From: mailto: Jonathan's Space Report

No 831 2024 Mar 25 Somerville, MA

Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched in 1999 In a hair-raising event-filled launch on Space Shuttle Columbia flight STS-93, Eileen Collins and her crew risked their lives to deploy this ground-breaking scientific instrument Since then Chandra has provided a series of scientific discoveries, notably (in combo with optical weak lensing measurements) the best evidence for the reality of dark matter Demand for the observatory remains high and the rate of scientific publications from it continues steady Engineers expect Chandra is capable of continuing to operate effectively for up to another decade, although thermal insulation issues have complicated mission planning (requiring a 1% increase in the operating budget to keep everything healthy, rather than a small budget decrease that might otherwise have been possible) Chandra is considered by the astronomy community as one of the most scientifically effective missions per dollar

Nevertheless, NASA has decided that Chandra should be shut down to address the overall budget cuts faced by the agency Although the official FY2025 President's Budget Request language says the proposed reductions are for a 'minimum mission', the reality is that reducing the annual budget of $60M in FY2023 to $41M in FY2025 and $27M in FY2026 means shutting down the mission and firing most of the staff (Conflict of interest disclaimer: I am one of those staff ) The remaining money would be used for wrapping up the archive and so forth - the public data archive is used repeatedly for lots of additional science papers

This decision is not yet final, since the president's budget is followed by revisions made by Congress before it is enacted Nevertheless at the moment that is the plan, and it would mean that scientists using Hubble and JWST to observe the cold parts of the universe would no longer be able to complement those observations with similarly sharp images of the hot parts of the universe in the X-ray [Note: for us X-ray astronomers, "cold" means "less than a million degrees"] For example, perhaps you see a glowing gas cloud in JWST, but without the Chandra data you can't see the compact binary star that is responsible for pumping energy into that cloud So, shutting down Chandra would mean that HST and JWST would also be less scientifically effective

No replacement for Chandra is in the works anywhere in the world China's Einstein Probe (just launched), the Japan-US XRISM mission (recently operational), Europe's XMM-Newton and its proposed (but also budgetarily threatened) replacement Athena are fantastic X-ray observatories but none of them can take the sharp images that can be used for comparisons with HST and JWST The plan implies a gap in astronomy's capability for a generation or more, and the end of a US dominance in X-ray astronomy that has for the most part lasted since the discovery of Sco X-1 in 1962

See the Chandra director's letter to the community at https://cxc cfa harvard edu/cdo/announcement html

International Space Station

Expedition 70 continues

Dragon Crew-8 was launched on Mar 4 with M Dominick, M Barratt, J Epps and A Grebyonkin It docked with IDA-2 at 0728 UTC Mar 5

On Mar 10 A Mogensen transferred command of Expedition 70 to Oleg Kononenko

Crew-7 undocked from IDA-3 at 1520 UTC Mar 11 with J Moghbeli, A Mogensen, S Furukawa and K Borisov It splashed down in the Pensacola recovery area (87 5W 29 8N) at 0947 UTC Mar 12

On Mar 14 at 1311 UTC Progress MS-26 raised the ISS orbit with a 1097s burn of 1 6m/s

Cargo Dragon CRS-30 was launched on Mar 21 It carries a spare Pump Module in its trunk, and at least seven cubesats CRS-30 docked with the ISS at the IDA-3 port on Harmony zenith at 1119 UTC Mar 23

Soyuz MS-25 was launched on Mar 23 at 1236 UTC Crew are Oleg Novitskiy of Roskosmos (Komandir; space traveller 535), Tracy Caldwell Dyson of NASA (Bortinzhener/flight engineer, 467) and Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus (Uchastnik Kosmicheskaya Poleta/spaceflight participant, 685) Soyuz MS-25 docked with the Prichal module on Mar 25 at 1502:50 UTC The third stage of the Soyuz-2-1a rocket that launched it made an uncontrolled reentry over Novy Urgal in the Russian far east at 1019 UTC Mar 25

Chinese Space Station

Astronauts Tang H and Jiang made the second spacewalk of their ZR6 expedition on Mar 1 The spacecraft lasted about 8 hours and the hatch was open from around 2130 UTC Mar 1 to 0532 UTC Mar 2

Starship

The third Starship flight test was launched from Starbase (Boca Chica, Texas) at 1325 UTC Mar 14 using Booster 10 and Ship 28 Booster and Ship successfully separated at T+2:49 at an altitude of 72 km Booster reached an apogee of 106 km and made a controlled flight down to an altitude of 1 km before attempting to restart engines for a soft-water-impact landing burn However the engines did not successfully restart and the booster was lost at this point

Ship continued ascent to targeted engine cutoff at T+8:35 at an altitude of 150 km, reaching an orbit of -50 x 234 km x 26 5 deg Apogee of 234 km was reached at 1350 UTC over the mid-Atlantic Ocean A Raptor restart had been planned around 1406 UTC over Namibia, which would have been prograde and raised perigee to around +50 km However this did not occur Entry began around 1411 UTC southeast of Madagascar and at T+49:35, 1414:35 UTC, contact was lost with the vehicle at an altitude of 65 km, probably near 70E 26S It seems likely that Ship broke up and was destroyed at that point

The Ship flight was not fully in orbit and so did not receive a US Space Force catalog number or an international launch designation I have assigned it a 'U' launch designation 2024-U01 in my system, denoting a launch that was 'not quite orbital in an interesting way' A full list of the 'U' designations is at https://planet4589 org/space/gcat/web/intro/u html

Starlink launches

Starlink Group 6-41 (23 sats) was launched from Canaveral on Mar 4 Starlink Group 6-43 (23 sats) was launched from Canaveral on Mar 10 Starlink Group 7-17 (23 sats) was launched from Canaveral on Mar 11 Starlink Group 6-44 (23 sats) was launched from Kennedy on Mar 16 Starlink Group 7-16 (20 sats) was launched from Vandenberg on Mar 19 Starlink Group 6-42 (23 sats) was launched from Kennedy on Mar 24

Note: because the initial SpaceX web page for the 7-16 launch said 22 sats, some suggested two secret sats are on the same launch I was not initially convinced, but the cataloging of USA 352 suggests that USA 350 and USA 351 were launched recently - likely two Starshield military Starlinks on this launch The situation is still unclear as none of the objects from the launch have yet been cataloged by Space Force

Transporter-10

SpaceX launched the Transporter-10 rideshare mission from Vandenberg on Mar 4

The payloads are: Imaging: Rose (Aerospacelab, Belgium); HORACIO (Satlantis, Spain); GHOST-4, 5 (Orbital Sidekick, US); Hammer (Open Cosmos, UK); NewSat-44 (Satellogic, Uruguay/Argentina); PYXIS (Axelspace, Japan); RROCI-2 (Orion Space/USSF, US); Musat-2 (Muon Space, US)

Radar Imaging: ICEYE-X36 X37 X38 (Iceye, Finland/US)

Sigint: Loulou, Riri, Fifi (Aerospacelab, Belgium); BRO-12, BRO-13 (Unseen Labs, France)

Other remote sensing: AEROS/MH-1 (CEIIA, Portugal); Lemur-2 x 2 (Spire, US); Veery-0E (Care Weather, US); MethaneSat (EDF, US)

Comms: Hubble 1,2 (Spire/Hubble Networks, US); TIGER-7, 8 (OQ Tech, Luxembourg); OWL-1,2 (Ondo Space, Mongolia); IRIS-F1 (Satoro Space and NCKU, Taiwan); Lynk Tower 5,6 (Lynk, US)

Tugs: Optimus-2 (Space Machines, Australia)

Prox ops tests Jackal X-1L-001/002 (True Anomaly, US); Quark/Gluon (Atomos Space, US);
Pacific Lace A, B (NIWC-P, US); PY4 SV1 to SV4 (NASA Ames, US); Pony Express 2 SV1, SV2 (Terran Orbital/Lockheed, US)

SSA payloads: Sentry/Scout-1, (Quantum Space, US )

Other technology verification: SONATE-2 (U Wurzburg, Germany); M3 (Missouri U ST, US)

Misc hosted payloads YAM-6 (Loft Orbital, US); LizzieSat-1 (Sidus Space, US); Aries 1 (Apex Space, US); OrbAstro-TR2 (Orb Astro, UK)

Spacevan

The Exotrail Spacevan tug, launched on Transporter-9 last year, ejected a 8U cubesat (EXO-1) on Feb 28

Strix-3

The Strix-3 radar satellite for the Japanese company Synspective was launched on Mar 12 by Rocket Lab's Electron from New Zealand

DRO-A/DRO-B

On Mar 13 China launched two experimental spacecraft from Xichang on a CZ-2C/YZ-1S The spacecraft were intended to test out lunar direct retrograde orbit navigation - presumably similar to the US CAPSTONE mission However the YZ-1S upper stage failed to complete its burn Two objects have been cataloged in low orbit One is the CZ-2C second stage The other is likely a separation motor cover (four of these are often seen on CZ-2 class launches) A third object, object A, is presumably the YZ-1S stage, and is in a highly elliptical orbit with an apogee of around 132600 km (The satellite catalog page on Space-Track shows an orbit of 1164 x 246391 km, but no corresponding TLE has been released) It is possible that the DRO-A and DRO-B craft are still attached to object A, or that they have not yet been tracked

It is now clear that the DRO-L satellite launched by JL-3 in February is part of the same program and was intended to test comms between the lunar bound DRO-A/B and the DRO-L in LEO

KAIROS

SpaceOne's KAIROS solid-propellant rocket made the inaugural launch from Kii Spaceport in Wakayama province, Japan, on Mar 13, but was destroyed 5 seconds into flight It carried a test satellite for the Japanese government's rapid-replacement spy satellite project

Queqiao-2

On Mar 20 China launched a CZ-8 from Wenchang to place the 1200 kg Queqiao-2 relay satellite in a translunar orbit Two small technology spacecraft, the 61 kg Tiandu-1 and the 15-kg Tiandu-2, were also launched QQ2 will serve as a relay satellite for upcoming Chinese lunar farside missions

On Mar 24 at 1646 UTC QQ2 made a 19 min lunar orbit insertion burn into elliptical lunar orbit with 440 km perilune

On Mar 24 at 1732 UTC Tiandu-1/2, still attached to each other, made an 11 min lunar orbit insertion burn to orbit with 209 km perilune

SAST launches

SAST launched a CZ-2D/YZ-3 on Mar 21 and placed six Yunhai-2 satellites in orbit Three were placed in a 480 km orbit and three in a 1135 km orbit The satellites are expected to converge on an intermediate altitude orbit after some months of plane drift The CZ-2D second stage remains in a low parking orbit The YZ-3 upper stage appears to have been deorbited

NROL-123

Rocket Lab launched an Electron from Virginia on Mar 21 placing four US military payloads in a 48 degree inclination low Earth orbit: the classified USA 352 for the NRO, the Mola 6U cubesat for the Naval Postgrad School, and the Aerocube 16A/16B 6U cubesats for the Aerospace Corporation

Table of Recent Orbital Launches

Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL Catalog Perigee Apogee Incl Notes 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 28 EXO-0 Spacevan-001, LEO Tech 23174DK 513 x 529 x 97 5 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-29 to 36 Comms 39 486 x 511 x 97 4 SITRO-AIS-49 to 52 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 Mar 4 0353 Dragon Crew-8 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 42A 191 x 215 x 51 6 Mar 4 2205 Transporter-10 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Rideshare 43 508 x 529 x 97 5 Mar 4 2356 Starlink Group 6-41 Falcon 9 Canaveral Comms 44 273 x 283 x 43 1 Mar 10 2305 Starlink Group 6-43 Falcon 9 Canaveral Comms 45 273 x 283 x 43 1 Mar 11 0409 Starlink Group 7-17 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 46 284 x 294 x 53 2 Mar 12 1503 Strix 3 Electron Mahia LC1B Radar 47A 553 x 579 x 97 6 Mar 13 0201 KAIROS TUGKE KAIROS Kii Imaging F01 -6378 x 0 x 97 Mar 13 1251 DRO-A/DRO-B Chang Zheng 2C/YZ-1S Xichang Lunar 48A 525 x 132577 x 27 7 Mar 14 1325 Starship 28 Starship Starbase OLP1 Test U01 -54 x 234 x 26 5 Mar 16 0021 Starlink Group 6-44 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Comms 49 279 x 288 x 43 0 Mar 19 0228 Starlink Group 7-16 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 50 305 x 314 x 53 2 USA 350? Unk 50 305 x 314 x 53 2 USA 351? Unk 50 305 x 314 x 53 2 Mar 20 0031 Queqiao-2 Chang Zheng 8 Wenchang LC201 Lunar 51A 200 x 420000 x 22 6 Tiandu-1 Lunar 51B? 200 x 420000 x 22 6 Tiandu-2 Lunar 51C? 200 x 420000 x 22 6 Mar 21 0527 Yunhai-2 02 zu 01 xing Chang Zheng 2D/YZ-3 Jiuquan Weather 52A 1130 x 1140 x 50 1 Yunhai-2 02 zu 02 xing Weather 52B 1130 x 1140 x 50 1 Yunhai-2 02 zu 03 xing Weather 52C 1130 x 1140 x 50 1 Yunhai-2 02 zu 04 xing Weather 52D 475 x 486 x 50 1 Yunhai-2 02 zu 05 xing Weather 52E 475 x 486 x 50 1 Yunhai-2 02 zu 06 xing Weather 52F 475 x 486 x 50 1 Mar 21 0725 USA 352 Electron MARS Pad 0C Tech 53A 500?x500? x48 Mola Tech 53B Aerocube 16A Tech 53C Aerocube 16B Tech 53D Mar 21 2055 Dragon CRS-30 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Cargo 54A 193 x 211 x 51 7 Mar 23 1236 Soyuz MS-25 Soyuz-2-1a Baykonur LC31 Spaceship 55A 330 x 367 x 51 6 Mar 24 0309 Starlink Group 6-42 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Comms 56 284 x 292 x 43 0

Table of Recent Suborbital Launches

Date UT Payload Rocket Site Mission Apogee Target

Feb 15 1442 TEXUS 59 VSB-30 ESRANGE Microgravity 264 ESRANGE Feb 27 0727 MAPHEUS-14 Red Kite/IM ESRANGE Microgravity 265 ESRANGE Mar 1 Yars RV Yars Plesetsk Op test 1000? Kura Mar 11 RV x 3? Agni 5 Kalam Island Test 800? Indian Ocean Mar 12 0515 REXUS 32 Orion ESRANGE Microgravity 80? ESRANGE Mar 14 1200 REXUS 31 Orion ESRANGE Microgravity 80? ESRANGE Mar 24 0945 TEXUS 60 VSB-30 ESRANGE Microgravity 264? ESRANGE

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