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Jonathan's Space Report

No 825 2023 Oct 22 Somerville, MA

International Space Station

Expedition 69 concluded and Expedition 70 began with the undocking of Soyuz MS-23 at 0754 UTC Sep 27 carrying Prokop'ev, Petelin and Rubio Soyuz MS-23 landed in Kazakhstan at 1117 UTC the same day Expedition 70 is under the command of Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen; the flight engineers are Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, Loral O'Hara, Jasmin Moghbeli, Satoshi Furukawa and Konstantin Borisov

Progress MS-24 fired its engines at 1201 UTC Sep 29 to raise the ISS orbit; delta-V was 0 55 m/s

On Oct 9 the RTOd radiator on Nauka started leaking coolant; a spacewalk planned for Oct 12 was delayed

Progress MS-24 fired its engines at 0346 UTC Oct 19 to raise the ISS orbit; delta-V was 1 5 m/s

ISS visiting vehicle berthing port status:

IDA-2/PMA-2: empty IDA-3/PMA-3: Endurance (Dragon C210, SpX-7) Unity nadir: S S Laurel Clark (Cygnus OA-19) Harmony nadir; empty Zvezda aft: Progress MS-24 (85P) Poisk: Progress MS-23 (84P) Rassvet: Soyuz-MS-24 (70S) Prichal: empty

The mystery of Apstar 6E

The last US public orbital data for the Chinese commercial satellite Apstar 6E was on Mar 17, showing it in a 5360 x 9850 km x 28 8 deg orbit slowly orbit raising towards GEO Several analysts including myself and Bob Christy inquired about this and were told that the object is considered 'sensitive', which seems bizarre It would be unprecedented for the US to classify orbital data for a Chinese satellite

Bob suggests, and my hunch is that he's right, that someone was trying to set the 'classified' flag for object 55329 (2023-012A, a Japanese spy satellite) and accidentally mistyped 55239 (2023-005A, Apstar 6E), and somehow this has gotten stuck in the system

SAST launches

A CZ-4C was launched on Sep 26 and put the 4th YG-33 radar satellite in a 02:31 LTDN sun-sync orbit

A CZ-2D on Oct 5 from Xichang launched the third YG-39 sigint triplet

A CZ-2D on Oct 15 from Jiuquan launched the 4th Yunhai-1 remote sensing/meteorology satellite

Noor 3

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps launched the third Qased vehicle from Shahroud on Sep 27, placing the Noor 3 imaging satellite in orbit Analysis of the orbit suggests launch time was 0600 UTC (+/- 5 min)

Project Kuiper Protoflight

Two test satellites were launched on Oct 6 for Amazon subsidiary Kuiper Systems The size, mass and appearance of the satellites has not been revealed

The Atlas had a lot of unused performance on this mission, and to dispose of the upper stage and its remaining propellant load, the Centaur made a second burn to leave Earth orbit

The Centaur AV-104 upper stage reignited at 1846 UTC to reach escape velocity with a C3 of 28 7 km^2/s^2 and a hyperbolic eccentricity of 1 49 At around 2200 UTC on Oct 9 it left the Sun-Earth Hill sphere and entered a heliocentric orbit of 0 996 x 2 216 AU x 2 1 deg

There are a number of Atlas missions where the Centaur was disposed of to solar orbit after delivering payloads to LEO:

Date Centaur Payload Centaur solar orbit 2009 Oct 18 AV-017 DMSP-18 0 98 x 2 41 AU x 0 5 deg 2010 Apr 22 AV-012 OTV-1 0 75?x 1 02?AU x 1 9 deg 2013 Feb 11 AV-035 Landsat 8 0 96 x 1 09 AU x 5 2 deg 2014 Apr 3 AV-044 DMSP-19 0 51 x 1 00 AU x 7 9 deg 2014 Aug 13 AV-047 Worldview-3 1 01 x 1 09 AU x 11 2 deg 2016 Nov 11 AV-062 Worldview-4 0 94 x 1 56 AU x 3 3 deg 2023 Oct 6 AV-104 Kuiper-P1/P2 1 00 x 2 22 AU x 2 1 deg

Thanks to Bill Gray for calculating improved heliocentric parameters for me Note the remarkable heliocentric ecliptic inclination of 11 2 deg for AV-047; this is the highest-inclination for any bound solar-orbit artificial object except for the ESA Ulysses mission and its kick stage

(`bound' because Pioneer 11 and Voyager 1 and 2 ended up in escape trajectories with high ecliptic inclination after their final planetary encounters )

Starlink launches

Starlink Group 6-19 (22 sats) launched from Canaveral on Sep 30 Starlink Group 6-21 (22 sats) launched from Canaveral on Oct 5 Starlink Group 7-4 (21 sats) launched from Vandenberg on Oct 9 Starlink Group 6-22 (22 sats) launched from Canaveral on Oct 13 Starlink Group 6-23 (22 sats) launched from Canaveral on Oct 18 Starlink Group 7-5 (21 sats) launched from Vandenberg on Oct 21 Starlink Group 6-24 (23 sats) launched from Canaveral on Oct 22

Vega VV23

Arianespace launched Vega VV23 on Oct 9 This flight used the regular Vega last flown on VV20, rather than the newer Vega-C The primary payloads were Thailand's THEOS-2 imager, built by Airbus, and the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA)'s FORMOSAT-7R/TRITON, a GNSS reflectometry payload The AVUM stage deployed these in a 600 km orbit and then lowered its orbit to 570 km to eject a set of cubesats The 10 cubesats aboard were:

CSC-1 and 2 from Innovative Solutions (Netherlands) ANSER Leader, Follower-1 and Follower-2 from the Spanish space agency INTA PRETTY from Tech Univ Graz MACSAT from OQ Technologies (Luxembourg), with an IoT comms payload PVCC, an ESA cubesat with a backup Vegetation imager to supplement the Proba-V mission, N3SS, a radio emission monitoring satellite from French company U-Space, for French space agency CNES ESTCube-2, the second cubesat from the University of Tartu in Estonia

Only 8 of the 10 cubesats have been tracked in orbit and it now appears, sadly, that ANSER LEADER and ESTCube-2 remained attached to AVUM and reentered with it when it made its deorbit burn

Psyche

Minor planet (16) Psyche was discovered by Annibale de Gasparis at Napoli in 1852; the 22-petatonne asteroid is about 220 km across and its heliocentric orbit is 2 53 x 3 32 AU x 3 1 deg NASA's Psyche probe is scheduled to reach Psyche in 2029

On Oct 13 Psyche (the probe) was launched aboard a Falcon Heavy to a parking orbit of around 168 x 800 km x 30 1 deg The second stage reignited at 1513 UTC to reach an Earth escape trajectory of 794 x -36991 km x 30 1 deg Coasting on this hyperbola, Psyche and rocket stage left the Earth's gravitational sphere of influence on Oct 16 and entered a 1 0 x 2 5 AU x 1 1 deg solar orbit en route to a Mars flyby in 2026

SLIM

Japan's SLIM probe made a 4994 km lunar flyby at 0647 UTC Oct 4, changing its geocentric orbit from 412 x 394300 km x 31 1 deg to 177550 x 1687100 km x 26 0 deg It will re-encounter the Moon on its return from apogee in December

Qaem-100 failure

A recent letter from Israel to the UN notes the previously unreported 4 March 2023 launch failure of an Iranian Qaem-100, probably carrying the Nahid-1 50-kg-class LEO comms test satellite

Resurs-P3

Russia's Resurs-P3 remote sensing satellite was launched in Mar 2016 and failed in Nov 2022 Since then it has undergone normal orbital decay In Oct 2022 the Kosmos-2562 spacecraft was launched; in December 2022 it began a number of close approaches to Resurs-P3 These ended in on 2023 Jul 19

Bob Christy (orbitalfocus uk) has drawn my attention to the recent reported reentry of Resurs-P3; Space Force tracking shows a small 2 1 m/s maneuver on Oct 10 and then reports reentry on Oct 17 The last orbital data, Christy points out, are high enough to imply an active, controlled, deorbit and he speculates that K-2562 attached a deorbit engine to the satellite However, K-2562 does not seem to have spent extended periods of time in close rendezvous with the satellite as would be expected if this were the case RP3 did have its own propulsion system and it's possible enough control was retained to perform the manuevers on its own

K-2562 itself, again according to Space Force tracking, began rapid uncontrolled orbital decay around Jul 28 and should reenter soon

It's also possible that during their close manuevering, Space Force accidentally swapped the identities of the two objects and it is K-2562 that made the deorbit manuever, with RP3 continuing in uncontrolled decay However, this would require RP3 to have changed its decay rate at the time of the swap, so for now I will assume that no such swap occurred

Table of Recent Orbital Launches

Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL Catalog Perigee Apogee Incl Notes Sep 15 0228 VICTUS NOX Alpha Vandenberg SLC2W Tech 142A 476 x 531 x 97 3 Sep 15 1544 Soyuz MS-24 Soyuz-2-1a Baykonur LC31 Spaceship 143A 197 x 228 x 51 6 Sep 16 0338 Starlink Group 6-16 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 144 283 x 292 x 43 0 Sep 17 0413 Yaogan 39-02-01 Chang Zheng 2D Xichang LC3 Sigint 145A 487 x 500 x 35 0 Yaogan 39-02-02 Sigint 145C? Yaogan 39-02-03 Sigint 145E? Sep 19 0655 Capella 12 Electron Mahia 1B Radar F08 -6120 x 132 x 51 1 Sep 20 0338 Starlink Group 6-17 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 146 283 x 292 x 43 0 Sep 21 0459 Jilin-1 GF04B Gushenxing-1 Jiuquan Imaging F09 -6370 x 10? x 97 Sep 24 0338 Starlink Group 6-18 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 147 283 x 292 x 43 0 Sep 25 0848 Starlink Group 7-2 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 148 284 x 295 x 53 1 Sep 26 2015 Yaogan 33-04 Chang Zheng 4C Jiuquan Radar 149A 680 x 688 x 98 1 Sep 27 0600? Noor 3 Qased Shahroud Imaging 150A 442 x 456 x 60 0 Sep 30 0200 Starlink Group 6-19 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 151 283 x 292 x 43 0 Oct 5 0024 Yaogan 39-03-01 Chang Zheng 2D Xichang Sigint 152A 490 x 501 x 35 0 Yaogan 39-03-02 Sigint 152C? Yaogan 39-03-03 Sigint 152E? Oct 5 0536 Starlink Group 6-21 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 153 282 x 291 x 43 0 Oct 6 1806 KuiperSat-1 Atlas V 501 Canaveral LC41 Comms 154A 483 x 504 x 30 0 KuiperSat-2 Comms 154B 487 x 507 x 30 0 Centaur AV-103 Rocket 154C 492 x -100000? x 30 0 Oct 9 0136 THEOS-2 Vega Kourou ELV Imaging 155A 603 x 605 x 97 9 FORMOSAT-7R GNSS-R 155B 603 x 605 x 97 9 CSC-1 Tech 155 567 x 574 x 97 7 CSC-2 Tech 155 567 x 574 x 97 7 ANSER-F1 Imaging 155 567 x 574 x 97 7 ANSER-F2 Imaging 155 567 x 574 x 97 7 PRETTY Sci 155 567 x 574 x 97 7 MACSAT Comms 155 567 x 574 x 97 7 PVCC Imaging 155 567 x 574 x 97 7 N3SS Sigint 155 567 x 574 x 97 7 ANSER-L Imaging 155 567 x 574 x 97 7 ESTCube-2 Tech 155 567 x 574 x 97 7 Oct 9 0743 Starlink Group 7-4 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 156A 284 x 295 x 53 1 Oct 13 1419 Psyche Falcon Heavy Kennedy LC39A Probe 157 794 x -36991 x 30 1 Oct 13 2301 Starlink Group 6-22 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 158 282 x 292 x 43 0 Oct 15 0054 Yunhai 1-04 Chang Zheng 2D Jiuquan Rem Sens 159A 756 x 773 x 98 6 Oct 18 0039 Starlink Group 6-23 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 160 282 x 292 x 43 0 Oct 21 0823 Starlink Group 7-5 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 161 284 x 295 x 53 1 Oct 22 0217 Starlink Group 6-24 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 162 282 x 292 x 43 0

Table of Recent Suborbital Launches

Galactic 04 flew from Spaceport America on Oct 6 with Kelly Latimer (657), CJ Sturckow (391), Beth Moses (571), Ron Rosano (668), Trevor Beattie (669) and Namira Salim (670) Apogee was 87 4 km Drop time was around 1610:30 and touchdown time around 1624:53 for a flight time of 14m23s (Numbers in parentheses are space traveller numbers from my database )

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

Sep 6 0826 GT247 Minuteman 3 Vandenberg LF10 Test 1300? Kwajalein Sep 8 1522 Galactic 03 Spaceship Two Sp America EBR3 Tourist 88 Sp America Sep 27 2110 Trident RVs Trident II D-5 SSBN 743, Pacific Test 1000? Guam? Oct 6 1610 Galactic 04 Spaceship Two Sp America EBR3 Tourist 87 Sp America Oct 10 0800 HIFLIER-1 S31/Imp Orion ESRANGE Hypersonic 250? ESRANGE Oct 14 1600 Apophis 1 Black Brant 9 White Sands Eclipse 346? White Sands Oct 14 1635 Apophis 2 Black Brant 9 White Sands Eclipse 346? White Sands Oct 14 1710 Apophis 3 Black Brant 9 White Sands Eclipse 346? White Sands

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