Jonathan's Space Report No. 621 2010 Jan 21 Somerville, MA ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Editorial --------- This issue completes the first 21 years of JSR. I began the newsletter in January 1989, at the request of friends who needed a compact summary of space activities with all the technical details. After a few issues of email distribution I started making available on the sci.space newsgroups and ftp. After the invention of the Web, I added the html page in 1994 (sorry I haven't had the time to update it since then! I'll learn CSS sometime in the next few years, I promise.) I'd like to thank my thousands of loyal readers for listening to my ramblings, correcting my mistakes, and sending me great technical information that I've been able to share. I hope you continue to find the JSR useful. Shuttle and Station -------------------- The Expedition 22 crew currently consists of Jeff Williams, Maksim Suraev, Oleg Kotov, T.J. Creamer and Soichi Noguchi. Astronauts Suraev and Williams undocked from the Zvezda aft port in Soyuz TMA-16 at 1003 UTC on Jan 21, and flew the spacecraft around the station to dock with the new Poisk module on the zenithal side of Zvezda. Soyuz TMA-17 is docked with the nadir port on Zarya, Progress M-03M is at the Pirs port, and the PMA-2 ports is empty. On Jan 11 the SSRMS robot arm was used to move the ESP-3 spare parts pallet from the P3 truss to the S3 truss on the other side of the station. On Jan 14 at 1005 UTC astronauts Suraev and Kotov, in Orlan-MK spacesuits No. 4 and No. 5, emerged from the Pirs airlock to prepare the Poisk module for use. Two bundles of thermal insulation were jettisoned at around 1200 and 1410 UTC. The astronauts returned to the airlock and closed the hatch at 1549 UTC, completing Russian ISS spacewalk 24. Beidou ------ China launched the third geostationary Beidou navigation satellite (di san ke beidou daohang weixing) on Jan 16, the world's first orbital launch of 2010. The CZ-3C rocket put Beidou DW3 in a 196 x 35620 km x 20.5 deg transfer orbit. The satellite is also called COMPASS-G1. WISE ---- The WISE survey is beginning, with the first light image of a region in Carina presented at the AAS meeting last week. The initial mass of WISE was 661 kg full, 645 kg dry. JPL's Whitney Clavin reports to me that the ejected cryo cover has a mass of 17 kg. The spacecraft is a Ball Aerospace RS-300, with heritage from the NextSat satellite launched as part of the Air Force's Orbital Express mission. Ball, based in Colorado, has been building astronomy satellites since Orbiting Solar Observatory 1 in 1962. 2010 AL 30 ---------- An apparently asteroidal object cataloged as 2010 AL 30 passed 130000 km from the Earth on Jan 13. The object has a solar orbital period of exactly one year, but is in an elliptical path which makes repeated close approaches to Earth and Venus. Analysis by ESA's Michael Khan suggested that it could be the Fregat stage from the Venus Express launch, which passed close to Venus in early 2006. The current orbit for 2010 AL 30 in JPL Horizons suggests a pass 1.6M km from Venus on 2006 Feb 26, which would not be close enough to be a match. The alternative explanation, preferred by the Minor Planet Center, is that it's just a very lucky passing rock. Solar Eclipse ------------- The Indian Space Research Organization launched five RH-300 and two RH-560 suborbital rockets on Jan 14-15 to study the solar eclipse of Jan 15. Four RH-200 mesospheric rockets were also flown. The RH-560 is India's largest sounding rocket and is flown from the same Sriharikota Island launch site used for India's orbital launches. The other, smaller rockets used the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launch Station (TERLS) site at Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala; TERLS was India's first rocket launch site, inaugurated in 1963. Deep Space Probes Status ------------------------- On 2010 Jan 1 Voyager 1 was 112.1 AU from the Sun and Voyager 2 was 91.0 AU from the Sun. New Horizons is 15.5 AU from the Sun, between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus. The Cassini spacecraft is in a 155000 x 2300000 km orbit around Saturn, after 5.5 years in the Saturnian system. On Dec 28 at 0017 UTC it made flyby 123TI/T64 of Titan at a height of 955 km; on Jan 12 at 2310 UTC it made Titan flyby 124TI/T65 at a height of 1073 km. Flyby 125TI/T66 is scheduled for Jan 28. The Dawn asteroid probe is in a 1.50 x 1.94 AU x 6.5 deg solar orbit and was 1.75 AU from the Sun on Jan 1. It continues to use its ion engines to enlarge its orbit and is expected to reach Vesta in 2011. Rosetta is in a 0.98 x 5.09 AU x 4.4 deg solar orbit moving outward from the Earth towards its Jul 10 flyby of (21) Lutetia. Mars Odyssey, Mars Express and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter remain operating in Mars orbit, with the Spirit and Opportunity rovers sending back data from the surface. The Mars Express orbit is 353 x 10333 km x 86.6 deg; Mars Odyssey is in a 387 x 450 km x 93 deg orbit and MRO is in a 225 x 320 km x 93 deg orbit. Japan's Hayabusa spacecraft is in solar orbit between Mars and Earth, and is targeting a midyear Earth return. The Deep Impact Flyby Spacecraft, in a 0.97 x 1.02 AU x 6.7 deg orbit, will encounter comet 103P/Hartley-2 on Oct 11. Stardust is in a 0.97 x 1.73 AU x 8.5 deg orbit and will pass comet P/Tempel 1 in Feb 2011. The research craft Kepler, STEREO A, STEREO B, and Spitzer are also operating in solar orbit close to the Earth, while WMAP, Herschel and Planck are at Earth-Sun L2 and SOHO, Wind and ACE are at Earth-Sun L1. Inside 1 AU, Venus Express continues operating in a 223 x 66589 km x 90.1 deg Venus orbit, and Messenger is in a 0.31 x 0.57 AU x 7.0 deg solar orbit setting up for Mercury arrival in Mar 2011. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is in a roughly 40 x 60 km x 90 deg orbit around the Moon. ARTEMIS P1 (formerly THEMIS P1) was in a 47058 x 356845 km x 59.5 deg lunar transfer orbit by Jan 7. ARTEMIS P2 (formerly THEMIS P2) was in a 5518 x 258042 km x 6.5 deg high Earth orbit, and will join P1 en route to the Moon. The IBEX spacecraft is in a 8038 x 307710 km x 30.3 deg orbit almost at lunar distance. Japan's small Ouna spacecraft was in low lunar orbit in 2009 but I haven't been able to find up-to-date information on it; updates from readers would be welcome. Table of Recent (orbital) Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Dec 6 0147 WGS 3 Delta 4M+(5,4) Canaveral SLC37B Comms 68A Dec 9 0842 Yaogan Weixing 7 Chang Zheng 2D Jiuquan Imaging? 69A Dec 14 1038 Kosmos-2456 ) Proton-M/DM2 Baykonur LC81 Navigation 70A Kosmos-2457 ) Navigation 70B Kosmos-2458 ) Navigation 70C Dec 14 1409 WISE Delta 7320 Vandenberg SLC2W Astronomy 71A Dec 15 0231 Yaogan Weixing 8) Chang Zheng 4C Taiyuan Imaging 72A Xi Wang 1 ) Comms 72B Dec 18 1626 Helios IIB Ariane 5GS Kourou ELA3 Imaging 73A Dec 20 2152 Soyuz TMA-17 Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 74A Dec 29 0022 DirecTV 12 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 75A Jan 16 1612 Beidou DW3 Chang Zheng 3C Xichang Navigation 01A Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Dec 9 0645? RV Bulava TK-208, White Sea Test 500? Dec 10 1135 RV Topol' Kapustin Yar Test 1000? Dec 16 Sejjil RV Sejjil 2 Iran Test 800? Dec 16 1200? NASA 12.068GT Mesquito Wallops Island Test 90? Dec 17 0325 NASA 41.086UO Terrier Orion White Sands Airglow 130? Dec 24 RV x 10? R-36M2 Yasniy Test 1000? Jan 11 1155? Target ? Jiuquan? Target 100? Jan 11 1200? Interceptor DF-21? Urumqi? ABM test 100? Jan 14 0650 Eclipse RH-300 Mk II Thumba Solar 116 Jan 14 0735 Eclipse RH-300 Mk II Thumba Solar 116 Jan 14 0745? Eclipse RH-560 Mk II Sriharikota Solar 548 Jan 15 0700? Eclipse RH-300 Mk II Thumba Solar 116 Jan 15 0730? Eclipse RH-300 Mk II Thumba Solar 116 Jan 15 0745 Eclipse RH-560 Mk II Sriharikota Solar 523 Jan 15 1030 Eclipse RH-300 Mk II Thumba Solar 116 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'