Jonathan's Space Report<br />No. 514 2003 Nov 24, Cambridge, MA<br />-------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Shuttle and Station<br />--------------------<br /><br />The Expedition 8 crew of Foale and Kaleri continue their stay aboard the<br />Station. The Shuttle fleet remains grounded with return to flight<br />expected in the second half of 2004.<br /><br />Recent Launches<br />---------------<br /><br />China has launched a new communications satellite, Zhongxing-20. The<br />CZ-3A launch vehicle took off from Xichang at 1601 UTC on Nov 14 and<br />reached low parking orbit at 1611 UTC. A second burn of the cryogenic<br />third stage put ZX-20 in elliptical transfer orbit of 212 x 41981 km x<br />24.5 deg at around 1625 UTC. The satellite is probably part of the Feng<br />Huo military communications system. By Nov 20 it was in geostationary<br />orbit over 103 deg E. This was the fourth Chinese launch in a month.<br /><br />It looks like Space Command now agree with my assessment that the low<br />perigee object from the Oct 21 Chinese launch is the rocket stage; the<br />identities of objects 28058 and 28059 were swapped on Oct 29-30.<br />Meanwhile ZY-1 No. 2 (CBERS-2) has raised its orbit to 773 x 773 km x<br />98.5 deg.<br /><br />The Chinese recoverable satellite launched on Nov 3 is thought to be a<br />successor to the FSW (Fanhui Shi Weixing) series. Chinese space expert<br />Chen Lan reports that it is called Jianbin 4 (JB-4, "Pathfinder");<br />Phillip Clark says that the earlier FSW satellites were JB-1 and that<br />the ZY-2 satellites are also designated JB-3. On Nov 4, three objects<br />were tracked in orbit from the FSW launch; 28078 and 28077 which are in<br />191 x 322 km x 63.0 deg orbits are probably the payload and final stage<br />respectively. 28076 is in a rapidly decaying 177 x 265 km x 62.9 deg<br />orbit and is probably a piece of debris, despite being designated<br />2003-51A. It probably reentered on Nov 4. A fourth piece, 28079,<br />was cataloged later and also decayed rapidly - the two small pieces<br />may be retro covers from the second stage.<br /><br />The JB-4 made small orbit raising manuevers on Nov 8 and 14. The reentry<br />vehicle of the JB-4 separated from the main satellite at around 0142 UTC<br />on Nov 21 and landed in Sichuan province at 0204 UTC. After separation<br />the main satellite was tracked in a higher orbit of 192 x 357 km.<br /><br />The Kosmos-2399 spy satellite continues in orbit after the release of<br />five small pieces in low orbit around Nov 19, 99 days into its mission.<br />The Don class satellites do not normally release objects until the end<br />of their mission, when they are sometimes destroyed by deliberate<br />explosion. It could be that these are the first tracked pieces from such<br />an explosion, or debris from a failed film capsule recovery attempt. The<br />expected lifetime of Kosmos-2399 based on recent flights is 100-130<br />days.<br /><br />ESA's SMART-1 lunar probe continues to operate its ion engine, with<br />occasional flameouts at times of high radiation. On Nov 5 it was in a<br />3058 x 38624 km x 6.9 deg orbit compared to its initial 672 x 35829 km<br />x 6.9 deg trajectory.<br /><br />DMSP 5D-3 F16 has ejected its optics cover and cooler cover, cataloged<br />as 2003-48D and E. Phillip Clark has pointed out that IRS-P6 is probably<br />2003-46B, not 2003-46A.<br /><br />The SMEX program<br />----------------<br /><br />NASA's Small Explorer program has selected new candidates<br />for the SMEX-10 and SMEX-11 missions to be launched in<br />2006-7. Five candidates will be studied until late 2004,<br />and then two will be chosen to fly.<br /><br />SMEX was started in the early 1990s amid concerns that<br />all of NASA's science missions cost billions and took decades<br />to complete. There have been 7 SMEX launches so far, with<br />one more being built and other recently cancelled.<br /><br />Satellite Launch Orbit (km x km x deg) Mission<br /><br />SMEX-1/SAMPEX 1992 Jul 3 515 x 691 x 81.7 Earth radiation belts<br />SMEX-2/FAST 1996 Aug 21 350 x 4169 x 83.0 Auroral studies<br />SMEX-3/TRACE 1998 Apr 2 598 x 641 x 97.8 Solar EUV imager<br />SMEX-4/SWAS 1998 Dec 6 634 x 699 x 70.0 Submillimeter astronomy<br />SMEX-5/WIRE 1999 Mar 5 539 x 593 x 97.5 IR astronomy (failed)<br />SMEX-6/HESSI 2002 Feb 5 588 x 609 x 38.0 Solar Hard X-ray imager<br />SMEX-7/GALEX 2003 Apr 28 690 x 698 x 29.0 UV astronomical survey<br />SMEX-8/SPIDR Cancelled<br />SMEX-9/AIM 2006? 500 x 500 x 97? Noctilucent clouds<br /><br />The new candidates are:<br /><br />DUO Dark Universe Observatory<br /><br />DUO carries seven X-ray telescopes each with a 1.6m focal length, giving<br />a wide 3 square degree field of view with 45-arcsecond spatial<br />resolution (compare Chandra's ACIS with 0.5-arcsecond resolution but<br />only 0.1 square degree field of view). DUO's CCD imagers, based on the<br />EPIC-pn from XMM-Newton, will operate in the 0.3-10 keV range and scan<br />6000 square degrees around the North Galactic cap and is expected to<br />discover 8000 clusters of galaxies and over 100000 active nuclei. The<br />cluster data will be used to constrain cosmological models. (DUO is<br />based on the German ABRIXAS mission, which would have done an all-sky<br />survey, but whose power supply failed soon after launch). DUO is<br />led by Richard Griffiths from CMU.<br /><br />IBEX Interstellar Boundary Explorer<br /><br />The IBEX mission is the only one of the proposals to study particles<br />rather than photons, making use of the remarkable ENA (energetic neutral<br />atom) imager technology previously pioneered in near-Earth space physics<br />to map out the physics of the heliopause. The satellite will carry two<br />ENA imagers, one for high energy and one for low energy particles, and<br />will be boosted beyond the Earth's magnetosphere to allow it to detect<br />and map out the distribution of energetic particles that are created in<br />the shock region between the solar wind and the interstellar medium, and<br />eventually reach the vicinity of the Earth. IBEX will be boosted into<br />a highly elliptical Earth orbit. If selected, it would be the first SMEX in<br />high orbit. The mission is led by David McComas at Southwest Research<br />Institute.<br /><br />NEXUS Normal Incidence EUV Spectrometer<br /> <br />This NASA-Goddard mission will observe the solar corona in the 450-800<br />Angstrom range and try to get clues to the coronal heating mechanisms.<br />The normal incidence telescope, which has been flown on sounding<br />rockets, allows better spatial resolution, allowing NEXUS to get individual<br />spectra of the small flare regions on the Sun so spectacularly imaged<br />by the earlier TRACE mission. PI is J. Davila.<br /><br />NuStar Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array <br /><br />NuStar would be the first mission to fly a focussing telescope in space<br />for energies in the 8-80 keV range. It will survey this energy band for<br />X-ray emission from quasars and Galactic black hole binaries, and obtain<br />spectra of hard X-ray emission from supernova remnants and study the<br />spectral lines created by nuclear transitions which dominate this<br />spectral range. The mission is led by Fiona Harrison (Caltech).<br /><br />JMEX Jupiter Magnetosphere Explorer<br /><br />The JMEX project would put an ultraviolet observatory in low Earth<br />orbit, will all of its observing time dedicated to looking at Jupiter<br />and its environment. Ultraviolet emission comes from Jupiter itself, its<br />aurora, the moon Io, and the plasma torus in Io's orbit, and the study<br />will characterize the dominant processes in the Jovian magnetosphere.<br />The mission is led by N. Schneider at the University of Colorado.<br /><br /><br />Table of Recent Launches<br />-----------------------<br /><br />Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.<br /> DES.<br />Oct 1 0403 Galaxy 13 Zenit-3SL SL Odyssey Comms 44B<br />Oct 15 0100 Shenzhou 5 ) CZ-2F Jiuquan Spaceship 45A<br /> SZ-5 OM ) Imaging 45G<br />Oct 17 0452 IRS-P6 PSLV Sriharikota Imaging 46B<br />Oct 18 0538 Soyuz TMA-3 Soyuz-FG Baykonur Spaceship 47A<br />Oct 18 1617 DMSP F16 Titan 23G Vandenberg Weather 48A<br />Oct 21 0316 ZY-1 No. 2 ) CZ-4B Taiyuan Imaging 49A<br /> CX-1 ) Comms 49B<br />Oct 30 1343 SERVIS-1 Rokot Plesetsk Tech 50A<br />Nov 3 0720 JB-4? CZ-2D Jiuquan Micrograv 51C<br />Nov 14 1601 Zhongxing-20 CZ-3A Xichang Comms 52A<br /><br />.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.<br />| Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 |<br />| Somerville MA 02143 | |<br />| c/o | |<br />| Center for Astrophysics, | |<br />| 60 Garden St, MS6 | |<br />| Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@host.planet4589.org |<br />| USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu |<br />| |<br />| JSR: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html |<br />| Back issues: http://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back |<br />| Subscribe/unsub: mail majordomo@host.planet4589.org, (un)subscribe jsr | <br />'-------------------------------------------------------------------------'