Jonathan’s Space Report No. 668 2012 Oct 8
International Space Station
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Expedition 33 continues with commander Suni Williams, FE-4 Yuriy Malenchenko and FE-6 Aki Hoshide.
The European cargo ship ATV-3 ‘Edoardo Amaldi’ undocked at 2144 UTC on Sep 28 and was deorbited over the Pacific at 2342 UTC on Oct 2, with loss of signal at 0125 UTC on Oct 3.
On Oct 4 the two J-SSOD cubesat deployers were moved outside the Kibo equipment airlock by the JEM-RMS robot arm. The first J-SSOD ejected its payloads at 1432 UTC – the RAIKO and We Wish cubesats. The second J-SSOD deployed F-1, Niwaka, and TechEdSat at 1544 UTC. These five objects have not been cataloged as of Oct 8.
On Oct 8 at 0035 UTC the fourth SpaceX Falcon 9 was launched and delivered the Dragon CRS-1 spacecraft to a 203 x 326 km x 51.7 deg orbit. One first stage engine had an anomaly at max Q (T+1:20) with some debris observed falling away; the engine was shut down but the remaining engines and the second stage compensated to reach the initial orbit. However, extra propellant was used and stage 2 did not restart as planned. The mission’s secondary payload, the first Orbcomm Second Generation communications satellite, was ejected at 0137 UTC into a 203 x 323 km orbit instead of its planned 350 x 750 km insertion orbit. Orbcomm will not be able to get to its operational 750 x 750 km orbit but there’s a chance they’ll get a few months of system tests out of it. A further small debris object has been cataloged in low orbit.
Cataloged Falcon 9 Flight 4 objects:
(I’ve matched up the cataloged objects 2012-54A to F with particular named objects based on my own best guesses)
2012-54A Dragon CRS-1 spacecraft 202 x 323 km x 51.65 deg
2012-54B Orbcomm OG2-1 203 x 322 km x 51.64
2012-54C Falcon 9 Stage 2 175 x 309 km x 51.65
2012-54D Dragon solar array cover 200 x 320 km x 51.64
2012-54E Dragon solar array cover 201 x 325 km x 51.64
2012-54F Falcon 9 debris object 195 x 309 km x 51.65
With a successful primary payload insertion and a secondary payload in an off-nominal orbit, I would assess the launch as a 85 percent success for statistical purposes, and I’ll add it to my database as an overall launch success. The ability of the Falcon 9 to recover from a first stage engine failure is impressive.
Dragon CRS-1 is scheduled to rendezvous with the ISS and be berthed at the Harmony module. As on previous launches, SpaceX is keeping the mass of the Dragon spacecraft a secret. It is possibly around 7000 kg.
Erratum: the Soyuz TMA-04M landing time was 0252:53 UTC.
NROL-36
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The USA 238 satellite, launched on the NROL-36 mission, is believed to be a naval signals intelligence satellite. Observations by Kevin Fetter and other hobbyists, reported on the SeeSat list, confirm the presence of the expected second payload in USA-238’s 1010 x 1200 km orbit. This second payload has been cataloged by the US government as ‘debris’, but is observed to be able to manuever.
Metop B
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The European weather satellite agency EUMETSAT’s second METOP satellite, METOP B, was launched from Baykonur on Sep 17. The Soyuz-2-1a launch vehicle’s upper stage, Fregat No. 1037, placed the satellite in a 805 x 809 km x 98.7 deg, 0928LTDN sun-synchronous orbit. The Soyuz third stage was suborbital.
Fajr
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Fajr was a 50 kg satellite built by IEI (Iran Electronics Industry), with an imaging payload and a small thruster. It was expected to be launched by a two-stage Safir rocket from the Semnan launch site on May 23, but frequent Iranian media reports in advance of the expected date were followed by sudden silence.
Evidence of launch pad burn marks were presented in an article by N. Hansen in Jane’s Intelligence Review, and other unsourced reports discussed on nasaspaceflight.com claimed that US authorities detected a launch. This leads me to tentatively conclude that the Fajr satellite was indeed launched as scheduled on or around May 23 but failed to reach orbit.
Recent statements from Iran say that the Fajr satellite will be launched in the coming months; under the interpretation discussed here, this must be a backup flight model.
The launch failure rumours are not specific and don’t indicate whether the failure was a low altitude first stage problem or a high altitude second stage malfunction. I am adding the alleged Fajr failure to my launch lists, but let me emphasize that I still regard reality of the launch, and its date, as uncertain pending more substantive confirmation either from the Iranians or from US government sources. In a US election year, rumour-intelligence about Iranian missile activity will have a higher-than-usual tendency to bias and overinterpretation and must be treated with extra caution.
The Iranian orbital launch record is thus as follows:
2008 Aug 16 Omid – failed to orbit
2009 Feb 2 Omid – success
2011 Jun 15 Rasad – success
2012 Feb 3 Navid – success
2012 May 23? Fajr – failed to orbit? (uncertain)
Kosmos-2480
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The Russian Defense Ministry’s Kosmos-2480 spacecraft, a Kobal’t-M imaging satellite, landed on Sep 24 around 1703 UTC. A deorbit burn at around 1639 UTC was followed by separation of the service module and reentry of the pressurized main payload section which contains cameras and film.
Ariane VA209
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Arianespace’s VA209 mission, with Ariane 5ECA vehicle 565, was launched on Sep 28. The payloads were Astra 2F and GSAT-10. Astra 2F is an Astrium Eurostar 3000 for SES of Luxembourg; GSAT 10 is an I-3K class satellite built by and for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), carrying C and Ku band comms payloads and the second GAGAN L-band navigation payload. It reached GEO on Oct 1 and will be stationed at 83W.
Francisco de Miranda
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China launched a CAST-2000 class remote sensing satellite into a 621 x 654 km x 98.0 deg, 1030 LTDN sun-synchronous orbit on Sep 29. The satellite, `Venezuela Yaogan Weixing yi hao’ (Venezuela Remote Sensing Satellite 1) was purchased by Venezuela and is named by them `Miranda’, after Sebastian Francisco de Miranda Rodriguez ‘El Precursor’ (1750-1816). It should not be confused with the UK’s Miranda satellite launched in 1974 (named after the character in Shakespeare’s Tempest).
GPS SVN 65
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The third GPS Block IIF satellite, spacecraft 65, was launched on Oct 4 to replace SVN 39. The Delta IV launch vehicle flew to a 163 x 394 km x 41.6 deg parking orbit (according to spaceflightnow.com) followed by a 254 x 20448 km x 43.3 deg transfer orbit and, following a third burn, the targeted 20426 x 20481 km x 55.0 deg circular orbit where the satellite was deployed. The RL-10 second stage engine operated at lower than planned thrust during the first two burns, but onboard software compensated by increasing the duration of the engine firings.
Suborbital launches
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NASA tested a new high performance sounding rocket on Sep 2. The Talos-Terrier-Oriole carried a dummy Nihka fourth stage as part of its 775 kg payload. The full Oriole XII (Talos-Terrier-Oriole-Nihka) rocket will be flown to 777 km above Poker Flat to study the aurora as flight NASA 49.001, possibly in Feb 2013.
Indian Strategic Forces Command carried out a training launch of a Prithvi missile on Oct 4 and a Dhanush ship launched version on Oct 5. The reentry vehicles splashed down in the Bay of Bengal. In September, India launched larger Agni 2, 3 and 4 missiles.
Table of Recent (orbital) Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
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
Sep 9 0423 SPOT 6 ) PSLV-CA Sriharikota LP1 Imaging 47A
PROITERES ) Tech 47B
Sep 13 2139 USA 238 ) Atlas V 401 Vandenberg SLC3E Sigint 48A
USA 238 P/L 2 ) Sigint 48Q?
OUTSat ) Tech 48N
SMDC-ONE 1.2 ) Comms 48B
Aeneas ) Comms 48C
CSSWE ) Sci 48D
CXBN ) XR Astron 48E
CP5 ) Tech 48F
CINEMA 1 ) Sci 48G
Re/STARE ) Tracking 48H
SMDC-ONE 1.1 ) Comms 48J
Aerocube-4 ) Tech? 48M
Aerocube-4.5A ) Tech? 48K
Aerocube-4.5B ) Tech? 48L
Sep 17 1628 METOP-B Soyuz-2-1A Baykonur LC31 Weather 49A
Sep 18 1910 Beidou DW14 ) Chang Zheng 3BE Xichang LC2 Navsat 50A
Beidou DW15 ) Navsat 50B
Sep 28 2118 Astra 2F ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 51A?
GSAT-10 ) Comms/Nav 51B?
Sep 29 0412 Miranda Chang Zheng 2D Jiuquan Imaging 52A
Oct 4 1210 GPS SVN65 Delta 4M+(4,2) Canaveral SLC37B Navsat 53A
Oct 4 1437 RAIKO ) ISS Kibo, LEO Tech
We Wish ) Tech
Oct 4 1544 F-1 ) ISS Kibo, LEO Tech
Niwaka ) Tech
TechEdSat) Tech
Oct 8 0035 Dragon CRS-1 ) Falcon 9 Canaveral SLC40 Cargo 54A
Orbcomm OG2-1) Comms 54B
Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches
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Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Aug 7 0730 S-310-41 S-310 Uchinoura Reentry test 150 Aug 9 0316 Agni RV Agni II Chandipur Test 220? Aug 16 RV JL-2 Xia sub, Bohai Test 1000? Aug 20 RV DF-5A Taiyuan Test 1000? Aug 30 RV DF-31A? Taiyuan Test 1000? Sep 12 Radar target? Terrier Lynx Wallops Island Target? 300? Sep 13 1230 Patriot Target Juno Fort Wingate Target 100? Sep 19 0618 Agni RV Agni IV Chandipur Test 900? Sep 20 1950 Agni III RV Agni III Chandipur Test 500? Sep 21 1116 NASA 46.004GO Terr.Imp. Malemute Wallops Island Education 153 Sep 22 1100 NASA 12.075GT Talos Terr.Oriole Wallops Island Test 269 Oct 4 0337 RV Prithvi 2 Chandipur Op.Test 100? Oct 5 0555 RV Dhanush Ship, Chandipur Op.Test 100?
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