Jonathan's Space Report
No. 860 draft 2026 Sep 1 Bromley, UK
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Update:
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Construction on my new Space Library near London is sort-of-proceeding, with, alas, further delays.
Updates at https://www.gofundme.com/f/fund-jonathans-space-report-library-transition
ISS
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Expedition 75 is underway.
On Sep 1 Adenot and Meir, in suits 3003 and 3015, carried out US EVA-99.
They replaced a planar retroreflector antenna on IDA-2, and replaced an EHDC camera at CP3.
They also installed some cables, obtained samples from the ISS exterior to test for
microorganisms, and performed some prep work for maintenance of the AMS experiment.
Depressurization to repressurization was 1231 to 1929 UTC.
Starlink Launches
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Starlink Group 15-23 (27 Ku sats) was launched on Sep 2 by Falcon 9 from Vandenberg.
Starlink Group 15-24 (27 Ku sats) was launched on Sep 6 by Falcon 9 from Vandenberg.
Zhisenxing-1
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The US Space Force did not catalog the Zhishenxing-1 (Pallas-1) test flight
and Galactic Energy have not released any orbital parameters so I regard success of the launch
as still subject to confirmation.
For the time being I am assigning it the 'uncataloged' designation 2026-U05.
Two plausible possibilities are: 1) the vehicle reached a 500 km orbit
and then was actively deorbited over the Pacific before completing the first orbit;
and 2) the vehicle reached a marginal orbit, like the Starship test flights,
with a perigee of 100 km or less, and reentered naturally after less than an orbit.
The likely entry location is the south Pacific west of Chile, perhaps around 91W 40S,
at around 0250 UTC Sep 1.
However, there does not appear to have been a NOTAM for the reentry area, which
one might expect if entry of the vehicle was expected. This leaves a third possibility,
that Galactic Energy are mistaken about their data and the vehicle did not
in fact reach the intended, or any, orbit.
In any case, lack of any Space Force cataloged objects after 5 days (at this writing)
makes it unlikely that objects associated with the launch remain in orbit.
Rocket Lab
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Rocket Lab Electron flight 94 placed Synspective's Strix-9 radar sat in orbit on Sep 2.
ISRO
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ISRO launched GSLV Mk II flight F17 on Sep 3, placing the GISAT-1A (EOS-05) imaging satellite in
subsynchronous transfer orbit.
ISAR
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ISAR Aerospace launched the second Spectrum rocket from Andoya on Sep 5, and successfully
reached orbit. This is the first orbital launch from Andoya and the first from western Europe.
Table of Recent Orbital (and near-Orbital) Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. Catalog Perigee Apogee Incl Notes
Aug 27 2011 MTG-I2 Ariane 62 Kourou Weather 198A 248 x 35650 x 6.0
Aug 30 1125 Roman Space Telescope Falcon Heavy Kennedy LC39A Astronomy 199 190 x 1200000 x 33.7
Sep 1 0200 ZSX-1 test flight Zhishenxing-1 Jiuquan Test U05 Unconfirmed
Sep 2 0842 Starlink Group 15-23 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 200 248 x 261 x 70.0
Sep 2 1201 StriX-9 Electron Mahia LC1B Radar 201A 538 x 582 x 38.1
Sep 3 2125 GISAT-1A GSLV Mk II Satish Dhawan SLP Imaging 202A 154 x 30963 x 19.3
Sep 5 2012 CyBEESat Spectrum Andoya Tech 203 510 x 600 x 97.4
TriSat-S Tech 203
Platform 6 Tech 203
SpaceTeamSat1 Tech 203
FramSat-1 Tech 203
Sep 6 1426 Starlink Group 15-24 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 204 248 x 261 x 70.0
Table of Recent Suborbital Launches
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Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Target
Aug 27? RVs Yars Plesetsk Test 1000? Kura
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| Jonathan McDowell | |
| Bromley, UK | inter : planet4589 at gmail |
| | twitter: @planet4589 |
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| JSR: https://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html |
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