From: mailto: Jonathan's Space Report

No 849 2025 Sep 16 Somerville, MA, USA

ISS

Expedition 73 continues

On Aug 24 Dragon cargo mission CRS-33 was launched by Falcon 9 from Canaveral The Dragon trunk is equipped with a new propulsion system featuring two Draco thrusters to help with ISS orbit reboosts The Dragon carries the J-SSOD 32 deployer with five Japanese university/amateur cubesats The Falcon 9 stage 2 was deorbited over the Pacific

Dragon CRS-33 docked at IDA-2 at 1105 UTC Aug 25 It performed its first ISS reboost at 1815 UTC Sep 3, with an expected delta-V of 0 5 m/s

Progress MS-30 undocked on Sep 9 at 1545 UTC and was deorbited over the Pacific Ocean with entry at around 1930 UTC Sep 9

The Progress MS-32 cargo ship was launched on 2025 Sep 11 Its cargo includes spacesuit Orlan-MKS No 7 Progress MS-32 docked with Zvezda at 2023 UTC Sep 13 The Soyuz-2-1a third stage was left in orbit and reentered on Sep 15

Northrop Grumman's Cygnus NG-23 cargo ship, S S Willie McCool, was launched on 2025 Sep 14 by Falcon 9 from Canaveral It is the first Cygnus XL version, 7 9m long 3 0m dia The Falcon 9 second stage was deorbited over the Pacific with reentry at about 2324 UTC On Sep 16 a Cygnus orbit raising burn shut down early, causing its approach to ISS to be postponed

Starship Flight 10

SpaceX carried out the 10th flight test of Starship on 2025 Aug 26, with liftoff of Booster 16 and Ship 37 around 2330:03 UTC The booster reached an altitude of about 90 km, flying successfully despite one unplanned engine shutdown It completed successful hot-staging at T+2m44s, and performed a boostback burn from T+2:50 to T+2:37 The hotstage ring was jettisoned at 70 km altitude at T+4:47 Booster performed a landing burn to reach a low velocity touchdown in the Gulf of Mexico at T+6:50

Ship 37 completed its ascent with shutdown at T+8:53 into an orbit with 192 km apogee I estimate the perigee to have been +2 plus or minus 7 km Since the perigee is within the atmosphere, I do not characterize the flight as orbital, but 'marginally orbital' It will not be cataloged by Space Force or given an international designation; I give it one of my 'special' launch designations, 2025-U03

The Ship carried eight dummy Starlink V3 satellites which were deployed from the payload bay at approximately T+19:20, T+19:50, T+21:00, T+21:35, T+22:42, T+23:18, T+24:24, and T+25:00 The deployments looked a bit rickety, with some hitting the door on the way out, but apparently were successful overall The dummy sats were on the same 2 x 192 km trajectory and were destroyed on reentry over the Indian Ocean near 76E 26S at about 0017 UTC Aug 27

Ship reached its 192 km apogee at T+23 min On descent passing through 145 km (T+37:50), it made a brief Raptor restart burn, perhaps around 22 m/s posigrade, increasing the orbit from around 2 x 192 km to 47 x 220 km

Ship passed the 120 km nominal entry interface at T+42min At 90 km (T+47:00) part of the aft skirt suffered a structural failure and disintegrated However, despite this and some heat damage to the flaps, the flight continued in a controlled manner, with a soft vertical touchdown on the Indian Ocean near 107E 19S at T+1:06:30 (0036:38 UTC) As expected, about 8 seconds later the Ship toppled over and exploded

Starlink launches

Starlink Group 17-5 (24 Ku sats) was launched on Aug 18 from Vandenberg Starlink Group 17-6 (24 Ku sats) was launched on Aug 22 from Vandenberg Starlink Group 10-56 (28 Ku sats) was launched on Aug 27 from Canaveral Starlink Group 10-11 (28 Ku sats) was launched on Aug 30 from Canaveral Starlink Group 17-7 (24 Ku sats) was launched on Aug 30 from Vandenberg Starlink Group 10-14 (28 Ku sats) was launched on Aug 31 from Canaveral Starlink Group 17-8 (24 Ku sats) was launched on Sep 3 from Vandenberg Starlink Group 10-22 (28 Ku sats) was launched on Sep 3 from Canaveral Starlink Group 10-57 (28 Ku sats) was launched on Sep 5 from Kennedy Starlink Group 17-9 (24 Ku sats) was launched on Sep 5 from Vandenberg Starlink Group 17-10 (24 Ku sats) was launched on Sep 13 from Vandenberg

Other F9 launches

On Aug 22 SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 from Kennedy carrying OTV-8, the eight flight of the US Space Force X-37B robot spaceplane A secondary payload with an unknown mission, LIMASAT, was also placed in orbit, probably ejected from the OTV service module The Falcon 9 second stage was deorbited over the equatorial Pacific

On Aug 26 SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg with the Luxembourg government's NAOS imaging satellite NAOS is owned by the Luxembourg Ministry of the Armed Forces and operated by LUXEOPs (a RHEA System, LUXSPACE and OHB consortium) Several rideshare payloads were also carried aboard a Transporter-9-class dispenser: Pelican 3 and 4 (300a and 300b) for Planet were deployed in the same orbit as NAOS The remaining payloads were deployed after two further stage 2 burns: Firefly 4, 5 and 6 for Pixxel (India), LEAP-1, a hosted payload carrier for Dhruva Space (India), and Capella 16 (Acadia 6), an X-band radar sat for Capella Space Falcon 9 stage 2 was deorbited over the Pacific

On Sep 10 SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg carrying 21 Transport Layer communications satellites built by York Space Systems for the US DoD Space Development Agency (SDA) as part of its Tranche 1 system The satellites were deployed in a 940 km, 81 deg orbit The second stage was then deorbited south of S Africa

On Sep 12 SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 from Canaveral with Indonesia's Nusantara Lima comms satellite Nusantara Lima (N-5) is a Boeing 702MP with a launch mass of around 5550 kg The satellite went to a 15700 km apogee transfer orbit; the second stage was deorbited, reentering over the eastern Pacific about 3 5 hr after launch As of Sep 16, no updated orbital data was available for the payload

SAST launches

SAST (CASC 8th Academy, Shanghai) launched a CZ-4C from Xichang on Aug 17 with the Shiyan 28B-02 satellite, built by SECM The CZ-4C upper stage lowered its perigee from 800 to 594 km

SAST launched a CZ-6A from Taiyuan on Aug 17 with the Weixing Hulianwang Digui 09 zu Weixing (SatNet LEO Group 9) satellites, built by CAST The CZ-6A upper stage lowered its perigee from 1000 to 836 km

SAST launched a CZ-6A from Taiyuan on Sep 6 with the three Yaogan 40 hao 03 zu satellites, probably for signals intelligence The CZ-6A second stage was left in orbit after lowering its perigee from 800 to 630 km

CALT launches

CALT (CASC 1st Academy Beijing) launched a CZ-8A from Hainan on Aug 25 with the Weixing Hulianwang Digui 10 zu Weixing (SatNet LEO Group 10) satellites The satellites were placed in a 50 deg orbit The CZ-8A second stage lowered its perigee from 870 to 706 km

CALT launched a CZ-3C from Xichang on Sep 5 with a YZ-1 upper stage, placing the Shiyan 29 satellite in an inclined synchronous orbit The CZ-3C third stage was left in subsync transfer orbit The YZ-1 stage is probably in a similar orbit to Shiyan 29 but the US has not cataloged it yet

CALT launched a CZ-7A from Wenchang on Sep 9 with the Yaogan 45 satellite The CZ-7A second stage made a single burn to deploy YG-45 in a 203 x 7468 km x 20 0 deg orbit As of Sep 16, no further orbit data was available for Yaogan 45 since Sep 9, suggesting it circularized its orbit on that date at 7500 km but Space Force haven't found it yet in the new orbit

CALT launched a CZ-2C with a YZ-1S upper stage from Jiuquan on Sep 16, carrying four Weixing Hulianwang Jishu Shiyan Weixing internet test satellites, built by a variety of companies including Weina Xingkong (Minospace) and Yinhe Hangtian (Galaxy Aerospace) The CZ-2C second stage was suborbital; the YZ-1S deployed the payloads at 800 km and then lowered its perigee to 130 km

CAS Space launches

CAS Space's Lijian-1 flight Y10 was launched from Jiuquan on Aug 19, placing seven sats in sun-sync orbit:

AIRSAT-05 (Zhongke-1 05 = Haishao 2), an X-band radar sat for Zhongke Weixing Keji Jituan Tianyan-26, an imaging remote sensing sat for Navi Beidou IT Co Ltd (Xi'an) and Tianlian Cekong Jihsu Duogongfeng 2-01, 2-02, 2-03, test satellites (possibly with student experiments?) from the PLA Academy of Military Science and the National University of Defense Technology ThumbSat-1 and 2, 0 1 kg femtosatellites from ThumbSat (Tijuana, Mexico) The ThumbSats were not tracked by US Space Force despite an onboard experiment to increase their radar cross section The LJ-1 fourth stage was left in a 260 km perigee orbit

Bion-M

On Aug 20 Roskosmos launched a Soyuz-2-1b with the Bion-M No 2 spacecraft Bion-M No 2 consists of a recoverable cabin using the venerable Vostok sphere design, with a Yantar-class service module The cabin has a life sciences payload including 75 mice On Sep 12 the satellite manuevered from 357 x 374 km to a low-perigee 147 x 406 km orbit in preparation for reentry As of Sep 16 no subsequent US orbit estimates are available

Angara-1 2

On Aug 21 the Russian Defense Ministry launched four small satellites (Kosmos-2591 to 2594) aboard an Angara-1 2 rocket to a 0110 LTDN sun-synch orbit The satellites were tracked in a 321 x 337 km x 96 6 deg orbit The URM-2 stage was suborbital; the AM stage was deorbited over the northern Pacific about 3 5 hr after launch As of Sep 11 the satellites had not made any significant maneuvers

Electron

On Aug 24 Rocket Lab launched an Electron from Mahia carrying five secret commercial satellites The satellites are likely either for Echostar Australia or E-Space The satellites were left in a 660 km, 1105 local time sun-synch orbit, together with the Electron kick stage

Shaviyt

On Sep 2 Israel launched a Shaviyt westward from Palmachim AFB, placing the 'Ofeq-19 spy sat (and the Shaviyt final stage) in retrograde orbit, probably with inclination in the 138 to 144 deg range

Commercial Chinese launches

On Sep 3 Xinghe Dongli launched a Gushenxing-1 from Jiuquan to 1800 LTDN sun-synch orbit It carried four payloads:

Kaiyun 1, from Kaiyun Lianhe Xinxi Jishu Jituan Gufen YG (Kaiyun United Information Tech Group Co Ltd), with a space surveillance payload Yunyao-1 27, from Yunyao Yuhan Keji YG, with a GNSS-RO meteorology payload, Yuxing-3 08, with a tech payload and an imaging payload, owned by Harbin Inst of Tech Aishenxing LSP, a hosted payload platform from Xinghe Dongli attached to the GSX-1 final stage, which remains in a 500 km orbit

A China Long March Rocket Co Jielong-3 was launched from the DFHT barge near Rizhao on Sep 8 with the 5th batch of Geely autonomous-driving-support satellites The JL-3 fourth stage placed the sats in 600 km, 50 deg orbit and then lowered its perigee to 154 km A debris object was left in an intermediate orbit

Glonass

Russia launched a Soyuz-2-1b/Fregat from Plesetsk on Sep 13 carrying a Glonass navigation satellite and the Mozhaets-6 experimental satellite; the satellites were given the code names Kosmos-2595 and Kosmos-2596 The Soyuz third stage reentered at first perigee; the Fregat stage was left in 19000 km orbit

Table of Recent Orbital (and near-Orbital) Launches

Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL Catalog Perigee Apogee Incl Notes

Aug 13 0037 METOP SG-A1 Ariane 62 Kourou Weather 172 802 x 806 x 97 7 Aug 13 0056 USA 554 Vulcan VC4S Canaveral LC41 Tech 173 35700 x 35800 x 0? NTS 3 Nav 173 35700 x 35800 x 0? Aug 13 0643 Weixing Hulianwang Digui 08 Chang Zheng 5B/YZ2 Wenchang LC101 Comms 174 1080 x 1110 x 86 5 Aug 14 0505 Starlink Group 17-4 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 175 265 x 278 x 97 6 Aug 14 1229 Starlink Group 10-20 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 176 264 x 275 x 53 2 Aug 15 0117 Weixing Hulianwang Jishu 07 Zhuque-2 Jiuquan LC96A Unk F07 -5000?x500? x50 Aug 17 0855 Shiyan 28B-02 Chang Zheng 4C Xichang LC3 EO Sci? 177A 792 x 797 x 11 0 Aug 17 1415 Weixing Hulianwang Digui 09 Chang Zheng 6A Taiyuan Comms 178 985 x 1010 x 86 5 Aug 18 1627 Starlink Group 17-5 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 179 265 x 278 x 97 6 Aug 19 0733 Zhongke-1 05 (Haishao-2) Lijian-1 Jiuquan Radar 180 520 x 540 x 97 5 Tianyan-26 Imaging 180 DGS 2-01 Tech? 180 DGS 2-02 Tech? 180 DGS 2-03 Tech? 180 ThumbSat-1 Tech 180 ThumbSat-2 Edu 180 Aug 20 1713 Bion-M No 2 Soyuz-2-1b Baykonur LC31 LifeSci 181A 191 x 347 x 96 9 Aug 21 0932 Kosmos (4) Angara 1 2 Plesetsk Imaging? 182 321 x 337 x 96 6 Aug 22 0350 X-37B OTV-8 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Spaceplane 183A 327 x 334 x 49 5 LIMASAT Unknown 183B 334 x 339 x 49 4 Aug 22 1704 Starlink Group 17-6 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 184 266 x 280 x 97 6 Aug 23 2242 UNKNOWN Electron Mahia LC1A ? 185A 654 x 668 x 98 0 Aug 24 0645 Dragon CRS-33 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Cargo 186A 374 x 377 x 51 6 Aug 25 1908 Weixing Hulianwang Digui 10 Chang Zheng 8A Hainan LC1 Comms 187 866 x 877 x 50 0 Aug 26 1853 NAOS Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Imaging 188A 458 x 464 x 97 3 Firefly 4, 5, 6 Imaging 188 595 x 603 x 97 8 Pelican 300a and 300b Imaging 188 458 x 464 x 97 3 LEAP-1 Tech 188 595 x 603 x 97 8 Capella 16 Radar 188 595 x 603 x 97 8 Aug 26 2330 Starship 37 (FT10) Starship Starbase OLP1 Test U03 2? x 192 x 26 5 Aug 27 1110 Starlink Group 10-56 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 189 262 x 276 x 53 2 Aug 28 0812 Starlink Group 10-11 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Comms 190 265 x 276 x 53 2 Aug 30 0459 Starlink Group 17-7 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 191 266 x 279 x 97 6 Aug 31 1149 Starlink Group 10-14 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 192 265 x 274 x 53 2 Sep 2 1930 'Ofeq-19 Shaviyt Palmachim Radar 193 220? x 300? x 139? Sep 3 0351 Starlink Group 17-8 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 194 266 x 279 x 97 6 Sep 3 1156 Starlink Group 10-22 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 195 259 x 269 x 53 2 Sep 5 0234 Shiyan 29 Chang Zheng 3C/YZ1 Xichang Tech 196 35799 x 36572 x 28 5 Sep 5 1130 Kaiyun-1 Gushenxing-1 Jiuquan SSA 197 492 x 513 x 97 4 Yuxing 3-08 Imaging 197 492 x 513 x 97 4 Yunyao-1 27 Met 197 492 x 513 x 97 4 Aisehnxing LSP Tech 197 492 x 513 x 97 4 Sep 5 1232 Starlink Group 10-57 Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Comms 198 262 x 272 x 53 2 Sep 6 1634 Yaogan 40-03-01 Chang Zheng 6A Taiyuan Sigint? 199A 796 x 813 x 86 0 Yaogan 40-03-02 Sigint? 199B Yaogan 40-03-03 Sigint? 199C Sep 6 1806 Starlink Group 17-9 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 200 255 x 268 x 97 6 Sep 8 1948 Geely Group 05 Jielong-3 DFHT, Rizhao Commms 201 584 x 603 x 50 0 Sep 9 0200 Yaogan 45 Chang Zheng 7A Wenchang LC201 ? 202A 203 x 7468 x 20 0 Sep 10 1412 T1TL-B 01 to 21 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 203 940 x 943 x 81 3 Sep 11 1554 Progress MS-32 Soyuz-2-1a Baykonur LC31 Cargo 204A 187 x 219 x 51 7 Sep 12 0156 Nusantara Lima Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 205A 249 x 15729 x 26 5 Sep 13 0210 Kosmos-2595 (Glonass) Soyuz-2-1b/Fregat Plesetsk LC43/3 Nav 206B 19136 x 19156 x 64 8 Kosmos-2596 (Mozhaets-6) Nav 206A Sep 13 1755 Starlink Group 17-10 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 207 255 x 269 x 97 6 Sep 14 2211 Cygnus NG-23 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Cargo 208A 242 x 245 x 51 6 Sep 16 0106 WHJSW 07-01 to 07-04? Chang Zheng 2C/YZ-1S Jiuquan Comms 209 807 x 811 x 50 0

Table of Recent Suborbital Launches

Aug 12 1000 RockSat-X Terrier Imp Mal Wallops Education 160? Atlantic Aug 20 Agni RV Agni V Chandipur IC 4 Test 800 Indian Ocean Aug 22 0610 CPS FT-3R? STARS ICBM-T1? Kodiak Hypersonic 500? Kwajalein Aug 28 0243 TOMEX+ 41 123CE Terrier Imp Orion Wallops LA2 ARC Atmospheric 154? Atlantic Aug 28 0244 TOMEX+ 41 124CE Terrier Imp Orion Wallops LA2 MRL Atmospheric 154? Atlantic Aug 28 0248 TOMEX+ 36 335CE Black Brant 9 Wallops LA2 50K Atmospheric 135? Atlantic

------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Jonathan McDowell | | | Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail | | USA | twitter: @planet4589 | | | | JSR: https://www planet4589 org/jsr html | | Back issues: https://www planet4589 org/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: https://www planet4589 org/mailman/listinfo/jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'

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

To unsubscribe, email jsr-leave@www planet4589 org