Jonathan’s Space Report No. 676 2013 Mar 20
International Space Station
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Expedition 34 continued during early March with commander Kevin Ford and flight engineers FE-1 Oleg Novitskiy, FE-2 Yevgeniy Tarelkin, FE-4 Roman Romanenko, FE-5 Chris Hadfield, and FE-6 Tom Marshburn. Ferry ship Soyuz TMA-06M was docked at the Poisk module; Soyuz TMA-07M is at Rassvet; cargo ship Progress M-17M is at the Zvezda aft port and Progress M-18M is at the Pirs module. Dragon CRS-2 is at the nadir Harmony port.
SpaceX recovered nominal operation of Dragon CRS-2 following the thruster initialization anomaly that happened on orbit insertion. Dragon made a further orbit change, possibly at around 0540 UTC, on Mar 2, moving from a 391 x 405 km orbit to a 332 x 507 km orbit, apogee now well above the ISS in its 401 x 417 km orbit. Another burn at circa 1100 UTC adjusted the orbit to 430 x 447 km and was followed by burns on Mar 3 to complete the rendezvous.
Dragon arrived 350m from the Station at 0840 UTC on Mar 3 and approached along the R-bar (ISS-Earth vector) to a distance of 10m. It was captured by the SSRMS at 1031 UTC and bolted to the nadir CBM port of the Harmony module by 1356 UTC.
On Mar 6 the station SSRMS arm unloaded the HRS Grapple Fixture package from the Dragon trunk and berthed it on the Mobile Base System. Meanwhile, the crew unloaded all the cargo in the pressurized section. Dragon return to Earth is scheduled for Mar 25.
On Mar 13 the Station crew held a change-of-command ceremony as Chris Hadfield became Commander. Expedition 35 formally began, with Hadfield, Romanenko and Marshburn, when Soyuz TMA-06M undocked at 2343 UTC on Mar 15 carrying Ford, Tarelkin and Novitskiy.
At 0213 UTC on Mar 16 Soyuz TMA-06M fired its engines to lower orbit from 399 x 417 km x 51.6 deg to about -25 x 407 km. It reentered the atmosphere at 0242 UTC and landed in Kazakhstan at about 0306 UTC Mar 16. As of Mar 20 I have not seen a definitive landing time.
SBIRS GEO-2
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The second geostationary satellite in the Space-Based Infrared System was launched into geostationary transfer orbit on Mar 19 on Atlas V flight AV-037. The SBIRS GEO satellites are built by Lockheed Martin and probably have a mass of around 4500 kg. SBIRS carries two infrared telescopes, one with a staring sensor and one scanning. The SBIRS system also includes secondary payloads on NRO elliptical orbit (HEO) satellites.
Parking orbit of about 174 x 1060 km x 26.7 deg was reached at 2136 UTC; GTO of 182 x 35804 km x 22.2 deg at 2149 UTC; and the Centaur separated at 2204 UTC to let SBIRS begin its independent climb to GEO altitude.
SBIRS launches: Current orbit (km x km x deg) HEO-1 2006 Jun 28 2082 x 38273 x 63.4 HEO-2 2008 Mar 13 2166 x 38190 x 63.2 GEO-1 2011 May 7 35775 x 35798 x 5.7 GEO 93.7E GEO-2 2013 Mar 19 182 x 35804 x 22.2
Table of Recent (orbital) Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
Feb 1 0656 Intelsat IS-27 Zenit-3SL SL Odyssey, Pacific Comms F01 Feb 6 1604 Globalstar M078 ) Soyuz-2-1A Baykonur LC31/6 Comms 05A Globalstar M093 ) Comms 05B Globalstar M094 ) Comms 05C Globalstar M095 ) Comms 05D Globalstar M096 ) Comms 05E Globalstar M097 ) Comms 05F Feb 7 2136 Amazonas 3 ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 06A Azerspace ) Comms 06B Feb 11 1441 Progress M-18M Soyuz-U Baykonur Cargo 07A Feb 11 1802 Landsat 8 Atlas V 401 Vandenberg SLC3E Imaging 08A Feb 25 1231 SARAL ) Altimeter 09A Sapphire ) SpSur 09C NEOSSat ) PSLV-CA Sriharikota Astron/SpSur 09D UniBRITE ) Astronomy 09G TUGSAT-1 ) Astronomy 09F AAUSAT3 ) Ship nav 09B STRaND-1 ) Tech 09E Mar 1 1510 Dragon CRS-2 Falcon 9 Canaveral SLC40 Cargo 10A Mar 19 2121 SBIRS GEO-2 Atlas V 401 Canaveral SLC41 Early Warn 11A
Suborbital launches -------------------
Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches ----------------------------------
Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km
Feb 7 0821 NASA 49.001UE T-T Oriole N. Poker Flat Auroral 754 Feb 13 0910 ARAV-B Target Terrier Oriole Kauai Target 150? Feb 13 0915? FTM-20 KV Aegis SM-3 CG-20, Pacific Interceptor 150? Feb 15 NASA 41.104GT Terrier Imp Orion White Sands Tech 130? Feb (many) Julan RV? Scud An Nasriyah, Syria Weapon 80? Feb 25 0600? Arrow KV Arrow 3 Palmachim? Interceptor 100? Mar 11 0610? Shark Terrier Lynx Wallops I Target 300?
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