From: mailto: Jonathan's Space Report

No 830 2024 Mar 1 Somerville, MA

International Space Station

Expedition 70 continues

Axiom-3 undocked at 1420 UTC Feb 7, ejected its trunk into a 223 x 293 km orbit at about 1237 UTC Feb 9, and made its deorbit burn at 1241 UTC for splashdown in the Daytona recovery area near 80 7W 29 8N at 1330 UTC Feb 9

Progress MS-24 undocked from the Zvezda module at 0209 UTC Feb 13 and made its deorbit burn at 0516 UTC, with reentry over the S Pacific around 0552 UTC

Progress MS-26 was launched on Feb 15 by Soyuz-2-1a from Baykonur with 2500 kg of cargo It docked with the Zvezda aft port at 0606 UTC Feb 17 On Feb 24 at 0021 UTC it fired its engines to adjust the ISS orbit with a 1 2 m/s burn

Chinese Space Station

The CSS made an orbit raise burn of about 5 m/s on Feb 19 around 0935 UTC, probably using the engines on the Tianzhou-7 freighter

Jielong-3

On Feb 3 the China Long March Rocket Co launched a Jielong-3 from the Borun Jiuzhou barge in the South China Sea near 112 05E 21 54N, placing nine satellites in a 1035 LTDN sun-synchonous orbit The payloads include the Egyptian NEXSAT-1 satellite (developed in conjunction with Berlin Space Technologies), the Weihai-1 01 and 02 laser communications test satellites with payloads from Weihai Laser Comm Advanced Tech Research Inst , the Xingshidai-18 to 20 satellites from Guoxing Yuhang Keji (XSD-19 in collaboration with Beijing Star Mobile Lianxin Tech Dev Co Ltd and XSD-20 with Sichuan Satellite TV); the Xunming Laojia 1 and Yantai-2 imaging satellites from Luhai Kongjian (Yantai) Xinxi Jishu YG (Land and Sea Space Info Tech Co ) and the Zhixing-2A radar satellite from Jinan Zhixing Space Technology Co , Ltd One of the satellites is also called DRO-L, but it's not clear which one

PACE

NASA's PACE ocean color monitoring satellite was launched by Falcon 9 from Canaveral on Feb 8

Kosmos-2575

A new low orbit Russian Ministry of Defense satellite was launched on Feb 9 It appears to be similar to the Kosmos-2574 mission launched in December

Starlink launches

Starlink Group 7-13 (22 sats) was launched from Vandenberg on Feb 10 Starlink Group 7-14 (22 sats) was launched from Vandenberg on Feb 15 Starlink Group 7-15 (22 sats) was launched from Vandenberg on Feb 23 Starlink Group 6-39 (24 sats) was launched from Canaveral on Feb 25 Starlink Group 6-40 (23 sats) was launched from Canaveral on Feb 29

USSF-124

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 on Feb 14 on the USSF-124 mission with two HBTSS missile tracking satellites for the US Missile Defence Agency and four Tranche 0 Tracking Layer missile tracking satellites for the US Space Development Agency One HBTSS is built by Northrop Grumman; the remaining five payloads were built by L3-Harris The satellites were sent to a 1000 km circular orbit The Falcon 9 second stage made a deorbit burn at the end of the first orbit over the eastern US and reentered southeast of Madagascar

IM-1

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 on Feb 15 deploying the Intuitive Machines IM-1 Odysseus lander on a translunar trajectory The Falcon 9 entered a 160 x 242 km x 28 6 deg parking orbit at 0612 UTC Over the Indian Ocean at 0646 UTC the stage re-ignited to a 223 x 411633 km x 28 6 deg translunar orbit The IM-1 separated from the second stage at 0653 UTC The second stage made a lunar flyby and will enter solar orbit

IM-1 entered the lunar gravitational sphere of influence at 2047 UTC Feb 20 and entered a 100 km lunar polar orbit at 1436 UTC on Feb 21 Late on Feb 21 the orbit was adjusted to an elliptical one of around 12 x 250 km

It was discovered during tests of the system near perilune that the prime laser rangefinders did not work because of a switch misconfiguration during launch processing; controllers delayed the landing for an orbit while converting the software to use the experimental NDL system for altitude data This mostly worked but no altimeter data were available for the final part of the descent, and the lander touched down when it thought it still had 100 metres to go

Powerered descent from 12 km began at 2312 UTC prior to landing near crater Malapert A at 2323 UTC on Feb 22 The lander partly toppled over at touchdown, ending up inclined 30 degrees to the horizontal, but still transmitting

The Embry-Riddle Eaglecam cubesat was intended to be ejected from the lander just before touchdown but because of the nav system change this did not occur It was eventually ejected on Jan 28 but returned no data

Some data return was achieved from all the experiments on the lander, which fell silent for the lunar night on Feb 29 It's unclear whether or not it will revive at the next dawn

H3 TF2

The second test flight of Japan's H3 rocket, on Feb 17, was successful Two small sats were deployed to sun-sync orbit The large (2900 kg?) VEP-4 dummy payload remained attached to the second stage which was deorbited over the Indian Ocean

GSLV-F14

ISRO launched GSLV-F14 on Feb 17, placing the INSAT-3DS satellite in geotransfer orbit The 2275 kg satellite carries meteorological imagers, a meteo data relay payload, and a UHF search and rescue transponder

ADRAS-J

The Astroscale ADRAS-J (Active Debris Removal By Astroscale - Japan) satellite was launched from New Zealand by Electron flight 44 The mission of the 150 kg satellite is to carry out proximity operations with and to inspect the H-2A-F15 upper stage (33500, 2009-002J) As of Feb 29 ADRAS-J had not made any significant orbit changes

Merah Putih 2

On Feb 20 SpaceX launched the Merah Putih 2 satellite for the Indonesian company Telkom to supersync transfer orbit The satellite is a 4000 kg Thales Alenia Spacebus 4000B2

Meteor-M 2-4

On Feb 29 Roskosmos launched the Meteor-M No 2-4 weather satellite and 17 small Russian sats, as well as Iran's Pars-1 small imaging satellite, to a 0300 LTDN sun-sync orbit

The Soyuz third stage entered a marginal orbit of around 12 x 180 km x 98 6 deg at 0552 UTC and reentered over the Atlantic nrear 25N 42W at about 0613 UTC

The Fregat stage made its first burn at 0554 UTC to a 180 x 800 km x 98 6 deg orbit A second burn at apogee at 0640 UTC reached an 812 x 824 km x 98 6 deg orbit Meteor-M No 2-4 was deployed in this orbit

Fregat burn 3 was probably around 0722 UTC, lowering perigee to 500 km Fregat burn 4 followed at 0810 UTC, circularizing at 486 x 509 km x 97 4 deg

14 objects were deployed in this orbit These were probably twelve SITRO-AIS 3U cubesats for Sitronics the Zorkiy-2M No 2 imaging sat also for Sitronics, and Iran's Pars-1 134 kg imaging satellite

At 0848 UTC Fregat made burn 5, to a 502 x 750 km x 95 4 deg orbit Four more satellites were deployed in this orbit, likely the final four SITRO-AIS 3U cubesats

At 0936 UTC Fregat made a 6th burn, to a 732 x 752 km x 89 0 deg orbit, a sigificant inclination change One satellite was deployed here, likely the Marafon-D GVM, a dummy test satellite for the Marafon communications constellation

According to Space Force sources the final cataloged object, in a 710 x 752 km x 89 0 deg orbit, is the Fregat stage itself, which seems to have made a small passivation manuever after releasing its final payload rather than deorbiting itself

CALT launches

Chang Zheng 5 serial Y7 was launched from Wenchang on Feb 23 carrying the TJS 11 military satellite to geotransfer orbit TJS 11 is suspected to be a large SIGINT satellite of a new generation

A CZ-3B was launched from Xichang on Feb 29 with Hulianwang gaogui weixing 01 xing (High Orbit Satellite Internet 01 satellite) Orbit parameters not yet known

X-37B

The OTV 7 spaceplane has been located by observer Tomi Simola in a 323 x 38838 km x 59 1 deg orbit with apogee near 37 deg south latitude

Juno

The Juno probe, in a 917 x 6068000 km x 97 4 deg Jovian polar orbit, made a close flyby of Io at 1747 UTC on Feb 3 at a height of 1496 km The close encounter raised the probe's perijove to 2000 km

Varda

Varda Space's Winnebago-1 materials processing spacecraft returned to Earth on Feb 21 On Feb 19 at 0558 UTC the orbit was changed from 504 x 523 km to about 302 x 508 km A second burn on Feb 20 at about 1953 UTC put the spacecraft into a 302 x 908 km orbit The Rocket Lab Photon service module then made a deorbit burn at 2044 UTC Feb 21 The Varda W-1 capsule separated at 2108 UTC Photon burnt up on entry while W-1 made a heat-shield-protected reentry, and landed under parachutes at 2140 UTC in the Utah Test and Training Range, probably near 113W 40N

Manligyeong-1

North Korea's Manligyeong-1 satellite made a series of small orbit reboosts to counteract drag on Feb 21-24 Its orbit is now 497 x 508 km x 97 4 deg, compared to 488 x 508 km on Feb 18

Erratum

In last JSR there was a typo in the text about Tianzhou-7 Launch date was Jan 17, not Jan 14

Table of Recent Orbital Launches

Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL Catalog Perigee Apogee Incl Notes Jan 17 1427 Tianzhou-7 Chang Zheng 7 Wenchang LC201 Cargo 13A 376 x 385 x 41 5 Jan 18 0643 Dalian-1 Lianli TZ-6, LEO Tech 23063C 370 x 383 x 41 5 Jan 18 2149 Axiom Ax-3 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 14A 211 x 296 x 51 6 Jan 20 0628 Soraya Qaem-100 Shahroud Comms? 15A 744 x 760 x 64 5 Jan 23 0403 Taijing-1 03 Lijian-1 Jiuquan Imaging 16 524 x 542 x 97 5 Taijing-2 02 Imaging 16 Taijing-2 04 Imaging 16 Taijing-3 02 Imaging 16 Taijing-4 03 Radar 16 Jan 24 0035 Starlink Group 7-11 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 17 285 x 296 x 53 2 Jan 28 0004? Mehda Simorgh Khomeini SC Tech 18A 456 x 1117 x 58 7 Hatef 1 Comms 18B? Kaihan 2 Tech 18C? Jan 29 0110 Starlink Group 6-38 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Comms 19 283 x 291 x 43 0 Jan 29 0557 Starlink Group 7-12 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 20 285 x 294 x 53 2 Jan 30 1707 S S Patricia Robertson Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Cargo 21A 242 x 251 x 51 7 Jan 31 0634 Lemur-2 Nimbus2000 Electron Mahia LC1B SpSurv 22A 520 x 540 x 97 5 Lemur-2 Valhalla SpSurv 22B 520 x 540 x 97 5 Lemur-2 Oba-Ni-Jesu SpSurv 22D 520 x 540 x 97 5 Lemur-2 Cael SpSurv 22E 520 x 540 x 97 5 Feb 2 2337 Geely Xingguo 02 zu 01 xing Chang Zheng 2C Xichang Nav 23A 595 x 605 x 50 0 Geely Xingguo 02 zu 02 xing Nav 23B 594 x 607 x 50 0 Geely Xingguo 02 zu 03 xing Nav 23C 594 x 607 x 50 0 Geely Xingguo 02 zu 04 xing Nav 23D 594 x 607 x 50 0 Geely Xingguo 02 zu 05 xing Nav 23E 594 x 607 x 50 0 Geely Xingguo 02 zu 06 xing Nav 23F 594 x 607 x 50 0 Geely Xingguo 02 zu 07 xing Nav 23G 594 x 607 x 50 0 Geely Xingguo 02 zu 08 xing Nav 23H 594 x 607 x 50 0 Geely Xingguo 02 zu 09 xing Nav 23J 594 x 607 x 50 0 Geely Xingguo 02 zu 10 xing Nav 23K 594 x 607 x 50 0 Geely Xingguo 02 zu 11 xing Nav 23L 594 x 607 x 50 0 Feb 3 0306 NEXSAT-1 Jielong-3 BJRZ, S China Sea Imaging 24 506 x 520 x 97 4 Xunming Laojia 1 Imaging 24 Weihai-1 01 Comms 24 Weihai-1 02 Comms 24 Xingshidai-18 Comm/Imaging? 24 Xingshidai-19 Imaging 24 Xingshidai-20 Imaging 24 Yantai-2 Imaging 24 Zhixing-2A Radar 24 Feb 8 0633 PACE Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Imaging 25A 673 x 676 x 98 1 Feb 9 0703 Kosmos-2575 Soyuz-2-1v Plesetsk LC43/4 Imaging 26A 349 x 361 x 96 8 Feb 10 0034 Starlink Group 7-13 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 27 284 x 294 x 53 2 Feb 14 2230 HBTSS 1 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 EarlyWarn 28A 995 x 1000 x 40 0 HBTSS 2 EarlyWarn 28F RAPTOR 1 EarlyWarn 28C RAPTOR 2 EarlyWarn 28E RAPTOR 3 EarlyWarn 28D RAPTOR 4 EarlyWarn 28B Feb 15 0325 Progress MS-26 Soyuz-2-1a Baykonur LC31 Cargo 29A 185 x 213 x 51 7
Feb 15 0605 Odysseus IM-1 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Lunar 30A 223 x 411600 x 28 6 Feb 15 2134 Starlink Group 7-14 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 31 284 x 294 x 53 2 Feb 17 0022 VEP-4 H3 22S Tanegashima Y2 Tech 32 664 x 670 x 98 1 CE-SAT-1E Imaging 32A? TIRSAT Tech 32B? Feb 17 1205 INSAT-3DS GSLV Mk II Satish Dhawan SLP Meteo 33A 158 x 38264 x 19 5 Feb 18 1452 ADRAS-J Electron Mahia LC1B Tech 34A 533 x 597 x 98 2 Feb 20 2011 Merah Putih 2 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 35A 316 x 54924 x 20 8 Feb 23 0411 Starlink Group 7-15 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 36 284 x 294 x 53 2 Feb 23 1130 TJS 11 Chang Zheng 5 Wenchang Sigint? 37A 218 x 35800 x 16 5 Feb 25 2206 Starlink Group 6-39 Falcon 9 Canaveral Comms 38 273 x 283 x 43 1 Feb 29 0543 Meteor-M No 2-4 Soyuz-2-1B/Fregat Vostochniy Weather 39A 812 x 824 x 98 6 Pars-1 Imaging 39B? 486 x 511 x 97 4 Marafon-D GVM Tech 39V? 731 x 751 x 89 0 Zorkiy-2M No 2 Imaging 39C? 486 x 511 x 97 4 SITRO-AIS-13 to -24 Comms 39 486 x 511 x 97 4 SITRO-AIS-25 to -28 Comms 39 503 x 747 x 95 4 Feb 29 1303 HWGGW 01 Chang Zheng 3B Xichang Comms 40A 236 x 35830 x 27 7 Feb 29 1530 Starlink Group 6-40 Falcon 9 Canaveral Comms 41A 273 x 283 x 43 1

Table of Recent Suborbital Launches

Jan 26 1742 Galactic 06 Spaceship Two Spaceport America Tourist 89 Spaceport America Feb 8 MRBM Target MRBM-T2 C-17, near Kauai Target 300? Pacific Feb 8 FTX-23 SM-3-IIA DDG-85, Pacific Interceptor 100? Pacific Feb 15 1442 TEXUS 60 VSB-30 ESRANGE Microgravity 264 ESRANGE

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