Jonathan's Space Report

No 671 2012 Dec 12 Somerville, MA USA

International Space Station

Expedition 34 began at 2226 UTC on Nov 18 with commander Kevin Ford and flight engineers FE-1 Oleg Novitskiy and FE-2 Yevgeniy Tarelkin Their ferry ship, Soyuz TMA-06M, is docked at the Poisk module

Expedition 33 crewmembers Suni Williams, Yuriy Malenchenko and Aki Hoshide undocked from the Rassvet module aboard Soyuz TMA-05M at 2226 UTC Nov 18 and fired the deorbit engines at 0059 UTC Nov 19 After a successful reentry they landed in Kazakhstan at 0153:30 UTC (Thanks to Bob Christy, http://zarya info, for clarification of the landing time)

Soyuz TMA-07M is scheduled for launch on Dec 19 with crew Roman Romanenko of Russia, Chris Hadfield of Canada, and Tom Marshburn of the USA

X-37B

The first X-37B flight vehicle returned to space on Dec 11 aboard Atlas AV-034, as the third OTV (Orbital Test Vehicle) mission The X-37B is a robotic spaceplane developed by the US Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office and carries secret test payloads The satellite is probably in a roughly 400 km circular orbit at an inclination between 35 and 45 deg

North Korean satellite

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (Choson Minjujuui Inmin Konghwaguk) carried out its fourth satellite launch attempt at around 0049-0051 UTC on Dec 12 The Unha-3 rocket carried the second flight model of the Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite Initial reports indicated that the first and second stages of the rocket fired successfully with second stage impact near the Phillipines US tracking then cataloged object 39026 as 2012-072A in a 494 x 588 km x 97 4 deg sun-synchronous orbit with a 0900 local time descending node; two further objects were cataloged in similar 497 x 582 and 498 x 570 km orbits 'Kwangmyongsong' means 'lodestar' or 'star of hope' and is believed to be a reference to former leader Kim Jong Il I believe the launch is consistent with flight on an 88 deg trajectory from Sohae launch site followed by a yawed third stage burn to put the satellite in a 97 deg orbit

North Korean satellite attempts:

Date Rocket Payload Planned orbit Result

1998 Aug 31 Paektusan-1 Kwangmyongsong-1 219 x 6978 km x 41 deg Stage 3 failed, fell in ocean 2009 Apr 5 Unha-2 Kwangmyongsong-2 490 x 1426 km x 41 deg Stage 3 failed, fell in ocean 2012 Apr 12 Unha-3 Kwangmyongsong-3 500 x 500 x 97 4 Stage 1 failed, short range 2012 Dec 12 Unha-3 Kwangmyongsong-3/F2 500 x 500 x 97 4 494 x 588 x 97 4, success

HJ-1C

The Huan Jing yihao C weixing (HJ-1C) is the first radar satellite in China's environment and disaster monitor constellation, operating with the HJ-1A and 1B optical satellites

Together with the 890 kg HJ-1C satellite, the CZ-2C rocket deployed two small payloads: 'xin jishu yanzheng weixing' (New technology demonstration satellite), Xinyan-1 for short, and 'fengniao shiyan zaihe' (Hummingbird experimental payload), Fengniao-1 or FN-1 for short FN-1 consists of the 130 kg FN-1A and the 30 kg FN-1B, which will later separate for formation flying experiments

The HJ-1C is in a 487 x 503 km x 97 4 deg SSO (sun-synchronous orbit) with an 0600 local time descending node

YW-16

Yaogan Weixing 16 (Resource satellite 16) was launched from Jiuquan, China on Nov 25 It consists of three satellite payloads (probably a main satellite and two subsatellites) in 1079 x 1089 km x 63 4 deg orbits and is thought to be an ocean surveillance system similar to the US NOSS This is the second such launch, joining the Yaogan 9 triplet launched in 2010

ZX-12

Zhongxing 12 was launched on Nov 27 to provide communications capacity for China Satcom (Zhongguo wei tong) The satellite is a Spacebus 4000C2 built by Thales Alenia Space (Cannes, France) and was originally constructed for the Hong Kong based company Asia Pacific Satellite (Apstar) The Sri Lankan company SupremeSat is using some of the satellite's capacity but, despite some misleading marketing, does not appear to own or operate any part of the payload On Dec 10 the satellite was in a 35758 x 35807 km x 0 0 deg geostationary orbit over 81 5E

Echostar XVI and Loral

Echostar Corp 's Echostar XVI satellite was placed in geostationary transfer orbit on Nov 21 after launch by an International Launch Services/Khrunichev Proton-M/Briz-M from Baykonur By Nov 29 it was in GEO over 67W

The SS/Loral 1300 class satellite carries a Ku-band television payload, and has a dry mass of 3520 kg plus 3130 kg of propellant This is the 90th satellite of this class to be launched since Superbird A in 1989 The manufacturer, SS/Loral of Palo Alto, has just been sold to MDA Corp of Richmond, British Columbia

The Western Development Laboratories of Philco, established in Palo Alto in 1957, helped build the Courier 1A and 1B communications satellites of 1960 In 1966 the company became Philco-Ford, after merger with Ford Motor Co 's Aeronutronic Division The site was renamed Aeronutronic Ford Western Dev Labs from 1975 to 1976; from Dec 1976 onwards it was Ford Aerospace until its sale to Loral in 1990 as Space Systems/Loral Its satellites have included the early GOES/SMS prototypes, Skynet/NATO/IDCSP, Insat 1, and the INTELSAT V series that was the precursor to the SSL-1300 They were also involved in the still-rather-mysterious Trident, an Atlas upper stage used to dispense reentry vehicles in the ABRES/RMP-B program in the 1967-1972 period (not to be confused with the Trident SLBM)

Yamal 402

The next Proton launch didn't end so well The Yamal 402 communications satellite for the Gazprom energy company was left in a lower than planned transfer orbit of 3038 x 35680 km x 26 1 deg when the final Briz-M burn was cut short on Dec 8 For the two years 2011-2012 Proton has seen 20 launches including 3 failures The satellite has enough fuel to reach its intended orbit, but will have a shorter than planned orbital stationkeeping lifetime

Yamal-300K and Luch-5B

The Yamal and Luch satellites launched on Nov 2 are now being tracked in GEO As of Dec 8 Yamal-300K is on station at 90 8E while Luch-5B is still drifting west over 13W

Pleiades

France's Pleiades 1B high resolution imaging satellite was launched from Kourou-Sinnamary on Dec 1 on a Starsem Soyuz-2-1A/Fregat Operated by CNES, the French Defense Ministry is a `preferred customer' The Fregat stage manuevered from -1165 x 236 km to 198 x 704 km to 673 x 681 km x 98 2 deg, and then after releasing the payload to -5 x 674 km for reentry over the Indian Ocean

Eutelsat 70B

Eutelsat's Eutelsat 70B satellite was launched on Dec 3 The satellite, to be stationed at 70 5 deg East, uses their new, crazy and annoying, naming scheme which means its name will change every time they relocate it The satellite is a Eurostar 3000 built by Astrium/Toulouse, and had a launch mass of 5250 kg, with 48 Ku-band transponder capacity Launch was by a Sea Launch Zenit-3SL from the Odyssey platform in the Pacific By Dec 10, Eutelsat 70B was in a 35633 x 35743 km x 0 0 deg GEO drift orbit passing eastward over 48E

Orbital Launch Stats 2012 to Date

Total 73 attempts: Russia 23, China 18, US 16, France/ESA 9, India 2, Japan 2, Iran 1 + 1 fail, North Korea 1 fail

Table of Recent (orbital) Launches

Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL
DES Nov 2 2104 Yamal-300K ) Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC81/24 Comms 61 Luch-5B ) Comms 61 Nov 10 2105 Star One C3 ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 62B Eutelsat 21B ) Comms 62A Nov 14 1142 Meridian No 16 Soyuz-2-1A/Fregat Plesetsk LC43/4 Comms 63A Nov 18 2253 Huan Jing 1C ) Chang Zheng 2C Taiyuan Radar 64A Xinyan-1 ) Tech Fengniao 1A/1B ) Tech Nov 20 1831 Echostar 16 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC39/200 Comms 65A Nov 25 0406 Yaogan Weixing 16) Chang Zheng 4C Jiuquan Sigint? 66A YW-16 Subsat 1 ) Sigint? 66B YW-16 Subsat 2 ) Sigint? 66C Nov 27 1013 Zhongxing 12 Chang Zheng 3BE Xichang LC2 Comms 67A Dec 1 0202 Pleiades 1B Soyuz ST-A/Fregat Kourou ELS Imaging 68A Dec 3 2044 Eutelsat 70B Zenit-3SL SL Odyssey Comms 69A Dec 8 1313 Yamal 402 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC39/200 Comms 70A Dec 11 1803 X-37B OTV-3 Atlas V 501 Canaveral SLC41 Spaceplane 71A Dec 12 0050? Kwangmyongsong-3 F2 Unha-3 Sohae Test 72A

Suborbital flights

The IMAGER payload developed by U Mass Lowell's Tim Cook and BU's Meredith Danowski was launched from White Sands on Nov 21 for ultraviolet imaging of the nearby spiral galaxy M101 with a 0 5m telescope

Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches

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

Nov 2 1755 NASA 36 255US Black Brant IX White Sands Solar X 321 Nov 14 1107 Mk 21 RV? Minuteman 3 Vandenberg LF10 Op Test 1300? Nov 21 1055 NASA 36 260UG Black Brant IX White Sands UV Astron 291

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