Jonathan's Space Report No. 677 2013 Apr 18 Somerville, MA USA --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- International Space Station ---------------------------- Expedition 35 continues with astronauts Hadfield, Romanenko and Marshburn. Ferry ship Soyuz TMA-07M is at Rassvet; cargo ship Progress M-18M is at the Pirs module. Progress M-17M undocked from Zvezda at 1202 UTC on Apr 15 and is carrying out Radar-Progress ionospheric tests. Soyuz TMA-08M was launched at 2043 UTC on Mar 28, carrying Pavel Vinogradov, Aleksandr Misurkin and Chris Cassidy. It is spacecraft Soyuz TMA-M No. 708, on ISS flight 34S. The craft docked with the Poisk module at 0228 UTC Mar 29. The most rapid flights from Earth surface to successful docking in Earth orbit have been: hh:mm:(ss) Soyuz 7K-OK No. 7 0:46 (Kosmos-213) Soyuz 7K-OK No. 5 1:17 (Kosmos-188) Gemini 11 1:34:16 Gemini 12 3:46 Progress M-16M 5:43:30 Soyuz TMA-08M 5:44 ish? Progress M-17M 5:52:22 Progress M-18M 5:52:31 Gemini 10 5:52:36 Gemini 8 6:33:16 Skylab SL-4 8:01 Skylab SL-3 8:21 Skylab SL-2 8:50 Kepler-62 --------- NASA has announced the discovery of Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f, the second and third Earth/super-Earth-sized planets found in the 'habitable zone' of their parent star. (Most of my readers are currently on living the first Earth-size planet found in its star's habitable zone). Kepler-62e is 1.6 Earth radii (Re) and Kepler-62f is only 1.4 Re. (In addition, a super-Venus, Kepler-69c, is reported.) The Kepler space telescope is in a 0.98 x 1.05 AU x 0.5 deg solar orbit. On Apr 18 it was trailing Earth by 25.2 deg at a distance of 3.7 minutes. One of the challenges for Kepler is to confirm that its planet candidates are really planets. Postdoc Francois Fressin developed the Blender code to validate whether Kepler signals are planets or fakes from a blend of eclipsing binary stars - this was first used to confirm the 2.2-Earth-radius planet Kepler-10c in 2011. Fressin was also involved in the discovery of the first Earth-sized Kepler planets. The planet Kepler-22b, announced in Dec 2011, was the first transiting exoplanet in its star's habitable zone but it is over twice the linear size of Earth and may be a mini-Neptune class planet. A paper submitted to Science with Kepler mission lead Bill Borucki as first author reports analysis of a new Kepler system, Kepler-62, with multiple planets including two Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone. Fressin's analysis confirmed that the candidate planets were real. Theorist Lisa Kaltenegger of Heidelberg has studied the extent of the habitable zone around stars and the structure of the atmospheres of Earths, super-Earths, waterworlds and mini-Neptunes. Kaltenegger's paper, with Dimitar Sasselov and grad student Sarah Rugheimer, shows that Kepler-62e and 62f could be Type I ocean planets, waterworlds made mostly of H2O. (Earth's *surface* is water but water is only 0.02 percent of Earth's total bulk mass). Antares ------- Orbital's Antares rocket's first launch attempt was scrubbed on Apr 17 and will be rescheduled. If successful its first stage will be the first liquid rocket launch from Wallops to space since 1974. I reviewed the success rate of new launch vehicles since 1999, separating countries just starting their space capabilitiy, largely new LVs for experienced countries, and major upgrades of existing LVs for experienced countries. I then scored the first launch, the first three launches, and all launches so far (with some partial successes given fractional success values). Here are the results: First First 3 All ==== Countries just starting ==== KT-1 0.00 0.00 0.00 0/ 2 Naro-1 0.00 0.33 0.33 1/ 3 Safir 0.00 0.67 0.50 3/ 6 ? Unha 0.00 0.33 0.33 1/ 3 VLS 0.00 0.00 0.00 0/ 3 (including static explosion) ------------------------------------ Subtotal 0.00 0.29 5/17 ==== New LVs for experienced countries ==== Zenit-3SL 1.00 0.66 0.93 39/42 Vega 1.00 1.00 1.00 1/1 (only 1 so far) Atlas 5 1.00 1.00 0.99 28.75/29 Delta 4 1.00 1.00 1.00 15/ 15 Delta 4H 0.45 0.82 0.91 5.45/6 Falcon 1 0.00 0.00 0.40 2/5 Falcon 9 1.00 1.00 0.97 4.85/5 GSLV 0.80 0.93 0.54 3.8 / 7 Minotaur1 1.00 1.00 1.00 10/10 Minotaur4 1.00 1.00 1.00 3/3 ------------------------------------ Subtotal 0.83 0.77 0.92 112.85/123 ====== LV major upgrades for experienced countries === Proton-M 1.00 1.00 0.94 60.1/64 (5 partial failures, 1 total) Soyuz-FG 1.00 1.00 1.00 43/43 Soyuz-2-1A 1.00 1.00 0.98 13.75/14 Soyuz-2-1B 1.00 1.00 0.89 8/9 Atlas 3 1.00 1.00 1.00 6/6 Ariane5ECA 0.00 0.67 0.98 39/40 CZ-3C 1.00 1.00 1.00 10/10 H-IIA 1.00 1.00 0.95 21/22 H-IIB 1.00 1.00 1.00 3/3 ======================================== Subtotal 0.89 0.96 0.97 203.85/211 Total total 0.92 321.7/351 (only LVs with first flight after 1999) Dragon CRS-2 ------------ The Dragon cargo ship began its return to Earth on Mar 26. At 0810 UTC Dragon was unberthed from the Harmony nadir CBM port using the SSRMS arm. The SSRMS released Dragon at 1056 UTC. At 1542 UTC the Dragon's Draco thrusters fired for 9min 59s to change velocity by an unknown amount (probably around 120-150 m/s) and lower perigee into the atmosphere. The Dragon trunk was jettisoned at 1555 UTC and the reentry vehicle passed through nominal atmosphere entry interface at 1614 UTC. The parachutes lowered Dragon to the Pacific Ocean, with splashdown around 30.52N 120.04W (according to reported positions of the recovery vessel American Islander) at about 1635 UTC. Satmex 8 -------- The Proton/Briz-M returned to flight on Mar 26 with the launch of Satmex 8. The first four Briz-M burns raised the orbit from -495 x 171 km x 51.6 deg to 173 x 173 km x 51.6 deg, 270 x 5000 km x 50.3 deg, 330 x 18016 km and 425 x 35799 km x 49.1 deg. A fifth burn at 0358 UTC Mar 27 placed the satellite in a high perigee 6118 x 35824 km x 18.4 deg transfer orbit and was followed by spacecraft separation at 0420 UTC. The Briz-M disposal burn lowered the discarded stage to 5932 x 34126 km; the DTB drop tank was jettisoned into the 330 x 18016 km intermediate orbit. The 5500 kg Satmex-8 communications satellite was built by SS/Loral for Satelites Mexicanos SA de CV. According to a Baykonur veterans blog at georg071941.ru, vehicle Proton-M 93536/Briz-M 99536 was used for this launch. Anik G-1 -------- Another Proton, no. 93537/Briz No. 99538, put the Canadian Anik G-1 satellite in orbit on Apr 15. The Loral 1300 satellite carries Ku, C and X-band communications payloads for Telesat. Table of Recent (orbital) Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. Feb 1 0656 Intelsat IS-27 Zenit-3SL SL Odyssey, Pacific Comms F01 Feb 6 1604 Globalstar M078 ) Soyuz-2-1A Baykonur LC31/6 Comms 05A Globalstar M093 ) Comms 05B Globalstar M094 ) Comms 05C Globalstar M095 ) Comms 05D Globalstar M096 ) Comms 05E Globalstar M097 ) Comms 05F Feb 7 2136 Amazonas 3 ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 06A Azerspace ) Comms 06B Feb 11 1441 Progress M-18M Soyuz-U Baykonur Cargo 07A Feb 11 1802 Landsat 8 Atlas V 401 Vandenberg SLC3E Imaging 08A Feb 25 1231 SARAL ) Altimeter 09A Sapphire ) SpSur 09C NEOSSat ) PSLV-CA Sriharikota Astron/SpSur 09D UniBRITE ) Astronomy 09G TUGSAT-1 ) Astronomy 09F AAUSAT3 ) Ship nav 09B STRaND-1 ) Tech 09E Mar 1 1510 Dragon CRS-2 Falcon 9 Canaveral SLC40 Cargo 10A Mar 19 2121 SBIRS GEO-2 Atlas V 401 Canaveral SLC41 Early Warn 11A Mar 26 1907 Satmex 8 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 12A Mar 28 2043 Soyuz TMA-08M Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1/5 Spaceship 13A Apr 15 1836 Anik G-1 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 14A Suborbital launches ------------------- Pakistan and India carried out missile tests in early April; China launched a sounding rocket with a barium release from Hainan. Germany launched a Brazilian VSB-30 from Sweden with a TEXUS microgravity experiment payload. Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Feb 7 0821 NASA 49.001UE T-T Oriole N. Poker Flat Auroral 754 Feb 13 0910 ARAV-B Target Terrier Oriole Kauai Target 150? Feb 13 0915? FTM-20 KV Aegis SM-3 CG-20, Pacific Interceptor 150? Feb 15 NASA 41.104GT Terrier Imp Orion White Sands Tech 130? Feb (many) Julan RV? Scud An Nasriyah, Syria Weapon 80? Feb 25 0600? Arrow KV Arrow 3 Palmachim? Interceptor 100? Mar 11 0610? Shark Terrier Lynx Wallops I Target 300? Apr 4 2155 Kunpeng-1 Tianying-3E Hainan Ionosphere 191 Apr 7 0455 Agni RV Agni 2 Wheeler I. Op. Test 200? Apr 10 Haft-IV RV Shaheen 1 Somniani? Op. Test 100? Apr 12 0425 TEXUS 50 VSB-30 Kiruna Micrograv 261 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail | | USA | jcm@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html | | Back issues: http://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: http://www.planet4589.org/mailman/listinfo/jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'