E at 0813 UTC. The impact site in Mare Fecunditatis is south-east of the crater Taruntius P and west of the Luna-16 landing site. Table of Recent (orbital) Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jan 18 0247 USA 202 (NROL-26) Delta 4H Canaveral SLC37B Sigint 01A Jan 23 0354 Ibuki ) H-IIA 202 Tanegashima Rem.Sens. 02A SDS-1 ) Tech 02C SOHLA-1 ) Imaging 02 SpriteSat ) Science 02 Kagayaki ) Tech 02 KKS 1 ) Imaging 02 Kukai ) Tech 02G PRISM ) Imaging 02B Jan 30 1330 Koronas-Foton Tsiklon-3 Plesetsk Solar phys 03A Feb 2 1836 Omid Safir (Iran) Test 04A Feb 6 1022 NOAA 19 Delta 7320-10C Vandenberg SLC2W Weather 05A Feb 10 0549 Progress M-66 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC31 Cargo 06A Feb 11 0003 Ekspress AM-44 ) Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 07A Ekspress MD-1 ) Comms 07B Feb 12 2209 Hot Bird 10 ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 08B NSS 9 ) Comms 08A Spirale A ) Early Warn 08C Spirale B ) Early Warn 08D Feb 24 0955 OCO Taurus Vandenberg 576E Sci F01 Feb 26 1830 Telstar 11N Zenit-3SLB Baykonur LC45 Comms 09A Feb 28 0410 Raduga-1 Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur LC81/24 Comms 10A Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Dec 23 0300 RV x 3? Bulava TK-208, Barents R&D 100? Jan 10 2317 NASA 30.073UO Imp. Orion Poker Flat Ionosphere 98 Jan 26 0015 S-310-39 S-310 Andoya Atmosphere 140? Jan 29 0949 NASA 36.242UE Black Brant IX Poker Flat Aurora 364 Jan 29 0951 NASA 21.139UE Black Brant VC Poker Flat Aurora 133 Feb 18 0952 NASA 41.076 Terrier Orion Poker Flat Atmosphere 130? Feb 18 1029 NASA 41.078 Terrier Orion Poker Flat Atmosphere 130? Feb 18 1059 NASA 41.079 Terrier Orion Poker Flat Atmosphere 130? Feb 18 1147 NASA 41.077 Terrier Orion Poker Flat Atmosphere 130? Feb? USN Mk 5 RV x 8? Trident D-5 SSBN, WTR Test 1000? Feb 13 USN Mk 5 RV x 8? Trident D-5 SSBN 731, WTR Test 1000? Feb 25 1045 NASA 36.226UG Black Brant IX White Sands IR Astron. 300? .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Somerville MA 02143 | inter : jcm@host.planet4589.org | | USA | jcm@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html | | Back issues: http://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: mail majordomo@host.planet4589.org, (un)subscribe jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'