Jonathan's Space Report
No. 855 draft 2026 Apr 1 Somerville, MA, USA
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ISS
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Expedition 74 continues.
Artemis II
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The Artemis II mission was launched on Apr 1. The SLS core stage CS-2 entered a 28 x 2222 km x 28.5 deg
orbit at 2243 UTC and after reaching apogee at 2331 UTC reentered over the Pacific at about Apr 2 0019 UTC.
At 2325 UTC the ICPS-2/Artemis II upper stage vehicle made a rocket firing near apogee to boost perigee, reaching
a 185 x 2222 km orbit, and another burn near perigee at 0023 UTC, reaching a 2 x 70354 km orbit.
The Orion spacecraft, `Integrity', separated from the ICPS at 0157 UTC Apr 2. After some test flying of the Orion
using the ICPS stage as a stationkeeping target, Integrity made a separation burn at 0325 UTC to a 56 x 70152 km orbit.
At 0335 UTC the ICPS made a disposal burn to adjust its reentry trajectory. I don't have details of this burn, but
ICPS-2 reentered over the Pacific near 148W 28N at about 2330 UTC Apr 2. At 0404 UTC ICPS-2 deployed
four 12U cubesats from the Orion Stage Adapter: Atenea (CONAE, Argentina),
SWC-1 (Saudi Space Agency), Tacheles (Neurospace/DLR, Germany) and K-RAD-Cube (Korean Space Agency).
Several of them used onboard propulsion to raise their perigee and avoid immediate reentry.
Integrity made another perigee-raising burn at 1207 UTC Apr 2, to a 192 x 70174 km orbit. It reaached
apogee around 1210 UTC and began falling back towards perigee. The TLI (translunar injection) burn
from 2349:50 to 2355:41 UTC put Integrity on course for the Moon. A single outbound course correction was
made at 0303 UTC Apr 6.
Integrity entered the lunar gravitational sphere of influence at 0438 UTC. It made a lunar farside
flyby at an altitude of 6543 km at 2300:46 UTC Apr 6. At 2302:51 UTC the spacecraft reached an apogee
of 413149 km from the geocenter, a new record for human spaceflight.
The ship left the lunar sphere of influence at about 1717 UTC Apr 7. Earthbound course corrections
were made at 0008 UTC Apr 8, 0253 UTC Apr 10, and 1853 UTC Apr 10.
At 2333 UTC Apr 10 the European Service Module was jettisoned. It reentered over the Pacific near 135W 25N.
The Integrity command module made a small 19s adjustment burn at 2337 UTC and entered the atmosphere
at 10.657 km/s (Earth-relative), passing the 122 km entry interface at 2353:30 UTC. After a six minute
reentry blackout, the CM forward bay cover was jettisoned at 0003 UTC Apr 11 and the drogue chutes
were deployed, followed by the three main large chutes at 0004 UTC.
At 0007:27 UTC Apr 11 Integrity splashed down at 117.8W 32.3N off the coast of San Diego.
Starlink launches
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Starlink Group 10-58 (29 Ku sats) was launched on Apr 2 from Canaveral.
Starlink Group 17-35 (25 Ku sats) was launched on Apr 7 from Canaveral.
CALT launches
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CALT launched a CZ-8A from the Hainan Commercial Launch Site on Apr 7 with Qianfan batch 07,
the first batch of Qianfan internet sats to go up since October.
SAST launches
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SAST launched a CZ-6A from Taiyuan with the 21st Xingwang Digui group of internet satellites.
Chinese commercial launches
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Space Pioneer launched the first full Tianlong-3 rocket from Jiuquan on Apr 3.
It failed to reach orbit. The failure may have occurred around the time of first stage cutoff.
XZC-02
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The two subsatellites attached to XZC-02 appear to have separated from it on Apr 2.
Russian launches
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A launch from Plesetsk on Apr 3 is believed to be a Meridian military comms satellite. It was placed in
a Molniya orbit.
Amazon Leo
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Amazon Leo launch LA05 went up on Apr 4 aboard Atlas V flight AV-109. 29 Kuiper satellites were placed in orbit.
STP-S29A
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On Apr 7 a Northrop Grumman Minotaur IV was launched from Vandenberg to
a 60 deg inclination orbit with a cluster of satellites for the Space
Force's Space Test Program. The main payload was STPSat-7, built by
Aegis Aerospace, It carries space surveillance and technology
experiments. CANVAS (Colorado) studies VLF waves; Auburn U's
Astra-Hyrax tests a new method to locate X-band radio emitters; US
Special Ops Command's MISR-C is an intelligence satellite possibly with
a SIGINT payload; Auris is a Michigan Tech U. satellite with a radio
spectrum monitoring payload; and AggieSat-6 is a Texas A&M satellite
with a payload to infer Iridium satellite locations by monitoring their
radio signals; and two US Army Rawhide cubesats carry experiments for
the Space and Missile Defense Command,
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
Mar 17 0519 Starlink Group 17-24 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 53 242 x 247 x 97.3
Mar 17 1327 Starlink Group 10-46 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 54 252 x 258 x 53.2
Mar 19 1420 Starlink Group 10-33 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 55 256 x 268 x 53.1
Mar 20 1810 StriX-6 Electron Mahia LC1B Radar 56A 556 x 578 x 50.3
Mar 20 2151 Starlink Group 17-15 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 57 238 x 251 x 97.3
Mar 22 1159 Progress MS-33 Soyuz-2-1a Baykonur LC31 Cargo 58A 263 x 279 x 51.6
Mar 22 1447 Starlink Group 10-62 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 59 256 x 267 x 53.2
Mar 22 1549 Weili Kongjian 02 zu 01-10 Jielong-3 DFHT, Yellow Sea Nav 60 635 x 635 x 55.0
Mar 23 1724 Rassvet-3 1 to 16 Soyuz-2-1b Plesetsk Comms 61 288 x 323 x 82.3
OBZP-1 Comms 61
Mar 25 2251 Siwei Gaojing 2-05 Chang Zheng 2D Taiyuan Imaging 62A 500 x 513 x 97.4
Siwei Gaojing 2-06 Imaging 62B
Mar 26 2303 Starlink Group 17-17 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 63 237 x 251 x 97.3
Mar 27 0411 Shiyan 33 Chang Zheng 2C/YZ-1S Jiuquan Tech 64A 499 x 592 x 97.4
Mar 28 0914 Celeste IOD-1 Electron Mahia LC1 Nav 65A 500 x 522 x 97.4
Celeste IOD-2
Mar 30 1100 Xinzhengcheng-02 Lijian-2 Jiuquan LC140 Cargo 66A 255 x 613 x 85.0
Mar 30 1102 Transporter-16 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Rideshare 67 593 x 594 x 97.8
Mar 30 2115 Starlink Group 10-44 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 68 251 x 264 x 53.2
Apr 1 2235 Integrity (Artemis 2) SLS Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 69A 201 x 406771 x 28.4
ATENEA Tech 69 61 x 70276 x 28.4
SWC-1 Sci 69
Tacheles Tech 69
K-RAD-CUBE Sci 69
Apr 2 0900? Xinzhengcheng-01 XZC-02, LEO Imaging? 66C
Apr 2 1155 Starlink Group 10-58 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 70 255 x 266 x 53.2
Apr 2 2100? Tianshi-01 XZC-02, LEO Tech? 66D
Apr 3 0417? Tianwei-4 Tianlong-3 Jiuquan Test F05? -6300? x 50? x 97.5
Apr 3 0628 Meridian-M Soyuz-2-1a/Fregat Plesetsk Comms 71A 996 x 39714 x 62.8
Apr 4 0546 Kuiper LA05 Atlas V Canaveral LC41 Comms 72 450 x 455 x 51.9
Apr 7 0249 Starlink Group 17-35 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 73 243 x 258 x 97.3
Apr 7 1133 STPSat-7 Minotaur IV Vandenberg SLC8 Tech 74 485 x 504 x 60.0
CANVAS Sci 74
Astra-Hyrax Tech 74
Rawhide 1 Tech? 74
Rawhide 2 Tech? 74
MISR-C Sigint? 74
AggieSat-6 Tech 74
Apr 7 1332 Qianfan 07 zu Chang Zheng 8 Hainan CLS1 Comms 75
Apr 8 1938 Xingwang Digui 21 Chang Zheng 6A Taiyuan Comms 76
Table of Recent Suborbital Launches
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Daily exoatmospheric missile launches in the Middle East conflict continue, but are not listed here.
Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Target
Mar 10 2325 ICI-5b Terrie Malemute Andoya Auroral 300? Norwegian Sea
Mar 17 JFTX1 E1 Terrier Oriole? Wallops Target 100? Atlantic
Mar 19 JFTX1 E2 Terrier Oriole? Wallops Target 100? Atlantic
Mar 26 1630 Dark Eagle CHGB Booster Canaveral SLC46 Test 150? Atlantic
.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Jonathan McDowell | |
| Somerville MA 02143 USA | inter : planet4589 at gmail |
| and | twitter: @planet4589 |
| Bromley, UK |
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