Jonathan's Space Report

No 655 2012 Mar 19 Somerville, MA USA

Space Station

Expedition 30 continues with Soyuz TMA-22 docked at Poisk and Soyuz TMA-03M docked to the Rassvet module Ex-30 commander is Dan Burbank; flight engineers 1 to 5 are Anton Shkaplerov, Anatoliy Ivanishin, Oleg Kononenko, Andre Kuipers, Don Pettit The Progress M-14M cargo ship is docked at the Pirs module On Mar 17 the International Space Station was in a 378 x 400 km x 51 6 deg orbit

The European Space Agency is preparing for the launch of the ATV cargo vehicle 'Edoardo Amaldi' from Kourou The ATV-3 vehicle will dock at the Zvezda module

REQUEST

I'm looking for TLE data for Soyuz TM-5 (19204) for 1988 Sep 1 to Sep 7 (a time period that includes the multiple reentry attempts) The online archive is missing this data, but I know some of you have hoarded the paper copies

Note

For those of you in DC, I'll be giving an informal astronomy presentation on Fri Mar 23, 2-4pm at my exhibit at the Natural History Museum http://www mnh si edu/exhibits/evolving-universe/

SES-4

The SES-4 communications satellite reached its checkout orbit at the 26W Atlantic Ocean slot on Feb 29 At launch it was owned by SES Satellite Leasing (Isle of Man); it will be operated by SES World Skies (den Haag)

Beidou

China launched the 11th Beidou Daohang Weixing on Feb 24 The navigation satellite entered geostationary orbit over 58 7E on Mar 1 On Mar 17 the orbit was 35777 x 35796 km x 1 9 deg at 58 6E

Four geostationary Beidou Daohang Shiyan Weixing (Experimental Beidou Navigation Satellite) satellites were laucnhed in 2000-2007; since then the operational Beidou Daohang Weixing system has included one medium orbit satellite, five GEO satellites and five inclined-GEO satellites

MUOS 1

The US Navy's first Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) was orbited on Feb 24 by a powerful Atlas 551 vehicle, flight AV-030 The MUOS payload was delivered to a 3463 x 35786 km x 19 0 deg transfer orbit MUOS 1 has a dry mass of 3812 kg and is about 6740 kg fully fuelled; it is based on the Lockheed Martin A2100 spacecraft and will support UHF communications

Following UHF comms experiments with Lincoln Lab's LES satellites in the 1960s, the US Navy began using the UHF payload on the Tacsat satellite (1969-1972) This was followed by the Marisat Gapfiller payloads (from 1976), the FLTSATCOM system (from 1978) and the 'UHF Follow-On' system (from 1993), which the MUOS system will supersede

LARES

The LARES satellite launched on the first Vega flight is the latest in a series of passive, spherical, high (usually) mass-to-surface-area satellites carrying mirrors and laser retroreflectors for geodetic applications

Satellite Agency Launch date Mass/kg Current orbit Diam/m Starlette CNES, France 1975 Feb 6 48 0 2 804 x 1106 km x 49 8 deg Lageos NASA, USA 1976 May 4 411 0 6 5837 x 5948 km x109 8 deg Ajisai NASDA, Japan 1986 Aug 12 685 2 1 1479 x 1497 km x 50 0 deg Etalon 1 MOM, USSR 1989 Jan 10 1230 1 3 19082 x 19168 km x 64 4 deg Etalon 2 MOM, USSR 1989 May 31 1230 1 3 19082 x 19161 km x 64 4 deg Lageos 2 ASI, Italy 1992 Oct 22 405 0 6 5615 x 5951 km x 52 7 deg Stella CNES, France 1993 Sep 26 48 0 2 796 x 804 km x 98 6 deg GFZ-1 GFZ,Germany 1995 Apr 9 20 0 2 Reentered 1999 Jun 23 WESTPAC EOS, Australia 1998 Jul 10 24 0 2 814 x 817 km x 98 4 deg Starshine 1 NRL/GSFC, USA 1999 May 27 40 0 5 Reentered 2000 Feb 18 LRE NASDA, Japan 2001 Aug 29 86 0 5 287 x 34091 km x 28 4 deg Starshine 3 NRL/GSFC, USA 2001 Sep 30 90 0 9 Reentered 2003 Jan 21 Starshine 2 NRL/GSFC, USA 2001 Dec 5 39 0 5 Reentered 2002 Apr 26 Larets FKA,Russia 2003 Sep 27 10 0 2 675 x 692 km x 97 8 deg Blits FKA,Russia 2009 Sep 17 7 0 2 818 x 821 km x 98 7 deg LARES ASI, Italy 2012 Feb 13 400 0 4 1435 x 1452 km x 69 5 deg

The name of the attached payload on the Vega AVUM stage is the LARES A&H/SS (Avionics and Harness Subsystem) and consists of several boxes on one `petal' (sector) of the LARES support system The system is built by Temis S r l of Milano, while the overall support system is built by the Milan company OHB CGS (formerly Carlo Gavazzi Space) Overall mass of the LARES support system is probably 300 kg, and the dry AVUM is around 660 kg for a total in orbit mass for the object of about 960 kg

Suborbital flights

Cornell's MICA (Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling in the Alfven resonator) auroral study payload, NASA flight 36 273UE, was launched on Feb 19 The rocket reached 325 km and deployed a pair of payloads to study auroral Alfven wave resonances; the aft payload carried wire antennas measuring 12m tip-to-tip and had a mass of about 45 kg The forward payload was 303 kg

US Global Strike Command launched a Minuteman III from Vandenberg on Feb 25, carrying a single reentry vehicle which flew to a target in the Pacific, probably near the Kwajalein Atoll test range

On Feb 22 the US Navy launched a Trident II D-5 missile from the USS Tennessee submarine, SSBN 734, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, as flight DASO-23 (Demonstration and Shakedown Operation) The missile flew southeast down the Eastern Test Range, inserting the post-boost bus onto a suborbital trajectory The bus probably deployed 8 reentry vehicles, either Mk 4 or Mk 5 type, possibly for impact near Ascension Island This was the 137th consecutive success from Trident II; the previous acknowledged launch was the 135th, mission DASO-22, in March 2011, implying that an unacknowledged launch occurred sometime in the past year from the Pacific coast by an unidentifed submarine The Pacific launches are not always announced even after the submarine in question has completed its patrol, for reasons that are not really clear A total of 5 launches between 2005 and 2011 have unknown dates: successful flights nos 112 (DASO?), 114 (FCET-35?), 115 (FCET-35?), 125 (FCET-40), and 136 (FCET-44?)

Table of Recent (orbital) Launches

Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL
DES Jan 9 0317 ZY-3 ) Chang Zheng 4B Taiyuan Imaging 01A Vesselsat 2 ) Comms 01B Jan 13 0056 FY-2(07) Chang Zheng 3A Xichang Weather 02A Jan 20 0038 WGS 4 Delta 4M+(5,4) Canaveral SLC37B Comms 03A Jan 24 2318 Chibis-M - PM-13M, LEO Science 62C Jan 25 2306 Progress M-14M Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 04A Feb 3 0004? Navid Safir Semnan Imaging 05A Feb 13 1000 LARES ) Vega Kourou ELV Geodesy 06A Almasat ) Tech 06B XaTcobeo ) Tech 06 ROBUSTA ) Tech 06 e-st@r ) Tech 06 Goliat ) Tech 06 PWSat-1 ) Tech 06 MaSat-1 ) Tech 06 UNICubeSat-GG ) Tech 06 LARES Support Sys) Tech 06K Feb 14 1936 SES-4 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 07A Feb 24 1612 Beidou DW 11 Chang Zheng 3C Xichang Nav 08A Feb 24 2215 MUOS 1 Atlas V 551 Canaveral Comms 09A

Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches

Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km

Jan 11 1325 NASA 12 074GT Terrier Malemute Wallops Test 500? Jan 12 1451 S-520-26 S-520 Uchinoura Atm Sci 298 Jan 28 1815 STIG-A-III STIG-A Spaceport America Test 82 Feb 10 0440 Target Prithvi Chandipur Target 100 Feb 13 0932 MASER 12 VSB-30 ESRANGE Micrograv 260 Feb 19 0541 NASA 36 273UE Black Brant IX Poker Flat Auroral 325 Feb 22 8 x USN Mk 5 RV? Trident II USS Tennessee, ETR Op Test 1000? Feb 25 1046 GT206GM Minuteman III Vandenberg LF09 Op Test 1300?

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