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Jonathan's Space Report
No. 749 draft 2018 Apr 24 Somerville, MA
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JSR 748 is now permalinked at http://planet4589.org/space/jsr/back/news.748.txt
International Space Station
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Expedition 55 continues with Anton Shkaplerov in command, Scott Tingle,
Norishige Kanai, Oleg Artemev, Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel as flight
engineers. Ferry ships Soyuz MS-07 and Soyuz MS-08 are docked to the
station.
On May 11, three cubesats were ejected from the J-SSOD-8 deployer carried
up on CRS-14; they were described in the last issue. The Costa Rican cubesat
Irazu has been renamed Batsu-CS1.
The Orbital ATK Cygnus OA-9 mission, SS J.R. Thompson, was launched on May 21
by Antares from Wallops/MARS.
TESS
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TESS reached its first perigee at 0542 UTC Apr 25 and made a successful burn to raise apogee
to lunar distance. Apogee 2 was at 1903 UTC Apr 29, at 353440 km.
Queqiao
--------
China's Queqiao deep-space communications relay satellite was launched on May 20. It will
unfurl a 4.2m dish antenna. After a 100 km lunar flyby on about May 25 it will
take up station in a 13000-km-wide 'halo orbit' around the Earth-Moon L2 point,
64445 km behind the Moon, to provide farside radio
communications to support the planned Chang'e 4 farside lander.
Earth-Moon L1 and L2 (EML1, EML2) are on the lunar Hill sphere that
marks the approximate point where lunar gravity dominates over Earth
gravity. Don't confuse them with Sun-Earth L1 and L2 (SEL1, SEL2) on the
1.5-million-km radius Earth-Moon system Hill sphere which marks the
point at which the Earth's gravity (with the Moon's help) dominates
over the Sun. (I'm using 'dominate' here in a very loose way, to mean
`this is the point at which it's a better approximation to pretend
you're in orbit around object A rather than object B'). SEL1 and SEL2
have been used a lot since ISEE-3 went to SEL1 in 1978. EML1 and EML2
are much less well known. They were explored by Japan's Hiten probe in
1990; the ARTEMIS P1/P2 spacecraft and the Chang'e-5FTD vehicle also
visited them, but this will be the first time a probe has used either
EML location as its primary mission destination.
Mars Insight
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The NASA/JPL Mars Insight probe was launched from Space Launch Complex 3-East at Vandenberg Air Force Base
on May 5. Centaur AV-078 entered a 185 x 185 km x 64.0 deg parking orbit. After almost one orbit
it made a second burn to a hyperbolic orbit of 115 x -110126 km x 63.54 deg which
will lead to a 1.0 x 1.4 AU x 2.3 deg orbit around the Sun and arrival in Mars' gravitational
sphre on Nov 22. Insight will land on Mars on Nov 26.
Two 6U cubesats were deployed from the Centaur Aft Bulkhead Carrier. Mars Cube One (MarCO) A and B
have freon-based propulsion systems and will fly independently to Mars, making a flyby to test
their ability to relay data from the lander during descent.
Sentinel-3B
-----------
ESA's Sentinel 3B Earth observing satellite was launched from Plesetsk on Apr 25
aboard Eurockot's Rokot/Briz-KM vehicle. Sentinel-3B is in the same orbit plane
as Sentinel-3A, launched in 2016, and following 10 minutes behind it.
CZ-11
----
China launched the fourth CZ-11 rocket on Apr 26, carrying Zhuhai Orbita's Zhuhai-1 Group 2
satellites. These include the 90 kg OVS-2 video satellite and the OHS-01/02/03/04 hyperspectral
camera satellites.
CBAS/EAGLE
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On Apr 14 ULA launched Atlas AV-079 with a US military payload. The
Centaur stage made three burns to deliver the CBAS and EAGLE satellites to orbit.
The ULA press kit implied a 38992 x 38992 km x 0 deg orbit thousands of km above the
geosynchronous belt, but this appears to have been a typo or misinformation, since
hobbyists soon located the payloads in a near-synchronous 35233 x 35275 km x 0.1 deg
orbit. By May 11, CBAS was braking to geostationary at 112W.
The CBAS (Continuous Broadcast Augmenting SATCOM) satellite is operated
by USAF SMC's Military Satellite Communications Directorate. Its
manufacturer is unknown, and its role is obscure.
EAGLE is a satellite built from the ESPA mutiple satellite adapter
first flown in 2007. ESPA is a ring that sits between CBAS and the
Centaur, with attachment points for small satellites and experiments
spaced around it. (The LCROSS Shepherding Spacecraft in 2009 was
similarly built from an ESPA ring attached to its Centaur). EAGLE stands
for ESPA Augmented Geostationary Laboratory Experiment; ESPA stands for
EELV Secondary Payload Adapter; and EELV stands for Evolved Expendable
Launch Vehicle. The EAGLE bus is known as ESPAStar and the satellite was
built by Orbital ATK. EAGLE is operated by the Air Force Research Lab.
It appears the EAGLE ESPA-ring-based satellite launched on Apr 14
deployed two secret 100-kg-class box shaped payloads on about Apr 26
and a third possibly on May 11. These use the ESPASat bus, designed to
fit in the ESPAStar azimuthal slots. One of these is Mycroft, an
experiment which will carry out formation flying between 1 and 35 km
from EAGLE to test space surveillance and proximity operations
technology. The second and third payloads are a mystery at the moment.
There is also one debris object released at the time of launch, possibly
some kind of payload adapter between EAGLE and CBAS.
Apstar 6C
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Asia Pacific Telecom's Apstar 6C (Yatai 6C) communications satellite
was launched on May 3 to geotransfer orbit. Apstar 6C is a CAST/Beijing DFH-4
with 26 C-band and 19 Ku/Ka-band transponders.
Gao Fen 5
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China's Gao Fen 5 high resolution imaging satellite was launched on May
8. Instruments on board are the Advanced Hyperspectral Imager, Visual
and IR Multispectral Sensor, Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Instrument,
Atmospheric Infrared Ultraspectral sensor, Environment Monitoring
Instrument, and the Directional Polarization Camera.
Kosmos-2521
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As noted by Phillip Clark on nasaspaceflight.com, the Kosmos-2521 inspector
satellite made a major orbit change on Apr 30, lowering its orbit from
644 x 660 km to only 350 x 369 km. Further manuevers seem likely.
Table of Recent Orbital Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. Catalog Perigee Apogee Incl Notes
Apr 2 2030 Dragon CRS-14 Falcon 9 Canaveral SLC40 Spaceship 32A S43267 204 x 357 x 51.6
Apr 5 2134 Superbird-8/DSN-1 ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 33A S43271 35781 x 35793 x 0.1
Hylas 4 ) Comms 33B S43272 35781 x 35788 x 0.0
Apr 10 0425 Yaogan 31-01 01 ) Chang Zheng 4C Jiuquan Sigint 34A S43275 1090 x 1100 x 63.4
Yaogan 31-01 02 ) Sigint 34B S43276 1090 x 1100 x 63.4
Yaogan 31-01 03 ) Sigint 34C S43277 1090 x 1100 x 63.4
Weina Jishu Shiyan) Tech 34E S43279 1090 x 1100 x 63.4
Apr 11 1834 IRNSS-1I PSLV-XL Sriharikota Navigation 35A S43286 35464 x 35740 x 28.5
Apr 14 2313 CBAS ) Atlas V 551 Canaveral SLC41 Comms 36A S43339 35759 x 35776 x 0.0
EAGLE ) Tracking 36B S43340 35588 x 35608 x 0.1
Apr 18 2212 Kosmos-2526 (Blagovest) Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur Comms 37A S43432 35780?x 35800?x 0.0?
Apr 18 2251 TESS Falcon 9 Canaveral SLC40 Astronomy 38A S43435 249 x268294 x 29.6
Apr 25 1757 Sentinel-3B Rokot Plesetsk LC133 Imaging 39A S43437 803 x 821 x 98.6
Apr 26 0442 OVS-2 ) Chang Zheng 11 Jiuquan Imaging 40A S43439 496 x 511 x 97.4
OHS-01 (Qingkeda-1)) Imaging 40B S43440 496 x 511 x 97.4
OHS-02 ) Imaging 40C S43441 496 x 511 x 97.4
OHS-03 (Guiyang-1) ) Imaging 40D S43442 493 x 512 x 97.4
OHS-04 ) Imaging 40E S43443 492 x 511 x 97.4
Apr 26? Mycroft ) EAGLE, high orbit Tech 36E S43445 35290?x 35290?x 0.1
USA 286 ) Tech 36F S43446 35290?x 35290?x 0.1
May 3 1606 Apstar 6C Chang Zheng 3B Xichang Comms 41A S43450 239 x 41827 x 27.2
May 5 1105 Mars Insight) Atlas V 401 Vandenberg SLC3E Mars probe 42A S43457 115 x-110126x 63.4
MarCO-A ) Mars probe 42B S43458 115 x-110126x 63.4
MarCO-B ) Mars probe 42C S43459 115 x-110126x 63.4
May 8 1828 GaoFen 5 Chang Zheng 4C Taiyuan Imaging 43A S43461 682 x 688 x 98.1
May 11 1030 1KUNS-PF ) ISS, LEO Tech 98-67NQ S43467 400 x 402 x 51.6
Batsu-CS1 ) Tech 98-67NR S43468 400 x 402 x 51.6
May 11 1040 UBAKUSAT ISS, LEO Tech 98-67NP S43466 400 x 402 x 51.6
May 11 2014 Bangabandhu 1 Falcon 9 FT5 Kennedy SLC39A Comms 44A S43463 296 x 35515 x 19.3
May 12? USA 287 EAGLE, high orbit Tech 36G S43465 35290?x 35290?x 0.1
May 20 2128 Queqiao ) Chang Zheng 4C Xichang Comms 45A S43470 400 x400000?x 28.5
Longjiang 1) Radio Astron 45B S43471 400 x400000?x 28.5
Longjiang 2) Radio Astron 45C S43472 400 x400000?x 28.5
May 21 0844 SS J.R Thompson Antares 230 MARS LA0B Cargo 46A S43474 228 x 319 x 51.6
Table of Recent Suborbital Launches
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Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Target
Apr 4 1040 WRX-R Black Brant 9 Roi-Namur, Kwajalein XR Astron 204 Kwajalein
Apr 4 1800 Hyperbola-1S Shian Quxian 1S Haikou, Hainan Test 108 S China Sea
Apr 11 Burkan RV Burkan 2H Yemen Weapon 100? Riyadh Airport
Apr 16 1647 CHESS 4 Black Brant 9 Roi-Namur, Kwajalein UV Astron 200? Kwajalein
Apr 25 1226 Mk 12 or 21 RV? Minuteman 3 Vandenberg LF10 Test 1300? Kwajalein?
Apr 27 1203 RV ? Taiyuan? Test 1000? Korla?
Apr 29 1706 CC 2.0-1 New Shepard West Texas Test 106 West Texas
May 14 0823 Mk 12 or 21 RV? Minuteman 3 Vandenberg LF10 Test 1300? Kwajalein?
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| Jonathan McDowell | |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail |
| USA | twitter: @planet4589 |
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