Jonathan's Space Report<br />No. 531 2004 Jul 25, Somerville, MA<br />-------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />Sender: owner-jsr@host.planet4589.org<br />Precedence: bulk<br />Reply-To: jcm@host.planet4589.org@host.planet4589.org<br /><br />NASA's Aura research satellite was launched on Jul 15. The Boeing Delta<br />7920 rocket took off from Space Launch Complex 2-West at Vandenberg AFB<br />and reached a 185 x 691 km x 98.2 deg transfer orbit 11 minutes later.<br />At apogee a second burn placed Aura in a 673 x 681 km x 98.2 deg orbit.<br />The Delta rocket separated and made two more burns to change its<br />inclination and lower perigee to 202 x 673 km x 103.0 deg, ensuring that<br />the rocket will reenter quickly. Aura carries a hydrazine propulsion<br />system to maintain its orbit. When it reaches its final orbit of 705 km,<br />it will form part of the "A-Train", a constellation of remote sensing<br />satellites in the same afternoon-ascending-node, sun-synchronous,<br />orbital plane providing coordinated observations. Aqua leads the<br />A-train, with Aura trailing; smaller satellites will be launched<br />inbetween the two.<br /><br />Aura is EOS Chemistry-1, the third large satellite in the Earth<br />Observing System series, with a launch mass of 3112 kg. The spacecraft,<br />built by Northrop Grumman Space Technology (formerly TRW), carries an<br />infrared radiometer and spectrometer, an ultraviolet/visible ozone<br />monitoring spectrometer, and a microwave sounder, and will study ozone<br />and pollutants in the atmosphere.<br /><br />Arianespace launched the Canadian Anik F2 communications satllite on<br />July 18. The second uprated Ariane 5G+ took off from Kourou at 0044 UTC<br />as flight V163, vehicle 519. The core stage entered a 44 x 1553 km x 7.1<br />deg orbit at 0053 UTC and separated from the EPS upper stage. The core<br />stage reentered over the Pacific after one orbit, at around 0223 UTC.<br />The upper stage shut down at 0111 UTC and put Anik F2 in a 631 x 38370<br />km x 6.7 deg geostationary transfer orbit. <br /><br />Anik F2 is a Boeing 702 model satellite with a mass of 5965 kg at<br />launch, and will provide high speed internet and digital communications<br />across North America. It includes C-band, Ku-band and Ka-band<br />communications payloads, a 490N bipropellant apogee engine and four<br />XIPS-25 ion thrusters for orbit control. The apogee engine was<br />fired for the first time on Jul 24 to raise perigee to 5900 km.<br /><br />Russia launched a new Parus navigation satellite on Jul 22, naming it<br />Kosmos-2407. The 820 kg satellite was launched into a 951 x 1006 km x<br />83.0 deg orbit using a Kosmos-3M rocket from the northern launch site at<br />Plesetsk.<br /><br />Tan Ce 2, the second probe in the Chinese-European Double Star<br />magnetospheric research program, was launched from the Taiyuan Space<br />Center on Jul 25. The CZ-2C/SM rocket entered a 666 x 38566 km x 90.1<br />deg polar orbit, complementing the 28-degree equatorial Tan Ce 1<br />launched from Xichang last year and the four European Cluster satellites<br />in deeper 22000 x 116000 km x 89 deg Earth orbits. Tan Ce 2 has a mass<br />of 343 kg.<br /><br /><br /> Registration of satellites with the UN<br /> ---------------------------------------<br /><br />I've updated the UN satellite registry data on my web page.<br /><br />France has updated its registration of satellites with the United Nations.<br />In UN document ST/SG/SER.E/445, <br />http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/Reports/Regdocs/ser445F.pdf,<br /></A><br />submitted to the UN on 2004 Mar 4, it<br />gave a new list of satellites superseding previous information, which<br />includes the registration of 22 previously unregistered satellites. Although<br />I congratulate France on these corrections, regrettably there are<br />many errors in the part of the document covering earlier years<br />of the French space program; these errors are documented at<br /><br />http://www.planet4589.org/space/un/france.html<br /></A><br /><br />In its latest submission to the UN, Russia for the first time since 1966<br />(with an arguable exception in 1985) failed to register one of its<br />satellites - the Gruzomaket dummy payload launched in December 2003 on<br />the first Strela test launch. The submission confirms the name of<br />2004-05A as Molniya-1T but surprisingly gives the official name of<br />2004-10A as Globus-1 instead of Raduga-1 (the Globus-1 name was<br />previously classified and Raduga-1 had been used as a cover name).<br />Meanwhile, the USA remains the main culprit for unregistered and<br />erroneously registered satellites - although most of these errors are<br />due to bureaucratic sloppiness, the 2003-54C classified surveillance<br />payload was mendaciously registered as "USA 173 debris" despite the fact<br />that independent observers have seen the satellite maneuver. Finally,<br />the Intelsat satellites remain unregistered by the UK.<br /><br /><br />Table of Recent Launches<br />-----------------------<br /><br />Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. <br /> DES.<br /><br />Jun 10 0128 Kosmos-2406 Zenit-2 Baykonur LC45 Sigint 21A<br />Jun 16 2227 Intelsat 10-02 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 22A<br />Jun 23 2254 GPS SVN 60 Delta 7925 Canaveral SLC17B Navigation 23A<br />Jun 29 0359 Telstar 18 Zenit-3SL Odyssey Comms 24A<br />Jun 29 0630 Demeter ) Dnepr Baykonur LC109 Science 25C<br /> SaudiSat-2 ) Comms 25F<br /> SaudiComsat-1 ) Comms 25D<br /> LatinSat C ) Comms 25G<br /> SaudiComsat-2 ) Comms 25E<br /> Unisat-3 ) Tech 25H<br /> AMSAT-Echo ) Comms 25K<br /> Latinsat D ) Comms 25A<br />Jul 15 1002 Aura Delta 7920 Vandenberg SLC2W Science 26A<br />Jul 18 0044 Anik F2 Ariane 5G+ Kourou ELA3 Comms 27A<br />Jul 22 1746 Kosmos-2407 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Navigation 28A<br />Jul 25 0705 Tan Ce 2 CZ-2C/SM Taiyuan Science 29A<br /><br />.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.<br />| Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 |<br />| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : jcm@host.planet4589.org |<br />| USA | jcm@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 />'-------------------------------------------------------------------------'