Jonathan's Space Report

No 690 2013 Dec 6, Somerville, MA, USA

Editorial

The Cubesat Era has truly begun with the launch of 90 payloads in the past month, most of them picosatellites with masses under 10 kg Let's hope my data entry skills can keep up!

International Space Station

Expedition 38 continues with commander Oleg Kotov, and flight engineers FE-2 Sergey Ryazanskiy, FE-3 Michael Hopkins, FE-4 Mikhail Tyurin, FE-5 Rick Mastracchio and FE-6 Koichi Wakata Ferry ship Soyuz TMA-10M is at Poisk and TMA-11M is at Rassvet Cargo ship Progress M-20M is at the Pirs module

The last of the cubesats delivered by HTV-4, TechEdSat-3p, was deployed from the Kibo module at 0758 UTC on Nov 20

A new cargo ship, Progress M-21M, was launched on Nov 25 It made a 1 5 km flyby of ISS at 2150 UTC on Nov 27 to test the new Kurs-NA rendezvous system, and then a re-rendezvous on Nov 29 A glitch forced a switch to manual TORU control for the last 60m to docking with the Zvezda module at 2230 UTC

ORS-3

Several of the ORS-3 cubesat operators have reported successful contact with their satellites, suggesting that the deployments occurred as scheduled However, there is no orbital data for most of them yet

Yaogan 19

China launched a Yaogan satellite on Nov 20; it is thought to be an imaging satellite similar to Yaogan 8 According to nasaspaceflight com the launch time was 0331 UTC Orbit is 1201 x 1207 km x 100 5 deg; the CZ-4C depletion burn left the final stage in a 991 x 1201 km orbit

Shiyan 5

A Chinese launch on Nov 25 put the Shiyan wu hao weixing (Experiment Satellite No 5) into a 739 x 754 km x 97 8 deg orbit The CZ-2D final stage may have been deorbited on the first revolution

Dnepr launch

A Dnepr rocket launched from an ICBM silo at Yasniy in Russia placed a cluster of 24 satellites in orbit on Nov 21 Although this is fewer than the ORS-3 launch the day before, the Unisat-5 satellite carries a further eight tiny satellites within it, and one of those (PUCP-Sat) carries a further nested satellite, Pocket-PUCP Most of the subsatellites were ejected from Unisat-5 between 0810 and 0825 UTC on Nov 21 If all are dispensed successfully, the launch total will be a record 33 satellites

The primary payloads were Dubaisat-2, a 300 kg imaging satellite for the United Arab Emirates build by Satreci of South Korea SkySat-1, a 90 kg imaging satellite, the first for the US company Skybox STSat-3, a 170 kg payload for KAIST of South Korea, carrying the MIRIS infrared astronomy experiment (an 8cm telescope operating at 0 9-2 microns with a 4 degree field of view for spectroscopy of diffuse extended emission) as well as earth imaging and technology payloads Aprizesat 7 and 8, 14 kg communications satellites for SpaceQuest

Smaller payloads were WNISAT-1, a 10 kg, 30cm cube for Weather News Inc and Axelspace, to monitor northern sea routes and atmospheric CO2 Unisat-5, a 19 kg technology satellite for the University of Rome containing deployers for Cubesats and PocketQubes (see below) Lem, a 6 kg satellite using Toronto's GNB bus carrying the BRITE-PL astronomical photometry payload for the Polish Academy of Sciences

Cubesats deployed from the Dnepr final stage were Dove-3, a 3U imaging satellite from PlanetLabs, San Francisco; GOMX-1, a 6kg 2U cubesat test an ADS-B air traffic control receiver, for GOMSpace, Aalborg, Denmark OPTOS, a 3U satellite from INTA of Spain; Delfi-n3Xt, a 3U cubesat from Delft U of Tech ; Triton-1, a 3U test of an AIS receiver from ISIS b v , Netherlands; KHUSAT-1 and 2 3U cubesats from Kyung Hee U , Seoul, to join the CINEMA constellation; Cubebug-2 'Manolito' (2U) from Argentina, NEE-2 'Krysaor' from Ecuadorian Space Agency, and ZACUBE-1 'Tshepiso' from South Africa's Cape Peninsula U of Tech (CPUT); VELOX-P2 from Singapore's Nanyang Tech U , UWE-3 from U Wurzburg, and First-MOVE from Tech U Munich; FUNCUBE-1 for AMSAT-UK, and Hincube-1 from Narvik University College

Cubesats to be deployed from Unisat-5 were ICUBE-1 for Inst of Space Technology, Islamabad PUCPSat-1 for Pontifica Universidad Catolica del Peru, Lima HUMSAT-D for University of Vigo, Spain Dove-4 (3U), Earth imaging satellite for PlanetLabs One of these may not yet have been deployed

The flight saw the launch of the first PocketQubes, ejected from Unisat-5 The 1P size are 0 15 kg 5 x 5 x 5cm cubes; $50Sat, WREN and Pocket-PUCP $50Sat (Eagle-2, 50DollarSat) from Morehead State Univ WREN from StaDoKo (spinoff company of the Univ Aachen) Pocket-PUCP was further nested inside PUCPSat-1 and it is not clear if it has been ejected yet 2 5P PocketQubes deployed were BeakerSat (Eagle-1) from Morehead State Univ QubeScout-S1 from U Maryland/Baltimore County

NROL-39/GEMSAT

The NRO L-39 mission was launched from Vandenberg on Dec 6 The mission appears to have carried the third TOPAZ radar satellite, which entered a 1075 x 1089 km, 123 degree retrograde orbit around 0732 UTC The satellite is being tracked by hobbyist observers The Centaur AV-042 upper stage then made two orbit lowering burns to a 467 x 883 km x 120 5 deg orbit Attached to AV-042 was GEMSAT, the second NPSCuL cubesat launcher, which ejected 12 cubesats between around 1022 and 1038 UTC

• FIREBIRD A and B, two 1 5U cubesats from the Montana Space Grant Consortium to study electron microbursts in the magnetosphere
• CUNYSAT, a 1U from the City University of New York's Medgar Evers College, with a GPS ionospheric receiver
• MCUBED-2, 1 1U from the University of Michigan with technology experiments including a low resolution imager
• IPEX-CP8, a 1U built by Cal Poly to test systems and algorithms for JPL
• ALICE, a 1U from the Air Force Institute of Technology carrying technology experiments
• SMDC-ONE C and D (Charlie and David), 3U communications satellites for the US Army Space and Missile Defense Command
• Aerocube 5a and 5b, 1 5U technology cubesats for the Aerospace Corporation
• SNAP, a 3U cubesat for the SMDC Nanosatellite Program, with an unknown mission
• Tacsat-6, a 3U cubesat for SMDC with an unknown mission, probably tactical communications or imaging

Chang'e-3

China's most ambitious lunar mission began on Dec 1 with the launch of the Chang'e-3 spacecraft from Xichang into a 210 x 389109 km x 28 5 deg lunar transfer orbit On Dec 6 at 0950 the spacecraft entered a 100 km polar orbit around the Moon

The heavy (3800 kg wet, 1200 kg at landing) spacecraft has a descent engine and landing legs, and has a variety of lunar surface science experiments It also carries Yutu, a small 140 kg rover Landing on the lunar surface is scheduled for Dec 14 at 1535 UTC

Mars Orbiter

India's Mars Orbiter Spacecraft made a perigee burn at 1919 UTC Nov 30 to accelerate to a hyperbolic Earth escape trajectory, and entered an 0 98 x 1 45 AU solar orbit on Dec 3 on the way to Mars

Cassini

Cassini flew 1400 km from Titan on Dec 1 at 0041 UTC The T-96 flyby occurred at perigee 199 and led to a 1 12 x 2 64 million km x 51 3 deg orbit around Saturn The Titan encounter lowered the apoapsis; the previous orbit was 1 15 x 3 80 million km x 49 7 deg

Table of Recent (orbital) Launches

Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL

Nov 5 0908 Mars Orbiter Spacecraft PSLV-XL Sriharikota Mars probe 60A Nov 7 0414 Soyuz TMA-11M Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 61A Nov 11 2346 Raduga-1M Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC81/24 Comms 62A Nov 18 1828 MAVEN Atlas V 401 Canaveral SLC41 Mars probe 63A Nov 19 1218 PicoDragon ) ISS, LEO Tech 98-067DA Ardusat-1 ) Tech 98-067DB Ardusat-X ) Tech 98-067DC Nov 20 0115 STPSAT-3 ) Minotaur I Wallops I LA0B Tech 64A? ORS-3 ) Tech 64 TJ3Sat ) Tech 64 DragonSat ) Tech 64 COPPER ) Tech 64 ChargerSat 1 ) Tech 64 SwampSat ) Tech 64 Ho'oponopono 2 ) Radar cal 64 KySat-2 ) Tech 64 CAPE 2 ) Tech 64 Trailblazer ) Tech 64 Vermont Lunar Cubesat ) Tech 64 PhoneSat-2 4 ) Tech 64 NPS-SCAT ) Tech 64 Black Knight 1 ) Tech 64 Firefly ) Science 64 Horus/STARE-B ) Space Surv 64 SENSE-A ) Ionospheric 64 SENSE-B ) Ionospheric 64 ORSES ) Comms 64 ORS Tech 1 ) Tech 64 ORS Tech 2 ) Tech 64 Prometheus 1A? ) Comms 64 Prometheus 1B? ) Comms 64 Prometheus 2A? ) Comms 64 Prometheus 2B? ) Comms 64 Prometheus 3A? ) Comms 64 Prometheus 3B? ) Comms 64 Prometheus 4A? ) Comms 64 Prometheus 4B? ) Comms 64 Nov 20 0331 Yaogan 19 Chang Zheng 4C Taiyuan Imaging 65A Nov 20 0758 TechEdSat-3p ISS, LEO Tech 98-067DD Nov 21 0710 Dubaisat-2 ) Imaging 66D SkySat-1 ) Dnepr Yasniy Imaging 66C STSat-3 ) Astronomy 66G AprizeSat-7 ) Comms 66A AprizeSat-8 ) Comms 66K WNISAT-1 ) Weather 66H Lem ) Astronomy 66R GOMX-1 ) Comms 66Q Dove-3 ) Imaging 66P Delfi-3nXt ) Tech 66N Triton 1 ) Comms/AIS 66M KHUSAT-1 ) Science 66J KHUSAT-2 ) Science 66L OPTOS ) Tech 66E Manolito ) Tech 66AB Krysaor ) Tech 66AA UWE-3 ) Tech 66 VELOX-P2 ) Tech 66 First-MOVE ) Tech 66 FUNcube-1 ) Tech 66 HINCube-1 ) Tech 66 Tshepiso ) Tech 66 BPA-3 ) Tech 66AJ Unisat-5 ) Tech 66F Dove-4 ) Imaging 66 ICUBE-1 ) Tech 66 PUCPSat-1 ) Tech 66 Pocket-PUCP ) Tech 66 HUMSAT-D ) Tech 66 QBScout-1 ) Tech 66 BeakerSat-1 ) Tech 66 $50SAT ) Tech 66 WREN ) Tech 66 Nov 22 1202 SWARM-1 ) Rokot Plesetsk Science 67A SWARM-2 ) Science 67B SWARM-3 ) Science 67C Nov 25 0212 Shiyan 5 Weixing Chang Zheng 2D Jiuquan Tech/Sci? 68A Nov 25 2053 Progress M-21M Soyuz-U Baykonur LC31 Cargo 69A Dec 1 1730 Chang'e-3 ) Chang Zheng 3BE Xichang Moon probe 70A Yutu ) Rover Dec 3 2241 SES-8 Falcon 9 v1 1 Canaveral SLC40 Comms 71A Dec 6 0714 TOPAZ 3? ) Atlas V 501 Vandenberg SLC3E Radar 72A Aerocube 5a ) Tech 72 Aerocube 5b ) Tech 72 SMDC-ONE C ) Comms 72 SMDC-ONE D ) Comms 72 Tacsat 6 ) Tech? 72 ALICE ) Tech 72 SNAP ) Tech? 72 FIREBIRD A ) Sci 72 FIREBIRD B ) Sci 72 MCubed-2 ) Tech/Imaging 72 IPEX ) Tech 72 CUNYSAT 1 ) Sci 72

Suborbital launches

Congrats to Stefan McCandliss on the second flight of his ultraviolet FORTIS telescope, launched on Nov 20 (flight 36 296UG) to get spectra of comet ISON Boston University's John Clarke launched his VeSpR payload on Nov 27 to study the Venus exosphere with an ultraviolet telescope

Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches

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

Nov 3 0925 NASA 36 294UH Black Brant IX White Sands X-ray Astron 280? Nov 12 1615? SL-8 SpaceLoft XL Spaceport America Tech 116 Nov 20 1140 NASA 36 296UG Black Brant IX White Sands UV Astron 277 Nov 27 0350 NASA 36 261UG Black Brant IX White Sands UV Astron 280?

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