Jonathan’s Space Report No. 599 2008 Sep 4
Test launch of Iranian satellite launch vehicle
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On Aug 17 the Fars news agency reported the launch of the Omid (‘Hope’) satellite from Iran. The BBC reports the name as ‘Safir-e Omid’ (‘Envoy of hope’). However, other reports indicate that this was either a suborbital test or a launch of a dummy satellite, and that the Omid satellite was not aboard. According to an article by Jim Oberg, launch was at 1932 UTC Aug 16 and the second stage failed catastrophically at 152 km. Launch was from the site south of Semnan in the northern part of the Dasht-e-Kavir desert.
Previous reports of Iranian space activity have been mangled by poor translation. I am not sure whether this was only a suborbital test launch of a prototype satellite launch vehicle, or was a failed orbital attempt. It is also unclear whether the orbital version has two or three stages; a Feb 2008 AP report suggests 3 stages and I find this more plausible. In any case, it does now seem clear that no satellite reached orbit on this try.
The launch vehicle is probably derived from the Shahab-3 missile, which in turn is descended from the North Korean Nodong. A mockup of the vehicle shown earlier this year had the words ‘SAFIR IRILV’ on the side in the Roman alphabet. ‘Safir’ means ‘envoy’ or ’emissary’, and IRILV presumably stands for Islamic Republic of Iran Launch Vehicle. The Al Alam (Tehran) news channel’s web site alalam.ir reports that ‘Safir Omid’ is 22m long and 1.25m in diameter with a (launch) mass of 26t. Most analysts seem to have concluded that ‘Safir’ is the name of the rocket and ‘Omid’ of the proposed payload, and I think that is probably correct.
Fermi
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GLAST (the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope) has been renamed FGST (Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope). Both the LAT and GBM instruments are returning good data.
Ariane
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Ariane vehicle L542 launched two communications satellites on Aug 14. Superbird 7 (which will be called Superbird C2 in service) is a Ku-band Mitsubishi Electric (MELCO) DS2000 class satellite for Japanese television broadcasting, and AMC 21 is a Ku-band satellite for SES Americom’s North American services. AMC 21 uses an Orbital Star 2 bus with a Thales Alenia comms payload.
Inmarsat
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The Inmarsat 4F3 maritime communications satellite was launched by a Khrunichev Proton on Aug 18. The Inmarsat satellite was deployed in a 4310 x 35812 km x 22.8 deg orbit with the Briz-M stage after intermediate orbits of 172 x 173 km x 48 deg, 254 x 5000 km, and 408 x 35876 km x 46 deg. The Briz-M drop tank is in a 312 x 13603 km x 46.2 deg orbit; the Proton third stage fell back to Earth from a -919 x 164 km x 47.9 deg orbit.
Inmarsat 4F3 is an Astrium/Toulouse Eurostar 3000 satellite with a launch mass of 5960 kg and a solar panel span of 45m, with a large 10-m diameter L-band mobile comms antenna. It is owned by INMARSAT Ltd. of London, the now-privatized International Maritime Satellite Organization.
ATK Launch Vehicle
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Alliant TechSystem’s suborbital ATK Launch Vehicle (ALV) had its first launch on Aug 22 at 0910 UTC from pad 0B at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia. Intended to reach around 370 km, it went off course and was destroyed at an altitude of around 3.5 km, 27 seconds after launch. The rocket used an Orion 50S first stage and Star 37FMV second stage, and carried the HyBOLT and SOAREX-VI hypersonic research experiments.
RapidEye
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Kosmotras has launched a Dnepr rocket carrying five commercial imaging satellites for RapidEye AG of Brandenberg. The satellites have a moderate resolution imager (around 6 meter resolution) to provide rapid response data products for agricultural applications like storm damage assessment. They were built by Surrey Satellite in Guildford.
Dnepr launches result in two objects cataloged in orbit together with the payloads, one in the payload delivery orbit and one in a much more elliptical orbit. One object is the launch vehicle upper stage, which unusually is mounted above the payloads, reflecting its heritage as a missile MIRV bus; the second object is a ‘gas dynamic shield’ below and covering the payloads, which is ejected once orbit is reached. The upper stage separates in a posigrade (forward) direction, with thrust continuing after payload separation. Therefore, we can assume that the eccentric orbit object is the rocket stage and the low orbit object is the plume shield. In STRATCOM’s satellite catalog, names assigned to the objects agree with this assessment for most Dnepr launches, but 2006-029 and 2007-028 have the objects swapped. I suspect this is an error, and assume that for the RapidEye launch object 2008-40H is the rocket stage, in a 617 x 1350 km orbit, while 2008-040G is probably the plume shield, in a 598 x 631 km orbit similar to the RapidEye payloads.
Table of Recent (orbital) Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
Jul 7 2147 Protostar 1 ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 34
Badr 6 ) Comms 34
Jul 16 0520 Echostar 11 Zenit-3SL SL Odyssey, POR Comms 35A
Jul 22 0240 SAR-Lupe 5 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk Radar 36A
Jul 26 1831 Kosmos-2441 Soyuz-2-1B Plesetsk LC43/4 Imaging 37A
Aug 3 0334 Trailblazer ) Falcon 1 Omelek Tech F01
PreSat ) Tech F01
Nanosail-D ) Tech F01
Celestis ) Burial F01
Aug 14 2044 Superbird 7 ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 38A
AMC 21 ) Comms 38D
Aug 16 1932 Test payload? Safir Semnan Test F02?
Aug 18 2243 Inmarsat 4 F3 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 39A
Aug 29 0716 RapidEye-1 ) Dnepr Baykonur LC109 Imaging 40A
RapidEye-2 ) Imaging 40B
RapidEye-3 ) Imaging 40C
RapidEye-4 ) Imaging 40D
RapidEye-5 ) Imaging 40E
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