Jonathan's Space Report
No. 858 draft 2026 Jul 1 Bromley, UK
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Update:
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Construction on my new Space Library near London is finally proceeding.
Updates at https://www.gofundme.com/f/fund-jonathans-space-report-library-transition
Editorial: UN registrations
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A key part of the international space governance system, the UN register
of space objects, is currently broken. Countries are still supplying
registration documents to the UN but for the past four months new
documents are not being made available to the public. The reported
reason is "mandatory changes made to the UNOOSA website's IT
infrastructure" which is not an acceptable excuse for failing to make
public documents required by international agreement. Despite the
notice at https://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/spaceobjectregister/index.html
it's not just the 'online index' which is unavailable, the documents
themselves do not appear to be accessible.
ISS
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Expedition 74 continues.
Progress MS-34 reboosted the ISS orbit with a 568s, 1.1m/s burn at 2039 UTC Jul 1.
On Jul 2 the Kibo RMS extracted NRCSD-30 from the JEM airlock, and the
NRCSD ejected six university cubesats: Proves-Alcyone (Columbia) and
Proves-Atlas (Northeastern) at 0850 UTC; HUCSat (Harvard) at 0900 UTC;
Coconut (ASU) and LeopardSat (Cincinnati) at 1030 UTC; Proves-Electra
(Santa Cruz) at 1140 UTC. (these deployment times are not yet confirmed).
Megaconstellation launches
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Starlink Group 17-46 (24 Ku sats) was launched on Jul 2 by Falcon 9 from Vandenberg
Amazon Leo LA08 (29 sats) was launched on Jul 2 from Canaveral on ULA Atlas V 551 flight AV-114.
Starlink Group 10-50 (29 Ku sats) was launched on Jul 5 by Falcon 9 from Canaveral.
Transporter 17
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On Jul 7 the Transporter 17 rideshare mission was launched by Falcon 9 from Vandenberg.
After deploying rideshare payloads in a 600 km orbit, the Korean CAS500-4 was delivered to a 900 km orbit.
SAST launches
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On Jul 1 SAST launched a CZ-4B with the HY2-05 oceanographic satellite to a 937 x 958 km sun sync orbit.
At about 0018 UTC Jul 2 the CZ-4B upper stage made a perigee lowering burn to 649 x 934 km.
On Jul 4 SAST/CGWIC launched a CZ-6A with the Group 13 cluster of Qianfan internet satellites.
CALT launches
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On Jul 5 CALT/CASC Commercial Rocket launched an upgraded CZ-8A from Hainan with twenty Qianfan satellites (Group 15).
LINK
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On Jul 3 the L-1011 Stargazer aircraft N140SC took off from Kwajalein runway 06/24 at 0739 UTC
and at 0836 UTC dropped its cargo, a Northrop Grumman Pegasus rocket, over about 166W 7N.
The three-stage Pegasus delivered the 430 kg NASA/Katalyst Space LINK spacecraft to low orbit.
LINK's mission is to rendezvous and dock with NASA's SWIFT space observatory and boost it
to a higher orbit.
Asteroids
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On Jul 4 China's Tianwen-2 probe matched orbit with (469219) Kamo'oelawa at a distance of about
20 km, in preparation for a sample return attempt.
On Jul 5 at 0930 UTC Japan's Hayabusa-2 flew past (98943) Torifune at a distance of about 1 km.
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
Jun 28 1609 Starlink Group 17-40 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 147 255 x 265 x 97.3
Jun 29 0225 SXM-11 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 148A 219 x 19617 x 27.0
Jul 1 2346 Haiyang 2-05 Chang Zheng 4B Jiuquan Rem.Sen. 149A 928 x 946 x 99.3
Jul 2 0258 Starlink Group 17-46 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 150 255 x 271 x 97.3
Jul 2 0430 Amazon Leo LA-08 Atlas V 551 Canaveral LC41 Comms 151 450 x 465 x 51.9
Jul 2 0850 Proves-Alcyone ISS, LEO Tech 98067
Proves-Atlas Tech 98067
Jul 2 0900 HUCSAT ISS, LEO Tech 98067
Jul 2 1030 LeopardSat ISS, LEO Tech 98067
Coconut Tech 98067
Jul 2 1140 Proves-Electra ISS, LEO Tech 98067
Jul 3 0836 LINK Pegasus L-1011, Pacific Tech 152A 362 x 393 x 20.6
Jul 4 0930 Qianfan Group 13 Chang Zheng 6A Taiyuan Comms 153
Jul 5 1050 Starlink Group 10-50 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 154 240 x 250 x 53.2
Jul 5 1343 Qianfan Group 15 Chang Zheng 8A Hainan LC1 Comms 155
Jul 7 0712 Transporter 17 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Rideshare 156 590 x 598 x 97.8
CAS500-4 Imaging 156 884 x 897 x 99.0
Table of Recent Suborbital Launches
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Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Target
Jun 24 0930 Rocksat/RockOn Terrier I.Mal. Wallops Student 119? Atlantic
Jun 26 1711 SHORTSTOP Castor IVBXL Wallops Hypersonic? 300? Atlantic
Jul 6 0401 RV JL-2 Type 094 Sub?,Bohai Test 1000? Pacific
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| Jonathan McDowell | |
| Bromley, UK | inter : planet4589 at gmail |
| | twitter: @planet4589 |
| |
| JSR: https://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html |
| Back issues: https://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back |
| JSR is currently no longer available by email |
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