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Jonathan's Space Report
No. 751 draft 2018 Jun 19 Somerville, MA
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JSR 750 is now permalinked at http://planet4589.org/space/jsr/back/news.750.txt
International Space Station
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Expedition 56 continues with astronauts Feustel, Artemev, Arnold, Prokop'ev,
Aunon-Chancellor and Gerst.
On Jun 20 the Canadarm-2/Dextre robot arm combo plucked Surrey's RemoveDebris
technology satellite from the Kibo airlock and released it into orbit.
On Jun 23 at 0815 UTC the ISS orbit was boosted with a 0.4m/s burn from
Progress MS-08 which increased apogee by 2 km.
Tiangong 2
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China's Tiangong-2 spacelab was used for a single human expedition in
2016; China has announced that no further visits are planned. Since
Shenzhou 11 left in Nov 2016, TG-2 has made small reboost manuevers on
2017 Mar 5, Apr 5-6, May 13, Jun 17-20, Sep 17, and Nov 4. The Tianzhou-1
freighter docked with it several times between Apr and Sep 2017 and
transferred an unknown amount of propellant. The freighter carried about
2000 kg of propellant in eight 250 kg tanks, half of which were for
its own maneuevers. I am guessing each of the three propellant transfer
exercises that were carried out involved one tank's worth.
On 2018 Jun 13 at around 0645 and 0735 UTC the lab made a two-impulse
manuever to lower its orbit from 388 x 391 km to 293 x 299 km. It seemed
as if this might be a precursor to a deorbit burn, but on Jun 22 at
about 0117 and 0202 UTC a second two-impulse manuever restored the orbit
to 390 x 399 km. The full sequence used about 330 kg of propellant.
If we assumed Tianzhou left the 1000-kg-capacity tanks full, that leaves
about 670 kg. Total mass of Tiangong-2 including propellant
is probably now around 8500 kg. At least 250 kg of propellant is
required to safely deorbit the vehicle at end of mission.
Chinese technology satellites
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On Jun 27 China launched two satellites carrying intersatellite communications and imaging sensor
technology experiments. The satellites are referred to as
`xin jishu shiyan' A and B xing (New Technology Test sat A and B).
Hayabusa-2
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On Jun 27 at 0030 UTC Hayabusa-2 began stationkeeping 20 km from the 0.9 km-diameter asteroid (162173) Ryugu.
The probe will later approach the asteroid and obtain samples for return to Earth.
Table of Recent Orbital Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. Catalog Perigee Apogee Incl Notes
Jun 2 0413 Gao Fen 6 ) Chang Zheng 2D Jiuquan Imaging 48A S43484 635 x 646 x 98.0
Luojia-1 KSW 01 ) Imaging 48B S43485 635 x 647 x 98.0
Jun 4 0445 SES-12 Falcon 9 FT Canaveral SLC40 Comms 49A S43488 210 x 58276 x 25.9
Jun 5 1307 Fengyun 2 09 Chang Zheng 3A Xichang LC2 Weather 50A S43491 219 x 35906 x 24.6
Jun 6 1112 Soyuz MS-09 Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 51A S43493 190 x 247 x 51.6
Jun 12 0420 IGS R-6 H-IIA Tanegashima Radar 52A S43495 500 x 502 x 97.4
Jun 16 2146 Kosmos-2527 Soyuz-2-1B/Fregat Plesetsk Navigation 53A S43508 19116 x 19155 x 64.8
Jun 20 1135 RemoveDebris ISS, LEO Tech 9867NT S43510 401 x 407 x 51.6
Jun 27 0330 XJS A ) Chang Zheng 2C Xichang Tech 54A S43518 465 x 483 x 35.0
XJS B ) Tech 54B S43519 476 x 486 x 35.0
Table of Recent Suborbital Launches
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The suborbital launches table includes known flights above 80 km.
Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Target
Jun 3 0418 Agni RV Agni V Kalam Island Test 800 Indian O.
Jun 18 1900 EVE 7 Black Brant 9 White Sands Solar EUV 250? White Sands
Jun 21 0930 NASA 41.120UO Terrier Imp.Orion Wallops Island Education 120 Atlantic
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| Jonathan McDowell | |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail |
| USA | twitter: @planet4589 |
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