Jonathan's Space Report

No 659 2012 May 25 Somerville, MA USA

Space Station

The undocking of Soyuz TMA-22 marked the start of ISS Expedition 31 The current Ex 31 crew are commander Oleg Kononenko, flight engineer 5 Andre Kuipers, and flight engineer 6 Don Pettit (Note that the flight engineer numbers I gave in JSR 658 were incorrect)

At 0301 UTC on May 15 Soyuz TMA-04M (spacecraft 11F732A47 No 705) was launched from Baykonur on a Soyuz-FG rocket carrying Gennadiy Padalka, Sergey Revin and Joe Acaba It docked with the ISS' Poisk module on May 17 at 0436 UTC

At 0744:38 UTC on May 22 SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 vehicle from Cape Canaveral carrying the Dragon COTS 2+ DEMO mission The Dragon C2+ spacecraft was placed in a 297 x 346 km x 51 6 deg orbit Dragon consists of a pressurised cabin with cargo and an unpressurized trunk section with solar panels, which deployed just after orbit insertion The robot cargo vehicle is designed to deliver cargo to the Station and return cargo to Earth

SpaceX are being secretive about the properties of the Dragon vehicle - they have not released the mass of the spacecraft The claimed capacity of Falcon 9 to LEO is around 10 metric tons, but my guess is that Dragon C2+ is more like 5 to 7 metric tons at stage 2 separation (comments and information solicited)

A Celestis space burial capsule (with cremated human remains) is attached to the Falcon 9 second stage, in a 268 x 333 km x 51 7 deg orbit

On May 24 Dragon C2+ was in a 380 x 396 km orbit and made a 2 5 km flyby of the Station at 1125 UTC; rendezvous and capture is expected on May 25 On May 25 the spacecraft entered the ISS 200-meter keep-out-sphere at 1121 UTC Approach was paused briefly to debug an issue with the lidar, which was affected by unexpected reflections from the Kibo Exposed Facility, but the 30-meter hold point was reached at 1313 UTC, followed by the 10-meter point at 1347 UTC and capture by the station's SSRMS robot arm at 1356 UTC At 1552 UTC the SSRMS berthed the Dragon at the nadir CBM port on the Harmony module, with berthing complete at 1602 UTC Hatch opening on May 26 will represent the first delivery of cargo to the Station by a commercial spacecraft

CZ-4B launch

China launched a three-stage Chang Zheng 4B rocket on May 10, orbiting the Yaogan 14 military remote sensing satellite to a 473 x 479 km x 97 2 deg, 2:14pm sun-sunchronous orbit It also deployed the Tiantuo 1 technology satellite for the National University of Defense Technology Tiantuo ('Space Pioneer') carries an imager, an atomic oxygen sensor, and an AIS (maritime tracking) receiver Tiantuo 1 is in a 468 x 471 km x 97 2 deg orbit

Ariane 5

Arianespace launched an Ariane 5ECA on May 15, placing in orbit two Lockheed Martin A2100 class satellites: JCSAT 13 for Sky Perfect JSAT, and Vinasat 2 for VNPT (Vietnam Posts and Telecom) I believe that JCSAT 13 has a Leros 1C apogee engine, while Vinasat 2 has the Japanese IHI BT-4 (can anyone confirm or refute this?)

On May 23 JCSAT 13 was in a 35731 x 35772 km x 0 1 deg orbit drifting east over 125E; Vinasat-2 was in a 35716 x 35761 km x 0 1 deg orbit drifting east over 131E The ESC-A upper stage was in a 264 x 35665 km x 1 7 deg geostationary transfer orbit

Kosmos-2480

A new Kobal't-M imaging spy satellite was launched on May 17 from Plesetsk into a 186 x 255 km x 81 4 deg orbit - the second Kobal't-M to this near polar inclination The satellite was given the cover name Kosmos-2480 At about 0750 UTC on May 20 the satellite's orbit was raised to 218 x 248 km as it began its operational mission

Shizuku

Japan's JAXA space agency launched H-IIA flight F21 from Tanegashima on May 17 into a 1:30am local time sun-synchronous orbit at 670 x 674 km x 98 2 deg The main payloads are Shizuku, JAXA's first satellite in the Global Change Observation Mission series, and Arirang-3 (Kompsat-3), a South Korean imaging satellite JAXA's 50 kg SDS-4 Small Demonstration Satellite (kogata jissho eisei 4-gata) carries four technology experiments including a space-based AIS (ship tracking) payload A small 7 kg satellite built by the Kyushu Institute of Technology, Horyu-2, will study spacecraft charging effects and test a camera payload for Surrey Satellite (My Japanese colleague K Sato informs me that Horyu is an imaginary 'Phoenix-Dragon' - Ho + Ryu - which serves as KIT's emblem) The second stage will be monitored after payload deployment to study improved propellant insulation

Shizuku (`dewdrop', GCOM-W1) is a 1991 kg satellite carrying a microwave scanning radiometer, AMSR-2

In addition to the four payloads and the second stage, the upper payload adapter and two side panels from the lower fairing were cataloged in orbit, for a total of 8 objects

Nimiq-6

A Krunichev Proton-M was launched from Baykonur on May 17 The Briz-M No 99530 upper stage carries the Canadian Nimiq-6 television broadcast satellite, a Loral 1300-series vehicle with 24 Ku-band transponders; it was deployed to a 11985 x 35800 km x 10 2 deg transfer orbit By May 23 Nimiq 6 was in a 35738 x 35751 km x 0 0 deg geostationary drift orbit, drifting east over 139W

Suborbital launches

Russian carried out the second launch of a new generation ballistic missile on May 23 The missile is thought to be a modification of the Topol' series, and is possibly code-named 'Avangard'

Table of Recent (orbital) Launches

Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL
DES Apr 3 2312 NROL-25 Delta 4M+(5,2) Vandenberg SLC6 Radar 14A Apr 12 2239 Kwangmyongsong-3 Unha-3 Sohae Tech F01 Apr 20 1250 Progress M-15M Soyuz-U Baykonur LC31/6 Cargo 15A Apr 23 2218 Yahsat-1B Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 16A Apr 26 0017 RISAT-1 PSLV-XL Sriharikota Radar 17A Apr 29 2050 Beidou DW 12 ) Chang Zheng 3B Xichang LC2 Nav 18A Beidou DW 13 ) Nav 18B May 4 1842 AEHF 2 Atlas V 531 Canaveral SLC41 Comms 19A May 6 0710 Tianhui 1-02 Chang Zheng 2D Jiuquan SLS2 Imaging 20A May 10 0706 Yaogan Weixing 14) Chang Zheng 4B Taiyuan Imaging 21A Tiantuo 1 ) Tech/Sci 21B May 15 0301 Soyuz TMA-04M Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1/5 Spaceship 22A May 15 2213 JCSAT 13 ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 23A? Vinasat 2 ) Comms 23B? May 17 1405 Kosmos-2480 Soyuz-U Plesetsk LC16 Imaging 24A May 17 1639 Shizuku ) H-2A Tanegashima Y1 Climate 25A Arirang-3 ) Imaging 25B SDS-4 ) Tech 25C? Horyu-2 ) Tech 25D May 17 1912 Nimiq 6 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC81/24 Comms 26A May 22 0744 Dragon C2 ) Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Cargo 27A Celestis 11) Burial 27B

Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches

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

Apr 5 1418 SL-6 SpaceLoft XL Spaceport America Tech 117 Apr 19 0237 Agni RV Agni V Chandipur R&D 800 Apr 25 Shaheen RV Shaheen 1A Somniani? R&D 100? May 10 0618 FTM-16/2A Target Terrier Orion Kauai Target 100? May 10 0620? FTM-16/2A KV SM-3 Block IB USS Lake Erie Intercept 100? May 23 0615 RV Topol'-M2? Plesetsk R&D 1000?

------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail | | USA | jcm@cfa harvard edu | | | | JSR: http://www planet4589 org/jsr html | | Back issues: http://www planet4589 org/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: http://www planet4589 org/mailman/listinfo/jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'

JSR mailing list JSR@www planet4589 org http://www planet4589 org/mailman/listinfo/jsr

To unsubscribe, email jsr-leave@www planet4589 org

The following information is a reminder of your current mailing list subscription:

You are subscribed to the following list: [list_name]

using the following email: example@example.com

You may automatically unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following URL:

https://aus-city com/cgi-bin/dada/mail cgi/u/NASA_REPORTS/example/example com/

If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the entire address Some mail readers will wrap a long URL and thus break this automatic unsubscribe mechanism

You may also change your subscription by visiting this list's main screen:

<[program_url]/list/[list]>

If you're still having trouble, please contact the list owner at:

<mailto:[list_owner_email]>

The following physical address is associated with this mailing list:

[physical_address]