NASA Spacewarn Bulletin No. 626 01 January 2006

2005-052A

AMS 23,
with a pre-launch name of WorldSat 3, is an American
geostationary communications satellite that was launched by a
Proton-M rocket from Baikonur at 02:28 UT on 29 December 2005. The
five tonne craft carries 20 high-power Ku-band, and 18 C-band
transponders to provide voice, video and internet services to
the Asia-Pacific region after parking over 172°E longitude.

2005-051A

GIOVE-A
(Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element) is a an European (ESA)
navigational satellite. The 600 kg satellite was launched by a
Soyuz-Fregat rocket from Baikonur at 05:19 UT on 28 December 2005.
It is the first member of a planned fleet of 30 Galileo satellites
to operate independent of the American GPS and the Russian GLONASS
fleets, though quite compatible with either. (The ESA fleet may
involve technical/financial participation by India and China. Unlike
the GPS and GLONASS, which are under military control, the Galileo
fleet will be wholly civilian-controlled, with global access
guaranteed to the public (“except in direst emergencies”) and
providing a one-meter resolution, comparable to the resolution of
the other fleets that is available for their militaries. The full
Galileo fleet will be completed by 2010. (ESA expects that the
profits from the accesses through 2020 will total to about five-fold
of the investment.) The initial orbit of GIOVE-A is circular,
at an altitude of 23,613 km, with a period 841 min and inclination
56°.

2005-050A, 2005-050B, 2005-050C

Cosmos 2417
(GLONASS 798), Cosmos 2418 (GLONASS 2419), and Cosmos 2419 (GLONASS 714)
are the latest three additions to the Russian
GLONASS navigational fleet. They were launched by a Proton-K
rocket from Baikonur at 05:07 UT on 25 December 2005. They will
be positioned in Slot-3. For the status of the constellation, see
http://www.glonass-center.ru/nagu.txt. The initial orbital
parameters of the three were quite similar: period 675 min, apogee
19,125 km, perigee 19,116 km, and inclination 64.86°.

2005-049B

MSG 2
(Meteosat Second Generation 2) is a European (ESA)
geostationary weather satellite, with operational control by the
EUMETSAT organization. It was launched by an Ariane 5G rocket from
Kourou at 22:33 UT on 21 December 2005. The two tonne,
spin-stabilized craft carries two main instruments. SEVIRI (Spinning
Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager) will provide images taken in
four visible and eight infrared channels every 15 minutes, at a
resolution of 1 km in visible light and 3 km in infrared.
GERB (Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget) will monitor the
energy balance between the incoming solar flux, and the outgoing
infrared radiation. The craft will be renamed Meteosat 9 when it
becomes operational in June 2006, after parking over 0.0°
longitude. (There have been eight Meteosats in the first generation
Meteosat series)

2005-049A

INSAT 4A
is an Indian geostationary communications satellite that
was launched by an Ariane 5G rocket from Kourou at 22:33 UT on
21 December 2005. The 3.1 tonne, 5.5 kW satellite carries 12 140 W
Ku-band transponders and 12 63 W C-band transponders to provide
Direct-to Home (DTH) data and TV services to India and neighboring
countries, after parking over 83°E longitude

2005-048B

Rodnik,
also listed as Cosmos 2416, is a Russian military satellite
that was launched by a Kosmos-3M rocket from Plesetsk at 18:34 UT
on 21 December 2005. The initial orbital parameters were period
114.7 min, apogee 1424 km, perigee 1414 km, and
inclination 82.5°.

2005-048A

Gonets-D1M 1
is a Russian low-altitude communications satellite that
was launched by a Kosmos-3M rocket from Plesetsk at 18:34 UT on
21 December 2005. It is the first of a fleet of 12 satellites in four
planes. The 250 kg, 40 W craft is expected to serve some 30 Russian
agencies and organizations with email and short messages. An
earlier fleet of six Gonets-D1 satellites had served that role in
the 1990s. The initial orbital parameters of Gonets-D1M 1 were
period 114.7 min, apogee 1424 km, perigee 1414 km, and
inclination 82.5°.

2005-047A

Progress-M 55
is a Russian automatic cargo craft that was
launched by a Soyuz-U rocket from Baikonur at 18:38 UT on
21 December 2005. The 5.7 tonne craft (including 880 kg of propellant)
carried 210 kg of water, 83 kg of air, and 1.4 tonne of equipment
and spare parts to the International Space Station. Some of
propellant will be transferred to the ISS for its maneuvering
thrusters. It docked with the PIRS module of the ISS automatically
at 19:56 UT on 23 December, and delivered the cargo.

Spacecraft with essentially continuous radio beacons on frequencies
less than 150 MHz, or higher frequencies if especially suited for ionospheric
or geodetic studies.

NNSS denotes U.S. Navy Navigational Satellite System. Updates or
corrections to the list are possible only with information from the
user community.

Note:
The full list appeared in SPX 545.
The list will not be repeated in future issues until significantly revised
again.

Global Positioning System satellites useful for navigational
purposes and geodetic studies.

High precision (<20 cm) GPS constellation tracking data obtained from
the network of about 80 dedicated global stations that are of interest to
geodetic study may be obtained through the following services provided
by the International Association of Geodesy (IGS)

     FTP:    igscb.jpl.nasa.gov  [directory /igscb]
     WWW:    http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/
     E-mail: igscb@cobra.jpl.nasa.gov

The standard format of the GPS situation appeared in SPX-518. It will not
be repeated since an excellent source of trajectory- and science-related GPS information is at:

http://www.colorado.edu/geography/gcraft/notes/gps/gps_f.html

It provides many links to GPS related databases.

The latest addition to the fleet is Navstar 57, 2005-038A.

Russian Global Navigational (Positioning) Spacecraft, GLONASS
constellation.

SPACEWARN requests updates/additions from readers to this list.

All GLONASS spacecraft are in the general COSMOS series. The COSMOS numbers
invoked by USSPACECOM have often differed from the numbers (NNNN)
associated in Russia; when different, the USSPACECOM COSMOS numbers are shown
in parentheses. The corresponding GLONASS numbers are Russian numbers, followed
by the numbers in parentheses that are sometimes attributed to them outside
Russia.

The operating frequencies in MHz are computed from the channel number K.
Frequencies (MHz) = 1602.0 + 0.5625K and L2 = 1246.0 + 0.4375K.

The standard format of the GLONASS situation last appeared in
SPX-545. It
will not be repeated in view of the excellent updated source at:
http://www.glonass-center.ru
maintained by the Coordinational Scientific Information Center (CSIC), Russian
Space Forces.

According to CSIC the
latest addition to the fleet are GLONASS 712, GLONASS 796, and GLONASS 797.
Their International IDs are 2005-050A, 2005-050B, and 2005-050C.

Visually bright objects.

See
http://www.space-track.org/perl/bulk_files.pl.
Users must register. Conditions apply.

Actual decays/landings of payload spacecraft and rocket bodies (R/B)
only. No further information is available.

Designations         Common Name                  Decay Date (2005)

2005-025B (28774)   R/B M-5                           23 December
1989-016C (19824)   R/B(2) M-3S2                      17 December
2001-032A (26873)   CORONAS-F                         06 December
1986-103D (17267)   R/B(2) that launched MOLNIYA 1-70 06 December
1978-016C (12908)   R/B Atlas Centaur                 05 December
2005-023G (28713)   R/B (Aux.Mot) Proton-K            04 December

60-day Decay Predictions.

See
http://www.space-track.org/perl/60day_decay_predict.pl.
Users must register for access. Conditions apply

Miscellaneous Items.

This section contains information or data that are entered on occasion
and may not be repeated in each issue of the SPACEWARN Bulletin.

Related NSSDC resources.

NSSDC/WDC for Satellite Information is an archival center for science
data from many spacecraft. Many space physics datasets are on-line for
electronic access through:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/space/

For off-line data, please contact the Request Office, NSSDC, Code 633,
NASA GSFC, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, U.S.A., for specific information
(request@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov).
Information on the current status of the instruments on board from the
investigators will be most welcomed. Precomputed trajectory files
and orbital parameters of many magnetospheric and heliospheric science-payload
spacecraft may be obtained from:
ftp://nssdcftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/miscellaneous/orbits/

Other files of interest for Earth-centered spacecraft can be generated via the URL,
http://sscweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Programs related to the heliospheric spacecraft trajectories can be executed
through the URL,
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/space/helios/heli.html

Magnetospheric, Planetary, and Astronomical science data from many spacecraft
may be accessed through links from the URL:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/sc-query.html