Jonathan's Space Report

No 694 2014 Feb 28 Somerville, MA

International Space Station

Expedition 38 continues under commander Oleg Kotov and flight engineers Sergey Ryazanskiy, Mike Hopkins, Koichi Wakata, Rich Mastracchio, and Mikhail Tyurin The Soyuz TMA-10M ferry ship is being prepared to return Kotov, Ryazanskiy and Hopkins to Earth in March; it is docked at the Poisk module Soyuz TMA-11M is docked at Rassvet, Progress M-21M is docked at Zvezda and Progress M-22M is docked at Pirs Progress M-20M was deorbited on Feb 11 following a week of indepedent operations, with impact in the South Pacifc at 1555 UTC

Stefan Barensky has drawn my attention to the fact that Progress M-22M carried a 1U cubesat to the ISS for later deployment The payload is Chasqui 1 from Peru's Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria It will be ejected manually during a spacewalk later this year

The Cygnus ship 'Gordon Fullerton' carried two bags of cubesats to ISS Each bag contained the equivalent of 16 3U cubesats, loaded in eight Nanoracks 2x3U cubesat deployers The first bag's worth of eight deployers has been installed on the MPEP (Multi-Purpose Experiment Plaform) which goes on a slide in the Kibo module airlock The MPEP was moved outside Kibo and then maneuvered by the Kibo robot arm (JEM RMS) to the deploy position, where two satellites at a time (one deployer's worth) were ejected (Thanks to Will Marshall of PlanetLabs for some of the details here)

The first two Flock-1 satellites, 3U Dove-class Earth imaging cubesats for the San Francisco based company PlanetLabs, were deployed by the JEM RMS at about 0831 UTC on Feb 11 By Feb 15 all 16 satellites from the first Nanoracks bag had been ejected Thanks to Henry Hallam at PlanetLabs for updating me on deployment times and spacecraft names The post deployment names of the Flock satellites in order of deployment are Flock1-1, Flock1-2, etc

The 'Gordon Fullerton' was unberthed from the Harmony module at around 1020 UTC Feb 18 and released by the robot arm at 1142 UTC It lowered its orbit at 1324 UTC; at 1745 UTC a second burn put Cygnus on a reentry trajectory The delta-V of these burns has not been announced Cygnus underwent destructive reentry over the Pacific with loss of signal at 1823 UTC Feb 19

The MPEP was returned to the Kibo module on Feb 19 and Wakata loaded a new set of NanoRacks cubesat deployers on it on Feb 20 On Feb 25 Wakata sent the MPEP back out of the Kibo airlock and JAXA controllers grappled it with the JEM-RMS, moving it to the deploy position again Deployments of the second batch of satellites began later the same day All the PlanetLabs satellites had been ejected by early on Feb 28 The five remaining satellites, of 1U and 2U size, were ejected from a single deployer at 0730 UTC Feb 28 They are - Ardusat-2 from Nanosatisfi Inc , San Francisco, with an Arduino processor SkyCube-1 from Southern Stars Group LLC, San Francisco, with an Earth imager UAP-SAT from Universidad Alas Peruanas, Lima Litsat-1 from the Lithuanian Space Association, Vilnius, Lithuania LituanicaSat-1 from Kaunas Tech Univ in Kaunas, Lithuania

Kosmos-1220

The Kosmos-1220 satellite burned up over Tayma in northwestern Arabia on Feb 16 at 0140 UTC Kosmos-1220 was a vehicle in the Soviet Union's US-P (Controlled Satellite - Passive) series, which featured radio antennae to monitor radio emissions from US Navy ships; it was powered by large solar panels The US-P satellites operated in 400 km orbits In many cases American radars detected evidence of explosions at the end of their missions, with dozens of pieces of debris appearing in nearby orbits Strangely, for some vehicles there were multiple debris events over a period of months, long after the apparent end of mission; the explosions do not seem to have completed disrupted the spacecraft - their purpose and nature remain mysterious Were the explosions deliberate or, perhaps, a consequence of a design flaw in the propulsion system?

Kosmos-1220 was launched on 1980 Nov 4 and ended its main mission on 1981 Mar 27 when it raised its orbit to 406 x 465 km A year later, on 1982 Jun 20, it exploded generating 81 pieces of debris, all but five of which reentered during the 1980s One small piece, 1980-089CJ (SSN 25795) remains today in a 486 x 647 km x 65 0 deg orbit Most of the debris was small, but not all: 1980-089AS (SSN 13349) had a radar cross section of 17 square metres, larger than the main remnant of the Kosmos-1220 spacecraft itself (10 3 sq m) - perhaps it was a solar panel or the main cruciform antenna 89AS reentered on 1982 Dec 15

GPS IIF-5

United Launch Alliance flew a Boeing Delta 4 from Cape Canaveral on Feb 21 carrying a Block IIF Global Positioning System satellite to 20000 km circular orbit The payload is GPS Space Vehicle Number 64, the 5th in the IIF series to be launched

ACRIMSAT

I have been informed that the small ACRIMSAT satellite which has been studying the total solar output since 1999 (see JSR 416) failed on 2013 Dec 14 due to battery problems, months after a review recommended its continued operation The ACRIM series of experiments, critical data for climate change studies, flew on Solar Max (1980), Spacelab-1 (1983), UARS (1991), and ACRIMSAT The similar TIM instrument on the SORCE satellite (2003) continues operating, but will it survive until a replacement instrument flies on the JPSS satellite no sooner than 2017?

GPM-C

The GPM-C (Global Precipitation Mission-Core) satellite was launched from Tanageashima on Feb 27 The joint US-Japanese satellite carries the JAXA/NICT/NEC Toshiba Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar and the GSFC/Ball GPM Microwave Imager Launch mass is 3850 kg; the satellite was built by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and will be registered as a US satellite
GPM-C was placed into a 390 x 395 km x 65 0 deg orbit with a single burn of the H-2A second stage The second stage then deployed a cluster of small Japanese satellites Three are microsatellites, ShindaiSat, from Shinshu Univ , 33 kg STARS-2, from Kagawa Univ , 22 kg Teikyosat-3, from Teikyo Univ, 22 kg and four are 1U cubesats with masses between 1 and 2 kg: ITF-1, from Tsukuba Univ OPUSat, from Osaka Prefectural University Invader, from Tama Art University K-SAT2, from Kagoshima University

STARS-2 is composed of two sections and a tether, which if it deploys successfully will be 300 metres long

Erratum - Athena-Fidus

Stefan Barensky points out that the Athena-Fidus story is more complicated than I had reported The satellite is for both military and civilian government communications; in France the civilian space agency CNES and the military procurement agency DGA are both responsible, while in Italy the corresponding ASI and Segredifesa/DNA agencies are involved And the correct name for ASI is Agenzia Spaziale Italiana

Table of Recent (orbital) Launches

Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL

Jan 5 1048 GSAT-14 GSLV Sriharikota SLP Comms 01A Jan 6 2206 Thaicom 6 Falcon 9 v1 1 Canaveral SLC40 Comms 02A Jan 9 1807 Cygnus Orb-1 Antares 120 Wallops MARS 0A Cargo 03A Jan 24 0233 TDRS 12 Atlas V 401 Canaveral SLC41 Comms 04A Feb 5 1623 Progress M-22M Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1/5 Cargo 05A Feb 6 2130 ABS 2 ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 06A Athena-Fidus ) 06B Feb 11 0831 Flock1-1 ) - ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067DG
Flock1-2 ) Imaging 98-067DH Feb 11 1241 Flock1-3 ) - ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067DJ Flock1-4 ) Imaging 98-067DK Feb 12 0830 Flock1-5 ) - ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067DL Flock1-6 ) Imaging 98-067DM Feb 13 0820 Flock1-11 ) - ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067DN Flock1-12 ) Imaging 98-067DP Feb 14 0415 Flock1-13 ) - ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067DQ Flock1-14 ) Imaging 98-067DR Feb 14 1145 Flock1-15 ) - ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067DS Flock1-16 ) Imaging 98-067DT Feb 14 2109 Turksat-4A Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC81/24 Comms 07A Feb 15 0700 Flock1-7 ) - ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067DU Flock1-8 ) Imaging 98-067DV Feb 15 1055 Flock1-9 ) - ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067DW Flock1-10 ) Imaging 98-067DX Feb 21 0159 GPS SVN 64 Delta 4M+(4,2) Canaveral SLC37B Navigation 08A Feb 25 1700 Flock1-17 ) ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067DY Flock1-18 ) Imaging 98-067DZ Feb 26 0420 Flock1-21 ) ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067EC Flock1-22 ) Imaging 98-067ED Feb 26 0735 Flock1-19 ) ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067EA Flock1-20 ) Imaging 98-067EB Feb 27 0150 Flock1-23 ) ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067EC Flock1-24 ) Imaging 98-067ED Feb 27 0740 Flock1-25 ) ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067EE Flock1-26 ) Imaging 98-067EF Feb 27 1837 GPM-C ) H-2A Tanegashima LP1 Climate 09A
ShindaiSat ) Tech 09 STARS-2 ) Tech 09 Teikyosat-3 ) Bio 09 ITF-1 ) Tech 09 OPUSat ) Tech 09 Invader ) Edu 09 K-SAT 2 ) Tech 09 Feb 28 0420? Flock1-27 ) ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067EG Flock1-28 ) Imaging 98-067EH Feb 28 0730 SkyCube 1 ) ISS, LEO Imaging 98-067 Litsat 1 ) Tech 98-067 LituanicaSat-1 ) Tech 98-067 Ardusat-2 ) Tech 98-067 UAP-SAT ) Tech 98-067

Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches

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

Jan 3 Arrow KV Arrow 3 Palmachim Test 100? Jan 15 0909 FTX-18 target Terrier Orion Wallops Target 130? Jan 15 0909 FTX-18 target Terrier Orion Wallops Target 130? Jan 15 0909 FTX-18 target Terrier Orion Wallops Target 130? Jan 20 0522 Agni 4 RV Agni 4 Chandipur IC4 Test 900?

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