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Jonathan's Space Report
No. 629 draft 2010 Jun 8 Somerville, MA
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NOTE: I am recovering from a disk crash: some things on the site may currently
be missing or old versions.
Shuttle and Station
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Kotov, Creamer and Noguchi returned to Earth on Jun 2 aboard Soyuz
TMA-17. They undocked from the Zvezda module at 0004 UTC and touched
down in Kazakhstan at 0325 UTC. Aleksandr Skvortsov, Mikhail Kornienko
and Tracy Caldwell Dyson officially began Expedition 24 upon TMA-17's
undocking.
Falcon 9
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SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket reached orbit on its first launch on Jun 2.
The Dragon Qualification Unit, attached to the Falcon 9 second stage, is
in a 235 x 276 km x 34.5 deg orbit. Orbit insertion was at 1853 UTC with
a test 'burp' of the engines probably at 2025 UTC.
GPS IIF SV-1
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The first Block IIF Global Positioning System satellite, SVN 62, was
launched from Cape Canaveral on May 28. The satellite was built by
Boeing/El Segundo and has a launch mass of 1630 kg including an unknown
amount of stationkeeping propellant. The Block IIF satellites carry the
L1M and L2M military GPS channels, the L2C civilian channel and a new L5
civilian channel as well as a nuclear explosion detection system
(descendant of the Vela satellites, to monitor the test ban treaty) and
the a classified instrument.
The Delta rocket entered a low parking orbit, probably around 270 x 320
km x 37.5 deg, at 0312 UTC. At 0324 UTC it restarted to enter a transfer
orbit of 252 x 20464 x 43.3 deg. At 0620 UTC the stage made
a third burn to a 20437 x 20460 km x 55.0 deg orbit and then deployed
the GPS satellite. (The ULA mission book, in a break with past practice for
GPS launches, did not provide details on the intermediate orbits for this mission.)
SERVIS-2
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Japan's SERVIS-2 satellite, which will test out new commercial satellite
electronics and components, was launched by a Russian Rokot vehicle from
Plesetsk on Jun 2 into an 1186 x 1210 km x 100.4 deg polar orbit.
Beidou
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China launched the 4th Beidou Navigation Satellite (di si ke beidou daohang
weixing) on Jun 2 into a 205 x 35647 km x 20.5 deg geostationary transfer
orbit.
Badr
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Russia's International Launch Services carried Badr 5 (Arabsat 5B)
into orbit on a Khrunichev Proton-M/Briz-M on Jun 3.
Rex
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I regret to announce the death of Rex Hall, former president of the
British Interplanetary Society and the world expert on the biographies
of Soviet cosmonauts. I met Rex when I was a teenage
proto-space-historian and he was always a wonderful mentor and colleague.
Table of Recent (orbital) Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
May 14 1820 Atlantis (STS-132) Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 19A
May 20 2158 Akatsuki ) H-IIA 202 Tanegashima Venus Probe 20D
Ikaros ) Solar sail 20E
Unitec-1 ) Tech 20F
Negai* ) Tech/imaging 20A
Waseda-Sat 2) Imaging 20B
KSAT ) Science 20C
May 21 2201 Astra 3B ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 21A
ComsatBw-2) Comms 21B
May 28 0300 GPS SVN 62 (IIF SV-1) Delta 4M+(4,2) Canaveral SLC37B Navigation 22A
Jun 2 0159 SERVIS 2 Rokot Plesetsk LC133/3 Tech 23A
Jun 2 1553 Beidou DW4 Chang Zheng 3C Xichang Navigation 24A
Jun 3 2200 Arabsat 5B Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 25A
Jun 4 1845 Dragon Qual Unit Falcon 9 Canaveral SLC40 Test 26A
Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches
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Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km
Apr 22 2300 HTV-2a Minotaur IVL Vandenberg SLC8 Hypersonic 100?
May 3 0947 NASA 36.248DR Black Brant IX San Nicholas I Target 150?
May 3 1832 NASA 36.258UE Black Brant IX White Sands Solar EUV 280?
May 4 1241 SpaceLoft SL-4 SpaceLoft XL SW Regional Micrograv 113?
May 5 1150 SR VII Sounding Rocket Jiu Peng Ionosphere 287
May 17 0348 Agni RV Agni A2 Wheeler I Training 300?
May 21 0900? NASA 36.270UG Black Brant IX White Sands UV Astron 325?
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| Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : jcm@host.planet4589.org |
| USA | jcm@cfa.harvard.edu |
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