Jonathan's Space Report
No. 705 2014 Nov 14 Somerville, MA
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International Space Station
---------------------------

Expedition 41 commander Max Suraev and flight engineers FE-5 Reid
Wiseman and FE-6 Alex Gerst returned to Soyuz TMA-13M on Nov 9. FE-3
Barry 'Butch' Wilmore then became ISS commander of Expedition 42,
staying on the station with FE-1 Aleksandr Samokutyaev and FE-2 Elena
Serova.

Soyuz TMA-13M undocked from Rassvet at 0031 UTC Nov 10. The deorbit
burn at 0305 UTC reduced velocity by 128 m/s, dipping perigee into the atmosphere.
Landing in Kazakhstan came at 0358:35 UTC.

Rosetta and Philae
-------------------

The 85 kg Philae lander was ejected from the Rosetta probe 22 km from
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at 0835 UTC Nov 12. Philae's thruster
was not working, and at 1533 UTC on contact with 67P's surface at the
Agilkia landing site the harpoons intended to lock it to the surface
apparently did not deploy. The lander bounced off the surface gently
and settled down in another location at 1726 UTC, for a second briefer
bounce that resulted in final touchdown at 1733 UTC, with the lander
tilted, with one of its three legs off the surface. The lander is in the
shadow of a crater cliff and not receiving enough sunlight to recharge
its 2.5-day-life batteries. Science data is being received, but at the
moment it looks like a race against time. However, the situation is evolving
rapidly.

Comet missions
--------------

Spacecraft Comet Closest Approach, Date Notes
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ISEE-3 21P/Giacobini-Zinner 7870 km 1985 Sep 11 Flyby
Vega-1 1P/Halley 8900 km 1986 Mar 6 Flyby
Suisei 1P/Halley 151000 km 1986 Mar 8 Flyby
Vega-2 1P/Halley 8030 km 1986 Mar 9 Flyby
Giotto 1P/Halley 596 km 1986 Mar 13 Flyby, imaging
Giotto 26P/Grigg-Skjellerup 200 km 1992 Jul 10 Flyby
Sakigake 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova 10000 km? 1996 Feb 11? Flyby, no data?
Deep Space 1 19P/Borrelly 2171 km 2001 Sep 22 Flyby
Contour ( 2P/Encke (2002 Aug) Probe failed
( 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 (blew up departing Earth)
( 6P/d'Arrest
Stardust 81P/Wild 2 250 km 2004 Jan 2 Dust collection
Deep Impact 9P/Tempel 1 0 km 2005 Jul 4 Impact
DI Flyby Probe 9P/Tempel 1 500?km 2005 Jul 4 Flyby,imaging
DI Flyby Probe 103P/Hartley 2 700 km 2010 Nov 4 Flyby,imaging
Rosetta 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko 10 km 2014 Oct Orbiter
Philae 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko 0 km 2014 Nov 12 Lander

Chinese lunar probe
-------------------

The Chang'e-5 Flight Test Vehicle (Chang'e wu hao feixing shiyan qi),
also called the Reentry Return Flight Test Mission (Zai ru Fanhui
Feixing Shiyan Renwu), passed around 11300 km from the Moon on Oct 27
and returned to Earth on Oct 31. The descent capsule separated from the
main vehicle at 2153 UTC and landed north of Hohhot at 2242 UTC. The
service module (fuwu cang) made a burn at 2156 UTC to avoid reentry and
swung past the Earth to head out towards the Earth-Moon L2 point.

The orbital analysis mentioned in JSR704 was the work of Cees Bassa.

Kosmos-2499
-----------

The Kosmos-2499 satellite launched in May continues manuevering in
orbit. On Oct 28 at about 1035 UTC the satellite raised its orbit from
927 x 1485 km to 1054 x 1493 km. Then on Nov 9 at about 0540 UTC it made
a final burn to complete its rendezvous with the Briz rocket stage that
launched it, in an 1151 x 1502 km orbit.



ASNARO
-------

The Japanese ASNARO high resolution imaging satellite was placed in orbit by a Dnepr rocket launched
from the Dombarovskiy/Yasniy missile base in Russia on Nov 6. The satellite was developed by
NEC and is managed by Japan Space Systems (formerly USEF, part of the Ministry of Trade and
Industry) rather than by the main Japanese space agency JAXA. The 495 kg ASNARO has 0.5m resolution
on a 10 km nadir swath width and is in a 505 x 506 km x 97.5 deg sun-synchronous orbit
with a 1057 local time descending node (LTDN).

Four small (50 kg) Japanese satellites were also carried: Tsubame,
Hodoyoshi-1, Kinshachi-1 and Tsukushi. Tsubame ('Swallow') is an
astronomy satellite from the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo kogyo
daigaku) and carries a hard X-ray polarimeter to study the polarization
of gamma ray bursts. Hodoyoshi-1, from the University of Tokyo and
AXELSPACE, carries an imager with 6.8m resolution and 28 km swath.
Kinshachi-1, also known as ChubuSat-1, is a project of Nagoya and Daido
universities. (The name Kinschachi refers to the golden sea-monster
statues on Nagoya castle; Nagoya and Daido are in the Chubu region of
Japan). It carries a 10m res, 14 km swath imager, a 130m res, 7-13
micron infrared camera reported to be for atmosphere temperature
profiles and space debris monitoring. and an amateur radio relay
payload. The Tsukushi ('Horsetail'; also an old name for the Kyushu
region) payload is also called QSAT-EOS: Kyushu Satellite for Earth
Observation System Demonstration. The sastellite carries a CMOS camera
with 4m res and 7 km swath, a magnetometer and an in-situ space debris
detector, as well as a deployable 3-meter kapton sail used as a drag
augmentation device.

The Dnepr rocket deposits its payloads while still gaining velocity, resulting in slightly different orbits:
70G GDS nosecone 478 x 507 km (Platform A attached?)
70A ASNARO 505 x 506 km x 97.5 deg
70B Hodoyoshi-1 506 x 524 km x 97.5
70C Kinshachi-1 506 x 537 km x 97.5
70D Tsukushi 506 x 553 km x 97.5
70E Tsubame 505 x 568 km x 97.5
70F Third stage 485 x 1942 km


Erratum: JSR 704 should have been dated Oct 30. Oops.

Table of Recent (orbital) Launches
----------------------------------
Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.


Oct 7 0516 Himawari-8 H-IIA Tanegashima Weather 60A
Oct 15 2002 IRNSS-1C PSLV-XL Sriharikota FLP Navigation 61A
Oct 16 2144 Intelsat IS-30 ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 62A
ARSAT-1 ) Comms 62B
Oct 20 0631 Yaogan 21 Chang Zheng 4C Taiyuan Imaging? 63A
Oct 21 1509 Ekspress AM-6 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC81/24 Comms 64A
Oct 23 1800 CE-5 FTD ) Chang Zheng 3C/G2 Xichang Lunar probe 65A
4M ) Amateur radio 65B
Oct 27 0659 SJ-11 08 Chang Zheng 2C Jiuquan Surveillance? 66A
Oct 28 2220 Cygnus ORB-3 ) Antares 130 Wallops MARS 0A Cargo F02
RACE ) Science F02
Arkyd-3 ) Tech F02
GOMX-2 ) Comms AIS F02
Flock-1d 1 to 26 ) Imaging F02
Oct 29 0709 Progress M-25M Soyuz-2-1a Baykonur LC31 Cargo 67A
Oct 29 1721 GPS SVN 69 Atlas V 401 Canaveral SLC41 Navigation 68A
Oct 30 0143 Meridian No. 17L Soyuz-2-1a/Fregat Plesetsk LC43/4 Comms 69A
Nov 6 0735 ASNARO ) Dnepr Yasniy Imaging 70A
Hodoyoshi-1 ) Imaging 70B
Kinshachi-1 ) Imaging 70C
Tsukushi ) Imaging 70D
Tsubame ) XR Astron 70E

Suborbital missions
-------------------

Russia launched a Bulava missile from the Yuri Dolgorukiy submarine in the Barents
Sea on Oct 29; multiple reentry vehicles flew a suborbital trajectory to
the Kura target range in Kamchatka.

I don't normally cover rocket flights within the Earth's atmosphere, but
the Oct 31 Spaceship Two accident is noteworthy - as well as tragic.
Spaceship Two S/N 01 'VSS Enterprise' was a rocket-powered glider
dropped from the White Knight 2 carrier aircraft, based at Mojave
Spaceport in California, and was intended for passenger suborbital
flights to be operated by Virgin Galactic. The vehicle had made 12
captive flights, 32 glide flights, and 3 rocket-powered flights prior to
the accident. The glide flights had been piloted by a mixture of Scaled
Composites and Virgin Galactic test pilots, but the powered flight tests
were mostly led by the Scaled Composites team (one flight was piloted by
Virgin Galactic test pilot D. Mackay). Only short rocket burns had been
made and the highest apogee was only 22 km. On Oct 31, flight PF04 made
a short rocket burn of 9 seconds, at which point the co-pilot unlocked
the rotating tail booms, apparently by mistake; these were not intended
to be deployed at the then speed of around Mach 1.0 during
rocket-powered flight. The unlocked booms then accidentally deployed
('feathered'), followed by disintegration of the vehicle. The debris
fell near Koehn Lake in California, about 40 km NE of the takeoff
airport at Mojave. Pilot Pete Siebold parachuted to safety and was
hospitalized with serious injuries, but is now recovering at home;
co-pilot Mike Alsbury was killed in the crash. The second SS Two, S/N 02
'VSS Voyager', is under construction at Mojave.

The flights were:
Date Apogee Burn time(s) Pilots
km s
PF01 2013 Apr 29 1447UTC 17 16 Mark Stucky, Mike Alsbury
PF02 2013 Sep 5 1611UTC 22 20 Mark Stucky, Clint Nichols
PF03 2014 Jan 10 1600UTC? 21 20 David Mackay (VG), Mark Stucky
PF04 2014 Oct 31 1709UTC 16? 9? Pete Siebold, Mike Alsbury



Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches
----------------------------------

NASA 36.253US RAISE-2 was launched on Nov 6 to obtain time-resolved UV spectra
of solar active regions.

The FTM-25 missile defense test used an ARAV short range target with a separating
dummy warhead; probably an ARAV-B Terrier Oriole vehicle was used, or maybe an ARAV-A
Terrier Orion.


Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km

Oct 7 1310 SR-10 Sounding Rocket Jiupeng Ionosphere 286
Oct 12 0427 MDA Target? Terrier Lynx Wallops I Target? 150?
Oct 17 0708 FTX-20 MRBM-T3? Kauai Target 300?
Oct 23 1333 SL-9 SpaceLoft XL Spaceport America Micrograv 124
Oct 29 1727 RVs Bulava K-535, Barents Sea Test 1000?
Nov 1 0620 RV Topol'-M Plesetsk Test 1000?
Nov 5 RV Sineva K-114, Barents Sea Test 1000?
Nov 6 1907 RAISE 2 Black Brant IX White Sands Solar 300?
Nov 6 2203 FTM-25 Target Terrier Oriole? Kauai Target 150?
Nov 6 2206? Aegis KV SM-3-IB DDG-53, Pacific Interceptor 150?

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| Jonathan McDowell | |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail |
| USA | twitter: @planet4589 |
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