Jonathan’s Space Report No. 666 2012 Sep 5
International Space Station
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On the ISS, Expedition 32 continues with astronauts Gennadiy Padalka, Sergey Revin, Joseph Acaba, Yuriy Malenchenko, Sunita Willams and Akihiko Hoshide.
On Aug 30 astronauts Williams and Hoshide made spacewalk US EVA-18 from the Quest airlock using spacesuits EMU 3011 and 3015, to attempt replacement of a failed Main Bus Switching Unit (MBSU) on the S0 truss. The S0 carries four MBSUs designated MBSU-1 to MBSU-4; two spares are stored on the ESP-2 pallet outside the Quest module. One spare was delivered on STS-114 and a second on STS-120; they don’t have publicly known serial numbers. The failed MBSU-1 was removed from S0 and stowed temporarily at ESP2; the STS-114 spare was removed from ESP-2 and moved to S0, becoming the ‘new MBSU-1’. However, a problematic bolt stopped the astronauts completing the installation. They left the new MBSU-1 partly bolted to S0 and returned to the airlock, leaving the Station with two of its eight large solar arrays out of the main station power loop.
Quest was depressurized for EVA-18 at about 1205 UTC on Aug 30, with an EVA duration of 8h28m (depress/repress), 8h17m (NASA rule), 8h14m (hatch open/close).
On Sep 5 Williams and Hoshide tried again on US EVA-19. After problems with EMU 3015 on EVA-18, this time the duo used spacesuits EMU 3010 and 3011 respectively. The astronauts removed the new MBSU-1, with some difficulty unjamming the critical bolt, and then spent an hour using several techniques to clean out metal shavings and foreign matter from the bolt. Between 1522 and 1550 UTC the installation of the new MBSU-1 was successfully carried out, and station power was mostly restored, although in the meantime the failure of the DSCU-3A box has taken down another of the arrays. The astronauts then replaced a CLPA camera on the SSRMS robot arm and returned to the airlock. The old MBSU-1 remains in its `temporary’ stowage location on ESP-2.
Quest was depressurized at 1101 UTC Sep 5 for a duration of 6h33m (depress/repress), 6h28m (NASA rule), 6h25m (Hatch open/close).
I was wrong about some of the debris panel numbers in the last JSR: my current best understanding is:
Bundle Panels Launch Stored outside ISS: EVA Installed EVA
1 1-3,6-8 2002 Jun 5 STS-111 2002 Jun 9, PMA-1 111/1 2002 Aug 16 VKD-7
2 11,13-15,18,19 2006 Dec 10 STS-116 2006 Dec 16, PMA-3 116/3
2007 May 30, Zvez. VKD-18 2007 Jun 6 VKD-19
3 10,16,17,21-23 2006 Dec 10 STS-116 2006 Dec 16, PMA-3 116/3
2007 May 30, Zvez. VKD-18 2007 Jun 6 VKD-19
4 4,5,9,12,20 2006 Dec 10 STS-116 2006 Dec 16, PMA-3 116/3 2007 May 30 VKD-18
5 24-26 2012 Jan 25 M-14M - 2012 Aug 20 VKD-31
6 27-28 2012 Jan 25 M-14M - 2012 Aug 20 VKD-31
RBSP
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NASA’s two Radiation Belt Storm Probes were launched on Aug 30. Atlas V’s Centaur AV-032 entered a 167 x 600 km x 25.5 deg parking orbit at 0819 UTC, and a second burn at 0915 UTC raised the orbit and lowered inclination for deployment of RBSP-A in a 597 x 30645 km x 10.0 deg orbit at 0924 UTC. After a small orbit adjust burn by Centaur AV-032, RBSP-B was deployed at 0936 UTC in a 601 x 30709 km x 10.0 deg orbit. A further orbit adjust at about 0948 UTC put the Centaur in a -220 x 36062 km x 10.3 deg orbit, and it reentered over the Atlantic at about 1940 UTC.
The almost-identical RBSP satellites have a mass of 658 kg full, and will deploy a series of booms include electric field antennae spanning 100 meters. The instruments study energetic particles, thermal plasma, ionospheric composition and electromagnetic fields and waves. The principal investigator for one experiment, the relativistic proton spectrometer, is at the National Reconnaissance Office, and NRO put out a press release explaining why operational agencies care about good radiation belt models too – all true, but I suspect it might be just that they want their tame in-house space physicist to have some research time to keep his hand in.
Vesta and Ceres
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Dawn escaped Vesta’s gravity at 0626 UTC on Sep 5 and is now in solar orbit on its way to Ceres, which it should reach in 2015.
Mars
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The Curiosity landing site in Gale Crater has been named `Bradbury Landing’ after writer Ray Bradbury (1920-2012).
Earth
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On Aug 24 Neil A. Armstrong died of complications from heart surgery in Columbus, Ohio, a few weeks after his 82nd birthday. Armstrong was born in Wapakoneta, Ohio in 1930. After flying 78 missions as a US Navy pilot in the Korean War he joined the NACA research agency which became NASA in 1958 and made four flights in the X-1B rocket plane in 1957-58. In Apr 1962, while a NASA civilian test pilot at the Flight Research Center at Edwards, Armstrong became a mesonaut, flying the X-15-3 rocketplane into the Earth’s mesosphere on flights 3-3-7 and 3-4-8, reaching apogees of 55 and 63 km. He then joined the NASA astronaut office in Houston and after serving as backup commander for Gemini 5 flew in space in March 1966 as commander of the historic Gemini 8 mission which saw the first orbital docking and the first emergency orbital spin recovery and return to Earth. After two more backup slots on Gemini 11 and Apollo 8, his second and last spaceflight was as commander of Apollo 11. On 1969 July 19 the Apollo 11 crew of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins became the 7th, 8th and 9th humans to leave Earth’s gravitational sphere of influence and enter the Moon’s; on July 20 Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to land on another world, as Armstrong brought LM-5 Eagle to a manual landing with only 20 seconds of fuel left. On July 21 Armstrong was the first human to walk on the lunar surface. In 1971 he left NASA and returned to Ohio where he taught aeronautics for several years.
Of the 24 humans who have left Earth’s gravitational sphere of influence, 17 remain alive today.
Mesonauts
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The mesosphere is the highest layer of the Earth’s atmosphere that isn’t really `outer space’, and lies between the stratopause at 50 km and the mesopause at the base of the exosphere – `true ‘space – at around 80-90 km, although I adopt 80 km as a good reference value. Starting with Ham and Yuriy Gagarin, 2 pan troglodytes and 533 humans have passed that 80 km exospheric boundary and become space travellers; they zipped through the mesosphere on the way. 11 humans – the `mesonauts’ – have made flights that got as far as the mesosphere but not the exosphere. 10 of those eleven mesonauts later went on to make higher `astronaut’ flights. Only 3 of the 11 are alive today. Here are details of the first mesospheric flights of the mesonauts as well as their their first exospheric flights.
Mesonaut 1st MesoFlight km Date NMeso Spaceflight (Exoflight)
1 Joe Walker (1921-1966) X-15 2-14-28 52 1961 Mar 30 6 X-15 3-14-24 1963 Jan 17
2 Robert White (1924-2010 X-15 2-20-36 66 1961 Oct 11 3 X-15 3-7-14 1962 Jul 10
3 Neil Armstrong (1930-2012) X-15 3-3-7 55 1962 Apr 5 2 Gemini 8 1966 Mar 16
4 Robert Rushworth (1924-1993) X-15 3-19-30 68 1963 Jun 18 3 X-15 3-20-31 1963 Jun 27
5 Joe Engle (1932- ) X-15 1-46-73 53 1964 Apr 8 5 X-15 3-44-67 1965 Jun 29
6 Milton Thompson (1926-1993) X-15 1-54-88 54 1965 May 25 2
7 Jack McKay (1922-1975) X-15 2-40-72 65 1965 Jul 8 7 X-15 3-49-73 1965 Sep 28
8 Pete Knight (1929-2004) X-15 2-46-83 58 1966 Jul 21 7 X-15 3-64-95 1967 Oct 17
9 William Dana (1930- ) X-15 3-54-80 54 1966 Aug 19 6 X-15 3-56-83 1966 Nov 1
10 Mike Adams (1930-1967) X-15 1-71-121 51 1967 Apr 28 2 X-15 3-65-97 1967 Nov 15
11 Mike Melvill (1940- ) SS1 56L/14P 64 2004 May 13 1 SS1-60L/15P 2004 Jun 21
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John B. ‘Jack’ McKay and William ‘Pete’ Knight made the most mesoflights, 7 each.
The Twenty-Four
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This might also be a good moment to review and salute the Twenty-Four – the first, and so far only, humans to leave Earth for another gravity well (in the Hill sphere/sphere of influence sense):
Frank F. Borman II, Col. USAF Ret. (1928- ) Apollo 8 James A. Lovell, Jr., LtGen USAF Ret. (1928- ) Apollo 8,13 William A. Anders, MajGen USAF Ret. (1933- ) Apollo 8 Thomas P. Stafford, LtGen USAF Ret. (1930- ) Apollo 10 Eugene A. Cernan, Capt USN Ret. (1934- ) Apollo 10,17 John W. Young, Capt USN Ret. (1930- ) Apollo 10,16 Neil A. Armstrong, Lt USNR Ret. (1930-2012) Apollo 11 Edwin E. 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr, Ph.D.,Col USAF Ret. (1930- ) Apollo 11 Michael Collins, BrigGen USAF Ret. (1930- ) Apollo 11 Charles 'Pete' Conrad, Jr, Capt USN Ret. (1930-1999) Apollo 12 Alan L. Bean, Capt USN Ret. (1932- ) Apollo 12 Richard F. Gordon, Jr,, Capt USN Ret. (1929- ) Apollo 12 Fred W. Haise Jr., USMC Ret. (1933 - ) Apollo 13 John 'Jack' L. Swigert, Jr., USAF Ret. (1931-1982) Apollo 13 Alan B. Shepard, Jr, RAdm USN Ret. (1923-1998) Apollo 14 Edgar D. Mitchell, Ph.D., Capt USN Ret. (1930- ) Apollo 14 Stuart A. Roosa, Col USAF. Ret. (1933-1994) Apollo 14 David R. Scott, Col USAF Ret. (1932- ) Apollo 15 James B. Irwin, Col USAF Ret. (1930-1991) Apollo 15 Alfred M. Worden, Col USAF Ret. (1932- ) Apollo 15 Charles M. Duke, Jr., BrigGen USAF Ret. (1935- ) Apollo 16 Thomas Ken Mattingly II, RAdm USN Ret. (1936- ) Apollo 16 Harrison H. 'Jack' Schmitt, Ph.D., Sen. (R-NM) (1935- ) Apollo 17 Ronald E. Evans, Jr., Capt USN Ret. (1933-1990) Apollo 17
Suborbital flights
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It has been reported that China carried out a test launch of a missile on Jul 24. A media report by W. Gertz claimed that it was a new longer-range DF-41 ICBM but it is unclear if there is any evidence for this; I will record it as an unknown missile for the time being.
Table of Recent (orbital) Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
Jul 5 2136 Echostar 17 ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 35A
Meteosat 10 ) Weather 35B
Jul 9 1838 SES-5 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC81/24 Comms 36A
Jul 15 0240 Soyuz TMA-05M Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1/5 Spaceship 37A
Jul 21 0206 Kounotori 3 H-IIB Tanegashima LP2 Cargo 38A
Jul 22 0641 Kanopus-V ) Imaging 39
BelKA-2 ) Soyuz-FG/Fregat Baykonur LC31/6 Imaging 39
TET-1 ) Tech 39D
exactView-1) Comms/AIS 39C
MKA-PN1 ) Science 39E
Jul 25 1543 Tianlian-1 (03) Chang Zheng 3C Xichang Comms 40A
Jul 28 0135 Gonets-M No. 13) Rokot Plesetsk LC133 Comms 41B
Gonets-M No. 15) Comms 41D
Kosmos-2481 ) Comms 41A
MiR ) Sci 41C
Aug 1 1935 Progress M-16M Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 42A
Aug 2 2054 Intelsat IS-20 ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 43A
Hylas 2 ) Comms 43B
Aug 6 1931 Telkom-3 ) Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC81/24 Comms 44A
Ekspress MD2) Comms 44B
Aug 19 0655 Intelsat IS-21 Zenit-3SL SL Odyssey, Pacific Comms 45A
Aug 20 1829 Sfera-53 - ISS, LEO Sci 98-067CM
Aug 30 0805 RBSP A ) Atlas V 401 Canaveral SLC41 Sci 46A
RBSP B )
Sci 46B
Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches
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Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Jul 3 Shahab RV Shahab 1 ?, Iran Exercise 100? Jul 3 Shahab RV Shahab 2 ?, Iran Exercise 100? Jul 3 Shahab RV Shahab 3 ?, Iran Exercise 150? Jul 5 1850 NASA 36.284NS Black Brant 9 White Sands Solar 275? Jul 11 1850 NASA 36.272NS Black Brant 9 White Sands Solar 268 Jul 13 0436 Agni RV Agni I Chandipur Test 200? Jul 23 1101 NASA 39.011NR Black Brant 11 Wallops Reentry test 458 Jul 24 RV DF-? ?, China Test 1000? Jul 24 1917 NASA 36.263US Black Brant 9 White Sands Solar 324 Aug 7 0730 S-310-41 S-310 Uchinoura Reentry test 150 Aug 9 0316 Agni RV Agni II Chandipur Test 220?
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