Jonathan’s Space Report No. 541
* Space Station
The Progress M-50 cargo ship undocked from the Zvezda module on Dec 22
at 1934 UTC. It was deorbited over the Pacific at 2232 UTC. Progress
M-51 (spacecraft number 351, ISS mission 16P) was launched by a Soyuz-U
rocket from Baykonur on Dec 23, carrying food supplies to the Station.
* Delta IV Heavy
The first Delta IV Heavy, Boeing’s new large rocket, was launched from
Cape Canaveral on Dec 21 at 2150 UTC, carrying a dummy spacecraft and
two small test satellites. The Delta IV Heavy consists of three CBC
(Common Booster Core) rockets strapped together, with a new 5-meter
diameter Delta second stage. This new second stage is a larger version
of the 4-meter stage pioneered on Delta III and used on earlier Delta IV
launches; it has a single RL10B-2 LH2/LOX engine. The outboard CBCs
separated at 4 min after launch at an altitude of around 75 km; they
probably reached around 90 km before falling back into the Atlantic. The
center CBC separated shortly after 5min into the mission at an altitude
of about 100 km and made a suborbital flight (I don’t know its apogee).
The Delta stage 2 cut off about 13 min into flight and put the
spacecraft in an initial orbit of only around 105 km compared to the
expected 180 x 240 km orbit. The Nanosat payloads separated at this
point, and quickly reentered. Then the Delta fired again to enter
geostationary transfer orbit of 288 x 36428 x 27.2 deg. A final burn
expected at 0327 UTC on Dec 22 was to put the 6000 kg Demosat
(designated USA 181) in a 36350 km circular orbit just below
geosynchronous.
However, it appears the CBC stages underperformed, and consequently the
second stage used more fuel than expected, leading to a long first burn,
a short final burn to fuel depletion, and a lower than planned final
orbit of 19027 x 36406 km x 13.5 deg – Boeing are calling this a mostly
successful flight, but a typical comms payload (assuming no apogee fuel,
since the Delta was meant to make the apogee burn) would have to use up
almost its entire service-life fuel load to reach the target orbit. For
statistical purposes I am inclined to characterize the launch as a
failure or near-failure, but one which may not have any bad
consequences: the complete mission profile was flown, so Boeing has data
on all phases of the rocket’s flight, and it seems likely that whatever
went wrong will be a relatively easy fix. Further, the Delta IVH is
being used by the USAF rather than commercial customers who might be
more easily scared off.
* Sich-1M
The Ukranian remote sensing satellite Sich-1M was launched from Russia’s
Plesetsk spaceport on Dec 24. Although the intended orbit was around 640
km circular, initial US orbital data put it in a 280 x 640 km x 82.6 deg
orbit, suggesting that the second burn of the upper stage was a partial
failure. The Tsiklon-3 launch vehicle is also Ukrainian built, although
I believe it’s Russian-owned by the time of launch. Mass of Sich-1M is
2223 kg.
The launch also carried the MK-1TS Mikron small satellite, which is
a 66 kg test payload with a miniature visible-band camera.
* Helios 2
Helios 2A was launched on Dec 18 by an Ariane 5G+ rocket, serial number
520, on Arianespace flight V165 from Kourou. The satellite is a
French-managed European reconnaissance satellite built by
EADS-Astrium/Toulouse, with a mass of 4200 kg. The flight also carried a
120 kg small satellite from the French CNES space agency, Parasol, which
studies cloud and aerosol formation as part of the A-train satellite
formation with a wide-field polarization imager, and the Spanish space
agency INTA’s experimental 20 kg Nanosat 1, together with four Essaim
(`Swarm’) French experimental electronic intelligence satellites. The
six small payloads were ejected from the ASAP secondary payload system
on the Ariane’s upper stage.
The Ariane boosters were ejected at an altitude of 72 km, probably
reaching an apogee of about 90 km and landing in the ocean about 500 km
from Kourou. The EPC core stage separated almost 10 min after launch at
361 km altitude, and reentered over the Arctic. Its orbit was probably
around -2500 x 600 km. Helios 2A is in a 665 x 666 km x 98.1 deg orbit,
with the small payloads in orbits around 655 x 666 km.
* AMC-16
The SES Americom AMC 16 satellite was launched on Dec 17. AMC 16 is
a Lockheed Martin A2100AX hybrid Ku-band/Ka-band communications satellite
which will provide television broadcast services to North America.
AMC 16 was launched by AV-005, the fourth Atlas 5 mission to be launched.
The Atlas 521 rocket has two solid rocket boosters, the Atlas 5 core stage,
and a single-engine Centaur second stage with a 5-meter fairing.
The first Centaur burn put the vehicle in a 166 x 5239 km x 27.2 deg
parking orbit, followed by a second burn to a 4761 x 34611 km x 18.2 deg
transfer orbit. AMC 16 separated at 1355 UTC and will use its own
propulsion to reach its final orbit.
* Dombarovskiy
On Dec 22 at 0830 UTC Russia made an R-36M2 (15A18M) missile launch from
the ICBM base at Dombarovskiy at 50.75N 59.50E in the Orenburg oblast’
of Russia. The base is right against the Kazakh border and it seems that
it is being chosen as a Russian alternative to Baykonur. In the future
it is planned that Dombarovskiy will be used for orbital launches.
Historically, both the US and the USSR made missile test flights only
from a couple of well instrumented ranges, with most ICBM bases
never seeing an actual launch. In the US it was Vandenberg and Cape
Canaveral, while in the USSR Baykonur and Plesetsk were used.
In 1997 Russia set up a range at the Svobodniy missile base and has
used it for four orbital launches.
The R-36M and R-36M2, Russia’s largest ICBMs, are deployed at complexes
at Dombarovskiy, Kartaly in Baskiriya, Aleysk in the Altaiskiy Kraj, and
Uzhur in the Krasnoyarskiy Kraj (but not, as far as I know, at Laputa).
* Cassini
The European Titan lander probe, Huygens, separated from the Cassini
orbiter at 0200 UTC on Dec 25. Huygens will enter the atmosphere of
Titan on Jan 14.
* Delta 89 -erratum
All references in the last issue to 1975-58 should of course be to 1972-58.
Thanks to Russell Eberst for pointing this out.
Table of Recent Launches
———————–
Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission
INTL.
DES.
Nov 6 0310 ZY-2C CZ-4B Taiyuan Imaging
44A
Nov 6 0539 GPS SVN 61 Delta 7925 Canaveral SLC17B Navigation
45A
Nov 8 1830 Oblik Soyuz-2-1A Plesetsk LC43/4 Test
U01
Nov 18 1045 Shiyan 2 CZ-2C Xichang Imaging
46A
Nov 20 1716 Swift Delta 7320 Canaveral SLC17A Astronomy
47A
Dec 17 1207 AMC 16 Atlas 521 Canaveral SLC41 Comms
48A
Dec 18 1626 Helios 2A ) Ariane 5G+ Kourou ELA3 Imaging
49A
Parasol ) Remote sen.
49G
Nanosat ) Tech
49B
Essaim 1 ) Sigint
49C
Essaim 2 ) Sigint
49D
Essaim 3 ) Sigint
49E
Essaim 4 ) Sigint
49F
Dec 21 2150 Demosat ) Delta 4H Canaveral SLC37B Test
50A
3CS-1 ) Imaging
3CS-2 ) Imaging
Dec 23 2219 Progress M-51 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo
51A
Dec 24 1120 Sich-1M ) Tsiklon-3 Plesetsk LC32 Remote sen.
52A
MK-1TS Mikron ) Imaging
52C
.-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Somerville MA 02143 | inter : jcm@host.planet4589.org | | USA | jcm@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html | | Back issues: http://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: mail majordomo@host.planet4589.org, (un)subscribe jsr | .-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
