Jonathan's Space Report

No 675 2013 Mar 2 Somerville, MA USA

International Space Station

Expedition 34 is underway with commander Kevin Ford and flight engineers FE-1 Oleg Novitskiy, FE-2 Yevgeniy Tarelkin, FE-4 Roman Romanenko, FE-5 Chris Hadfield, and FE-6 Tom Marshburn Ferry ship Soyuz TMA-06M is docked at the Poisk module; Soyuz TMA-07M is at Rassvet; cargo ship Progress M-17M is at the Zvezda aft port

The Progress M-18M cargo ship was launched on Feb 11 at 1441 UTC and docked with the Pirs module at 2034 UTC the same day

Dragon CRS-2

Falcon 9 flight 5 was launched on Mar 1 and delivered the Dragon CRS-2 cargo ship to a 199 x 323 x 51 7 deg orbit Dragon separated from the Falcon 9 second stage at 1519 UTC, but at 1522 UTC the solar panel covers were not seen to eject from the side of the Dragon trunk; this is needed to allow the solar arrays to deploy and deliver electrical power to the spacecraft (although there is also plenty of battery power) SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted that the Dragon thruster pods weren't initializing - apparently there was some kind of blockage or valve issue in three out of four thruster pods But SpaceX resolved the issue, deployed the solar panels at about 1650 UTC, activated the thrusters, and at around 2210 UTC an orbit raising burn was carried out successfully to place Dragon in a 314 x 340 km x 51 7 deg orbit A further burn at about 0023 UTC Mar 2 raised it again to 321 x 404 km Rendezvous with ISS has been delayed by one day to Mar 3

The Dragon carries 677 kg of cargo in its pressurized cabin, as well as two 119 kg HRS Grapple Fixtures for the ISS Heat Rejection System and 100 kg of related attach packaging in the `trunk' section

Landsat 8

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission, Landsat 8, was launched from Vandenberg on Feb 11 into a 660 x 677 km x 98 3 deg, 1010LT sun-synchronous orbit Landsat 8 carries the OLI (Operational Land Imager) and TIRS (Thermal Infrared Sensor) cameras The satellite was built by Orbital Sciences' Gilbert, Arizona plant using the Leostar-3 (former Spectrum Astro SA-200HP) bus and is 2787 kg at launch including 395 kg of hydrazine propellant The mission is controlled from NASA-Goddard with payload operations by the US Geological Survey The first Landsat was launched in 1972

After separation from Landsat, the AV-035 Centaur upper stage was then placed in heliocentric orbit The Earth escape trajectory had a perigee of 689 km and eccentricity of 1 16 corresponding to a C3 of 9 02 km*2/s*2

PSLV-C20

India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle placed a cluster of satellites in orbit on Feb 25 PSLV-C20 flew in the core-alone configuration (without strapon boosters) into a 770 x 787 km x 98 6 deg, 1805LT sun-synchronous orbit

The top payload, SARAL, is a joint project between the French space agency CNES and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for ocean studies; its main payload is the Altika Ka-band altimeter

In the lower part of the dual launch adapter were two Canadian small satellites, Sapphire and NEOSSat Sapphire is a Canadian Forces satellite for space object surveillance and missile early warning, based on the Surrey SSTL-150 bus and with a 0 15m visible-light telescope NEOSSat, the Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite, is a joint Canadian Space Agency/DRDC mission to survey asteroids and space debris, also with a 0 15m telescope (DRDC is Defense Research and Development Canada, part of the Canadian Dept of National Defense)

The two 14 kg CanX-3 satellites use the UTIAS/Toronto Generic Nanosatellite Bus UniBRITE was built by UTIAS for the University of Vienna, Austria; BRITE/TUGSAT-1 was built by the Technical University of Graz, Austra with help from UTIAS The satellites each carry a 0 03m telescope-photometer for stellar photometry and astroseismology

AAUSAT3 is a 1U cubesat built by Aalborg University in Denmark and carries an AIS ship tracking receiver and a GPS reciever

STRaND-1 is a 3U cubesat, a project of Surrey Satellite and the Surrey Space Centre The Surrey Training, Research and Nanosatellite Demonstrator carries a Google Nexus One smartphone as its main avionics, and features plasma thrusters and a water-alcohol thruster

Reentry

The CZ-4B No Y12 third stage, object 38259/2012-021C, reentered over Texas at about 0915 UTC on Feb 27 The Associated Press tells me that local news channel KLTV reported observations of fireballs moving south to north over Longview, Texas at that time; this is consistent with the object's orbit and the Space-Track reentry prediction

Another Iranian launch failure?

Reports on the nasaspaceflight com forum and from the Times of Israel allege another Safir launch vehicle failure around 2013 Feb 17 I haven't seen any evidence yet that would indicate a failure (rather than a postponement), beyond the fact that the expected Fajr satellite launch has not yet appeared

Table of Recent (orbital) Launches

Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL

Feb 1 0656 Intelsat IS-27 Zenit-3SL SL Odyssey, Pacific Comms F01 Feb 6 1604 Globalstar M078 ) Soyuz-2-1A Baykonur LC31/6 Comms 05A Globalstar M093 ) Comms 05B Globalstar M094 ) Comms 05C Globalstar M095 ) Comms 05D Globalstar M096 ) Comms 05E Globalstar M097 ) Comms 05F Feb 7 2136 Amazonas 3 ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 06A Azerspace ) Comms 06B Feb 11 1441 Progress M-18M Soyuz-U Baykonur Cargo 07A Feb 11 1802 Landsat 8 Atlas V 401 Vandenberg SLC3E Imaging 08A Feb 25 1231 SARAL ) Altimeter 09A Sapphire ) SpSur 09C NEOSSat ) PSLV-CA Sriharikota Astron/SpSur 09D UniBRITE ) Astronomy 09G TUGSAT-1 ) Astronomy 09F AAUSAT3 ) Ship nav 09B STRaND-1 ) Tech 09E Mar 1 1510 Dragon CRS-2 Falcon 9 Canaveral SLC40 Cargo 10A

Suborbital launches

Reports indicate that the Syrian Missile Command has fired a series of Julan (Scud) missiles from the base at An Nasriyah towards Aleppo and other rebel targets, with 6 launches around Dec 10, 4 on Dec 20 and 10 launches in the Feb 16-22 period Launches in the 5-10 Jan period may have been Iranian built Fateh-110 missiles Some of these missile strikes have resulted in many casualties Given the 280 km range it is likely that the apogees of these missiles marginally exceeded the 80 km value I use as the boundary of space However, I will not list them individually in the table below

Israel tested its Arrow 3 (Hetz-3) exoatmospheric interceptor on Feb 25

An Iranian report quoted on nasaspaceflight com suggests that the Iranian space monkey on the recent Pishgam mission aboard a Kavoshgar Type C sounding rocket was actually called Aftab' (sunrise) and not Pishgam'

Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches

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

Jan 25? Pishgam Kavoshgar C Semnan? Life Sci 120 Jan 26 2200 EKV CTV-01 GBI Vandenberg LF23 Test flight 1000? Jan 27 0810 RV BO-5/K-15 Visakhapatnam? Test flight 300? Jan 27 1210? Target RV DF-21? Jiuquan? Target 200? Jan 27 1210? Interceptor DF-21? Urumqi? ABM Test 100? Jan 29 2250 NASA 41 107GT Terrier Imp Ori Wallops Island Atmos Sci 130? Feb 7 0821 NASA 49 001UE T-T Oriole N Poker Flat Auroral 754 Feb 13 0910 ARAV-B Target Terrier Oriole Kauai Target 150? Feb 13 0915? FTM-20 KV Aegis SM-3 CG-20, Pacific Interceptor 150? Feb 15 NASA 41 104GT Terrier Imp Orion White Sands Tech 130? Feb Julan RV? Scud An Nasriyah, Syria Weapon 80? Feb 25 0600? Arrow KV Arrow 3 Palmachim? Interceptor 100?

------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail | | USA | jcm@cfa harvard edu | | | | JSR: http://www planet4589 org/jsr html | | Back issues: http://www planet4589 org/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: http://www planet4589 org/mailman/listinfo/jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'

JSR mailing list JSR@www planet4589 org http://www planet4589 org/mailman/listinfo/jsr

To unsubscribe, email jsr-leave@www planet4589 org

The following information is a reminder of your current mailing list subscription:

You are subscribed to the following list: [list_name]

using the following email: example@example.com

You may automatically unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following URL:

https://aus-city com/cgi-bin/dada/mail cgi/u/NASA_REPORTS/example/example com/

If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the entire address Some mail readers will wrap a long URL and thus break this automatic unsubscribe mechanism

You may also change your subscription by visiting this list's main screen:

<[program_url]/list/[list]>

If you're still having trouble, please contact the list owner at:

<mailto:[list_owner_email]>

The following physical address is associated with this mailing list:

[physical_address]