Jonathan's Space Report
No. 710 2015 Mar 20 Somerville, MA
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International Space Station
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On Mar 11 at 2244 UTC Soyuz TMA-14M undocked from the Poisk module with
Expedition 42 crewmembers Aleksandr Samokutyaev, Barry Wilmore and Elena
Serova. Expedition 43 then began under the command of Terry Virts, with
FE-3 Anton Shkaplerov and FE-4 Samantha Cristoforetti also aboard. The
crew will be rounded out later this month with Gennadiy Padalka,
Mikhail Kornienko and Scott Kelly who are preparing for launch on Soyuz
TMA-16M. Launch is currently scheduled for Mar 27.
Soyuz TMA-14M performed its deorbit burn at 0116 UTC Mar 12 and landed in
Kazakhstan at around 0208 UTC.
Soyuz TMA-15M is docked at Rassvet; Progress M-25M is docked at Pirs and
Progress M-26M at Zvezda.
DSCOVR
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I inadvertently omitted coverage of the DSCOVR launch from the last JSR.
The Deep Space Climate Observatory, DSCOVR, was launched on Feb 11 after
many years of gestation. Originally a NASA mission called Triana and
centered around its Earth observation camera, it had at one point been
scheduled for launch on the fatal STS-107 flight of Columbia, but was
cancelled amid political controversy (it grew out of an idea by
Vice-President Gore for whole-Earth imaging to raise eco-awareness) and
placed in storage. The mission was reactivated as part of a NOAA (US
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) effort to monitor
`space weather', the flux of particles and radiation in the solar wind
and its interaction with the Earth's outer atmosphere.
DSCOVR is a 425 kg vehicle with an additional 145 kg of hydrazine
propellant, and will be stationed at the Earth-Sun L1 point, 1.5 million
km noonward from Earth. It carries a Faraday cup instrument to measure
solar wind speed, an electron spectrometer and a magnetometer to measure
local plasma and fields, as well as a broad band (0.2 to 100 microns)
radiometer to measure the Earth's total energy output and the Earth
Polychomatic Imaging Camera to return images of the full Earth disk.
DSCOVR was launched on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral into a 184 x 186
km x 37 deg parking orbit; 30 min after launch the Falcon 9 second stage
restarted to boost DSCOVR into a 187 x 1371156 km x 37 deg transfer
orbit. When the probe reaches the L1 point it will enter a Lissajous
orbit, tracing out a complex pattern around the gravitationally stable
balance point. Radius of this pattern will initially be around 250000
km.
I haven't obtained any orbital ephemeris data yet for DSCOVR, but today a colleague
showed me some of the first science data to arrive. Congrats to the DSCOVR team.
MMS
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NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission was launched on Mar 13. The
mission consists of four identical spacecraft, each with a mass of 1000
kg plus 400 kg of propellant. The spacecraft will fly in a tetrahedral
formation some tens of kilometres apart to disentangle spatial and
temporal fluctuations in the magnetospheric particle and field
environment. They will deploy wire booms with a span of 112 metres
to measure electric fields.
Use for formation-flying groups of spacecraft to study the magnetosphere
began with Penn State's suborbital 'Mother-Daughter' payload NASA 8.28UI
in Jan 1965. Early projects to use multiple widely separated satellite
platforms for simultaneous magnetosphere measurements included the USSR
2D project (Elektron 1/2 and 3/4) in 1964 and NASA's Interplanetary
Monitoring Platforms A to J in the 1960s and 1970s. The first close pair
of magnetosphere probes was the NASA ISEE-1 and ESA ISEE-2, launched on
the same rocket in Oct 1977. followed by the Interkosmos AUOS-Z/Czech
Magion pair launched in 1978. Further AUOS-Z/Magion pairs were succeeded
by the Interbol/Magion missions of 1995 and 1996. ESA's Cluster II
mission which began in 2000 and continues in operation today introduced
the 4-spacecraft tetrahedron approach that is being used by MMS. (Cluster I's
quartet ended up in the Kourou swamp as a result of the first Ariane 5's
ill-advised attempt to fly sideways.). The NASA/UC Berkely Themis mission
used five spacecraft in disparate orbits; three remain operating around Earth while
two have been reassigned to the ARTEMIS mission and are orbiting the Moon.
Operational high Earth orbit magnetospheric observatories
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Launch Date Current Orbit Operator Program
km x km x deg
Geotail 1992 Jul 24 48970 x 191278 x 8.5 JAXA/ISAS ISTP/GGS
Cluster II FM5/C1 "Rumba" 2000 Aug 9 22016 x 110774 x 135.6 ESA ESA CS
Cluster II FM6/C2 "Salsa" 2000 Jul 16 23452 x 109230 x 132.9 ESA ESA CS
Cluster II FM7/C3 "Samba" 2000 Jul 16 22536 x 109702 x 132.8 ESA ESA CS
Cluster II FM8/C4 "Tango" 2000 Aug 9 19254 x 113536 x 132.0 ESA ESA CS
THEMIS A/P5 2007 Feb 17 802 x 70805 x 13.4 NASA/UCB NASA MIDEX
THEMIS D/P3 2007 Feb 17 855 x 70723 x 8.3 NASA/UCB NASA MIDEX
THEMIS E/P4 2007 Feb 17 852 x 70721 x 9.2 NASA/UCB NASA MIDEX
TWINS-A 2006 Jun 28 1285 x 39065 x 63.7 NRO/SWRI NASA MOppEX
TWINS-B 2008 Mar 13 1614 x 38739 x 63.1 NRO/SWRI NASA MOppEX
Van Allen Probe A 2012 Aug 30 582 x 30515 x 9.8 NASA/APL NASA LWS
Van Allen Probe B 2012 Aug 30 591 x 30672 x 9.8 NASA/APL NASA LWS
MMS 1 2015 Mar 13 556 x 70139 x 28.9 NASA/LASP-CU NASA STP
MMS 2 2015 Mar 13 551 x 70158 x 28.9 NASA/LASP-CU NASA STP
MMS 3 2015 Mar 13 551 x 70180 x 28.8 NASA/LASP-CU NASA STP
MMS 4 2015 Mar 13 552 x 70198 x 28.8 NASA/LASP-CU NASA STP
WIND 1994 Nov 1 Earth-Sun L1 NASA-GSFC NASA GGS
ACE 1997 Aug 25 Earth-Sun L1 NASA-GSFC NASA MIDEX
DSCOVR 2015 Feb 11 En route to Earth-Sun L1 NOAA NOAA
Ekspress AM-7
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A new Ekspress satellite for Russia's Kosmicheskaya Svyaz (Space Comms.
Co.) was launched on Mar 18. It is a Eurostar 3000 built by
AirbusDS/Toulouse and had a launch mass of 5700 kg.
Dawn
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The Dawn probe flew past Ceres at 1900 UTC Feb 23 at an altitude of
38000 km; after several more days of ion engine thrust it was captured
into orbit around Ceres at 1239 UTC Mar 6, at a distance of 61000 km.
Dawn reached an apocereal height of 75000 km on Mar 18 and then began to
descend towards its initial science orbit; scheduled orbit for Mar 20
was around 13000 x 76000 km x 31 deg.
RRTV-SM
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China's Phase 3 Lunar Program's Reentry Return Test Vehicle Service Module
continues operations in lunar orbit. From Mar 3 to Mar 7 it simulated rendezvous
and docking with an ascent vehicle, maneuvering in a 18 x 180 km orbit.
Zwicky's pellets
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On 1957 Oct 17 at 0505 UTC the US Air Force launched a sounding rocket,
Aerobee USAF-88, from Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico to an apogee of
114 km.
The ejected rocket nose cap carried three explosive devices (loosely, 'grenades')
which were detonated at about 80 km altitude. Charge A, built by Thomas Poulter
of Stanford, was expected to accelerate about 0.1 gram of material to very
high velocities of order 14 km/s; Charge B, developed by John Rinehart of Smithsonian
Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in collaboration with Poulter, was designed to
accelerate a slightly higher mass of particles to somewhat lower speed; Charge C,
built by Fritz Zwicky of CalTech, used an iron oxide/aluminium thermite mixture
that was intended to accelerate self-luminous material to velocities above 11 km/s.
In the event two meteor trails were seen emanating from the explosion of the
nose cone. Zwicky claimed that his pellet had reached Earth escape velocity
and gone into orbit around the Sun (Engineering and Science, Jan 1958, p 20).
This claim is often repeated uncritically, most recently in a fun article by
Nick D'Alto in Smithsonian's Air and Space magazine:
http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-pl...objects-escape-earths-gravity-180954622/The article prompted me to look more deeply into the story, of which I've always been
a bit skeptical.
Zwicky was a genius. We revere him in astronomy because so many of his
crazy ideas - like dark matter - turned out to be right - but not all of
them. He is famous for many things, but from what I've heard, accepting
that he might be wrong about something wasn't one of them.
He never published a science paper on the pellet experiment. The only
serious analysis I've seen is by R. McCrosky of SAO (Observations of
Simulated Meteors, Smithsonian Contributions to Astrophysics, 5, 29
(1961) which can be found at
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1961SCoA....5...29M indicates that the
observed meteor trails were from charges A and B, which were not
self-luminous and so would only glow as they reentered the atmosphere
heading down and burning up. A's speed was measured at 14.4 km/s
(Earth-relative) while B's was in the range of 5 to 9 km/s. McCrosky
doesn't say so explicitly, but the implication is that Zwicky's grenade
didn't work.
We may conclude that Poulter's Charge A pellet, with a mass around 0.1
grams, was (briefly) the first artifact to reach escape speed - but not
escape velocity (i.e. it was going in the wrong direction). I really
wanted the story of Zwicky's solar orbit pellets to be true, but it
doesn't look good. Maybe McCrosky's analysis was wrong - I'm going to
check if the relevant tracking plates are in the Harvard Plate Stacks
but I doubt it, the plates from the NMSU ballistic cameras would
probably have stayed in McCrosky's possession and I expect that they no longer
exist. Without being able to check the raw data, it is reasonable to
assume McCrosky's analysis is at least roughly correct.
I conclude that Zwicky's claim is unlikely to be true and, sadly, should not be
accepted as historical fact.
There were more artificial meteor experiments in the 1960s and 1970s, with pellets
smashed down into the atmosphere at super-escape-speeds. In the 1960s the use of grenades
to create shock waves used to measure upper atmosphere temperatures and wind speeds
was common, but I don't think they would have had the energy to accelerate material
to escape speeds.
Table of Recent (orbital) Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. Catalog Perigee Apogee Incl Notes
km km deg
Feb 1 0121 IGS Radar Spare H-IIA 202 Tanegashima Radar Imager 04A S40381 490 x 511 x 97.5
Feb 1 1231 Inmarsat 5F2 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 05A S40384 4366 x 64968 x 26.8
Feb 2 0850? Fajr Safir Semnan Imaging 06A S40387 224 x 469 x 55.5
Feb 5 1250? AESP-14 - Kibo RMS, ISS Tech 98-67FM S40389 397 x 405 x 51.6
Feb 11 1340 IXV ) Vega Kourou ZLV Reentry Test U01 A08334 76 x 416 x 5.4
AVUM VV04 ) Tech U01 A08335 220 x 430 x 5.4
Feb 11 2303 DSCOVR Falcon 9 v1.1 Canaveral SLC40 Space sci 07A S40390 187 x1371156 x 33.1
Feb 17 1100 Progress M-26M Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1/5 Cargo 08A S40392 186 x 237 x 51.6 Docked ISS
Feb 27 1101 Kosmos-2503 Soyuz-2-1A Plesetsk LC43/4 Imaging 09A S40420 327 x 539 x 97.6 0245LT
Feb 27 1430 Flock 1b-27 ) ISS Kibo, LEO Imaging 98-67FN S40422 396 x 404 x 51.7
Flock 1b-28 ) Imaging 98-67FP S40423 396 x 404 x 51.7
Mar 2 0125 Flock 1b-21 ) ISS Kibo, LEO Imaging 98-67FQ S40427 395 x 402 x 51.7
Flock 1b-22 ) Imaging 98-67FR S40428 395 x 402 x 51.7
Mar 2 0350 ABS-3A ) Falcon 9 v1.1 Canaveral SLC40 Comms 10A S40424 358 x 63319 x 24.8
Eutel.115 West B ) Comms 10B S40425 360 x 63379 x 24.8
Mar 2 0845 Flock 1b-9 ) ISS Kibo, LEO Imaging 98-67FS S40429 392 x 407 x 51.6
Flock 1b-10 ) Imaging 98-67FT S40430 398 x 413 x 51.6
Mar 3 0300 Flock 1d'-1 ) ISS Kibo, LEO Imaging 98-67FU S40451 393 x 405 x 51.6
Flock 1d'-2 ) Imaging 98-67FV S40452 393 x 406 x 51.6
Mar 3 1050 Flock 1b-5 ) ISS Kibo, LEO Imaging 98-67FW S40453 394 x 407 x 51.6
Flock 1b-6 ) Imaging 98-67FX S40454 392 x 407 x 51.6
Mar 4 0120 TechEdSat-4 ) ISS Kibo, LEO Tech 98-67FY S40455 393 x 402 x 51.6
GEARRSat ) Comms 98-67FZ S40456 395 x 404 x 51.6
Mar 4 0830 MicroMAS ) ISS Kibo, LEO Sci 98-67GA S40457 393 x 406 x 51.6
LambdaSat ) Tech/Comms 98-67GB S40458 393 x 405 x 51.6
Mar 5 0145 Flock 1b-11 ) ISS Kibo, LEO Imaging 98-67GC S40459 395 x 405 x 51.6
Flock 1b-12 ) Imaging 98-67GD S40460 395 x 405 x 51.6
Mar 13 0244 MMS 1 ) Atlas V 421 Canaveral SLC41 Sci 11A S40482 559 x 70130 x 28.9
MMS 2 ) Sci 11B S40483 554 x 70159 x 28.9
MMS 3 ) Sci 11C S40484 554 x 70174 x 28.9
MMS 4 ) Sci 11D S40485 554 x 70190 x 28.9
Mar 18 2205 Ekspress AM-7 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 12A S40505 5406 x 35752 x 19.9
Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches
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Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km
Feb 19 2206 ICI-4 VS-30/Imp. Orion Andoya Aurora 365
Feb 22 0752 Cryofenix VSB-30 Kiruna Tech 265
Feb 22 USN RV ) Trident II D-5 SSBN, Pacific Test 1000?
USN RV )
USN RV )
USN RV )
Feb 22 USN RV ) Trident II D-5 SSBN, Pacific Test 1000?
USN RV )
USN RV )
USN RV )
Feb 24 0730 FTX-19 Target Terrier Oriole Wallops I Target 150?
Feb 24 0730 FTX-19 Target Terrier Oriole Wallops I Target 150?
Feb 24 0730 FTX-19 Target Terrier Oriole Wallops I Target 150?
Feb 25 1226 NASA 36.299DR Black Brant IX White Sands Ionosphere 300?
Mar 1 2133 RV Hwasong 6? Nampo, N Korea Test 134
Mar 1 2141 RV Hwasong 6? Nampo, N Korea Test 134
Mar 5 0144 WADIS 2 VS-30 Andoya Atm.Sci 126
Mar 9 RV Shaheen 3 Somniani? Test 500?
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| Jonathan McDowell | |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail |
| USA | twitter: @planet4589 |
| |
