Jonathan's Space Report<br />No. 511 2003 Oct 9, Cambridge, MA<br />-------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br /><br />Travel<br />------<br /><br /><br />All the most interesting events in space happen while I'm away on<br />travel. In the next 10 days we expect the launch of the first Chinese<br />astronaut aboard Shenzhou-5 and the launch of Soyuz TMA-3 with the<br />Expedition 8 crew. However, I will have only intermittent access to the<br />net while I am in Strasbourg and Darmstadt, and the JSR website will<br />probably not be updated; expect full reports in late October.<br /><br /><br />Shuttle and Station<br />--------------------<br /><br /><br />Progress M1-10 has been deorbited. It undocked from the Station on Sep 4<br />and has spent a month on an Earth Observation mission. The deorbit<br />engine ignited at 1126 UTC on Oct 3 from a 247 x 340 km x 51.6 deg<br />orbit, reducing it to approximately 69 x 253 km. Progress M1-10<br />reentered the atmosphere over the Pacific at 1158 UTC and broke up<br />around 1205 UTC.<br /><br /><br />NASA is now scheduling the STS-114 return-to-flight mission for 2004 Sep<br />12, with the STS-121 followon mission on 2004 Nov 15. This schedule<br />is likely to change further.<br /><br /><br />Recent Launches<br />---------------<br /><br /><br />Panamsat's Galaxy 13/Horizons-1 satellite was launched on Oct 1 by a<br />Boeing Sea Launch Zenit-3SL rocket from the floating Odyssey platform at<br />154W 0N in the Pacific. The satellite carries both C-band and Ku-band<br />communications payloads. The C-band payload is referred to as Galaxy 13;<br />the Ku-band payload is jointly owned by Panamsat and the Japanese JSAT<br />company and is called Horizons-1; this latter will help carry digital<br />data services between the Americas and Asia via a relay station in<br />Hawaii. The satellite is a Boeing 601HP model. <br /><br /><br />The Yuzhnoe Zenit-3SL second stage separated in a -1917 x 185 km x 0 deg<br />suborbital path 8 min after launch and fell back to the Pacific. The<br />Energiya Blok DM-SL upper stage reached an initial 180 x 8353 km x 0<br />deg parking orbit 16 min after launch, then restarted and separated from<br />the payload 1 hour after launch in a 2396 x 35751 km x 0.04 deg<br />geostationary transfer orbit. Launch mass was 4090 kg.<br /><br /><br />As of Oct 8, most of the Ariane 516 payloads were still recorded in their<br />initial orbits by Space Command, although Insat 3E is known to have made<br />several orbit raising burns and is now in a geostationary drift<br />orbit. The e-Bird satellite fired its apogee motor at about 1025 UTC<br />on Sep 30.<br /><br /><br />75 debris objects, SSN 27964-28038, have been cataloged from the<br />explosion of a small Proton SOZ ullage rocket in orbit. Each Energiya<br />Blok DM class upper stage uses two small liquid motors to accelerate the<br />stage and push propellant to the back of the tanks before starting the<br />main engine for the DM's second burn. In most variants of the stage,<br />these ullage rockets, called SOZ (sistema obespecheniya zapuska), are<br />ejected as soon as the main engine reaches full thrust and remain in the<br />transfer orbit. Over the years materials in the SOZ can degrade and<br />allow leftover fuel and oxidizer to mix, causing an explosion. In this<br />particular case, Proton 349-02 was launched from Baykonur on 1988 Sep 16<br />at 0200 UTC and placed a payload section in orbit consisting of the<br />upper stage, Blok DM2 11S861 No. 43L, and three Uragan navigation<br />satelites, Nos. 42L, 43L and 44L, given the cover names Kosmos-1970,<br />1971 and 1972 after launch. The DM2 fired to enter an eccentric orbit<br />with an apogee of 19100 km and then at apogee the SOZ units fired,<br />separated into a 413 x 19112 km x 64.9 deg orbit, and the DM2 fired to<br />circularize the orbit and release the Uragans. The two SOZ units were<br />cataloged as 19535/1988-85F and 19537/1988-85G. Since the demise of<br />NASA's quarterly orbital debris report, there's no source that<br />identifies the origin of orbital debris - hopefully some reader with<br />good orbit propagation software can figure out which of the two objects<br />was the source of the explosion. The debris objects are in orbits of<br />400-760 x 18100-18850 km x 65.2-65.7 deg; In September SOZ-1 1988-85F<br />was in a 717 x 18510 km x 65.3 deg orbit, and SOZ-2 1988-85G was in a<br />713 x 18327 km x 65.2 deg orbit. SOZ-1 hasn't had any new orbital data<br />since Aug 23, so it seems a reasonable guess that it is the one that<br />exploded. The explosion occurred between mid August and Sep 9.<br /><br /><br />Table of Recent Launches<br />-----------------------<br /><br /><br />Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.<br /> DES.<br />Sep 9 0429 USA 171 Titan 4B/Centaur Canaveral SLC40 Sigint 41A<br />Sep 16 PS2 KT-1 Taiyuan Test F01<br />Sep 27 0612 STSat-1 ) Astronomy 42A<br /> UK-DMC ) Imaging 42<br /> NigeriaSat-1 ) Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Imaging 42<br /> BILSAT-1 ) Imaging 42<br /> Mozhaets-4 ) Comms? 42<br /> Larets ) Calib? 42<br /> Rubin-4-DSI ) Test 42<br />Sep 27 2314 Insat 3E ) Ariane 5G Kourou ELA3 Comms 43E<br /> e-Bird ) Comms 43B<br /> SMART-1 ) Lunar 43<br />Oct 1 0403 Galaxy 13 Zenit-3SL SL Odyssey Comms 44A<br /><br /><br />.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.<br />| Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 |<br />| 1 Fitchburg St C-205 | |<br />| Somerville MA 02143 | |<br />| and | |<br />| Center for Astrophysics, | |<br />| 60 Garden St, MS6 | |<br />| Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@host.planet4589.org |<br />| USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu |