Jonathan's Space Report No. 657 2012 Apr 20 Somerville, MA USA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Space Station ------------- Expedition 30 continues with Soyuz TMA-22 docked at Poisk and Soyuz TMA-03M docked to the Rassvet module. ATV 3 is docked at Zvezda. Ex-30 commander is Dan Burbank; flight engineers 1 to 5 are Anton Shkaplerov, Anatoliy Ivanishin, Oleg Kononenko, Andre Kuipers, and Don Pettit. The Progress M-14M cargo ship undocked from the Pirs module at 1104 UTC on Apr 19 to begin nine days of Radar-Progress ionospheric experiments. Meanwhile, Orbiter OV-103 Discovery was ferried from Kennedy Space Center to Dulles airport by the NASA SCA 905 airplane on Apr 18, and then towed to the Smithsonian's nearby Udvar-Hazy complex for display on Apr 19. North Korean launch ------------------- Launch of the Unha-3 rocket with the Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite payload from the Sohae launch site at Tongch'ang-dong occurred on Apr 12. Based on the available information announced by the South Korean military, it seems that the rocket took off at 2238:55 UTC but failed near the end of first stage burn, probably at the point of separation of the first and second stages about 1min30s after launch at 2240 UTC. The remains of it then arced up 151 km into space and fell back into the Yellow Sea at about 124E 36N (according to South Korean statements) probably about 5 minutes after launch. This is consistent with a trajectory of roughly -6200 x 130 km x 88 deg, about what one might expect for the first stage. The impact area is close to the planned impact zone for the first stage which was at 124.5-124.8E, 35.2-35.9N. However, NORAD says the impact was 165 km west of Seoul, which is well north of this and well off the planned launch track. This is a surprising claim and I am wondering if they meant something slightly different - e.g. 165 km W of Seoul's Incheon airport, which would put the impact near 124.5W 37.5N, on the expected track. More likely, they originally meant "very roughly 100 miles west" and the conversion got corrupted. In any case this is a bit north of the expected first stage impact zone, which could indicate a failure prior to first stage cutoff, or underperformance by the first stage engines, if correct. At this point I place more reliance on the South Korean data and suspect that the NORAD data is highly approximate at best. Washington Post's correspondent Chico Harlan reported North Korea's admission that the satellite failed to enter orbit. From KCNA: "The DPRK launched its first application satellite Kwangmyongsong-3 at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in Choisan County, North Phyongan Province at 07:38:55am on Friday. The earth observation satellite failed to enter its preset orbit. Scientists, technicians and experts are now looking into the cause of the failure". This contrasts with the two previous failures which the North Koreans still claim as successes. Suborbital launches -------------------- India carried out the first test launch of its three-stage Agni V missile on Apr 19. The missile, which has a claimed range of 5000 km, flew from Wheeler Island in Orissa to the southern Indian Ocean near 90E 20S; an orbit of -4700 x 800 km x 81 deg very roughly matches the data. An unidentified tactical ballistic missile was launched from White Sands (or possibly Fort Wingate) on Mar 29 as a target for Patriot interceptors. Table of Recent (orbital) Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Mar 23 0434 Edoardo Amaldi Ariane 5ES-ATV Kourou ELA3 Cargo 10A Mar 25 1210 Intelsat IS-22 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 11A Mar 30 0549 Kosmos-2479 Proton-K/DM-2 Baykonur LC81/24 EarlyWarn 12A Mar 31 1027 Apstar 7 Chang Zheng 3B/E Xichang LC2 Comms 13A Apr 3 2312 NROL-25 Delta 4M+(5,2) Vandenberg SLC6 Radar 14A Apr 12 2239 Kwangmyongsong-3 Unha-3 Sohae Tech F01? Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Mar 19 1405 REXUS 12 Imp. Orion ESRANGE Micrograv 82 Mar 22 0900 NASA 36.277UG Black Brant IX White Sands IR Astron 320? Mar 27 0858 NASA 45.004UE Terrier Oriole Wallops Atm. Sci 375? Mar 27 0859 NASA 46.002UE Terrier Malemute Wallops Atm. Sci 200? Mar 27 0900 NASA 41.097UE Terrier Orion Wallops Atm. Sci 157? Mar 27 0902 NASA 46.003UE Terrier Malemute Wallops Atm. Sci 254? Mar 27 0903 NASA 41.098UE Terrier Orion Wallops Atm. Sci 169? Mar 29 Target Unknown White Sands? Target 80? Apr 5 1418 SL-6 SpaceLoft XL Spaceport America Tech 117 Apr 19 0237 Agni RV Agni V Chandipur R&D 800 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'