Jonathan's Space Report, No. 589

Jonathan's Space Report
No. 589 2007 Dec 21, Somerville, MA
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Shuttle and Station
-------------------

The next launch is Shuttle mission STS-122, Station flight 1E, carrying
the European Columbus module to the Station. Launch will be no earlier
than 2008 Jan.

Peggy Whitson and Dan Tani made a spacewalk, US EVA-13, on Dec 18. The
Quest airlock was depressurized at about 0948 UTC and repressurized at
1646 UTC; the astronauts inspected the malfunctioning solar array
rotation joint and beta gimbal assembly.


Kosmos-2434
------------

A Globus communications satellite built by NPO PM for the Russian
Defense Ministry was launched on Dec 9 on a Proton-M/Briz-M and given
the cover name Kosmos-2434. Previous Globus satellites were given the
Raduga-1 cover name. The Briz-M probably entered an initial 173 x 173 km
orbit; it then reached a 273 x 4991 km x 49 deg intermediate orbit, and
next a 400 x 35815 km x 49 deg geostationary transfer orbit. By Dec 18
the payload was at 79.6E in a 35569 x 35956 km x 0.1 deg orbit. It's not
clear what happened to the Briz-M jettisonable propellant tank.

Cosmo 2
--------------

The second Italian military radar satellite in the Cosmo-Skymed system
was launched on Dec 9 by a Boeing Delta 7420-10. At second stage first
cutoff the orbit was 185 x 645 km x 97.8 deg; a second burn at 0325 UTC
put the satellite in a 620 x 637 km orbit.

Space Command is now calling the satellite Skymed 2, but the Boeing
launch booklet referred to it as Cosmo.

Radarsat 2
----------

Canada's Radarsat 2 satellite was launched on Dec 14 by a Russian
Soyuz-FG/Fregat into a 790 x 798 km x 98 deg orbit. The Soyuz third
stage was in a 169 x 206 km parking orbit and reentered later the
same day; the Fregat stage was deorbited after releasing Radarsat.


Erratum:
--------
In my discussion of the Delta 4 Heavy launch I inadvertently referred
to the upper stage as a Centaur. Although it uses a similar RL-10 family
rocket engine, the Delta 4 Second Stage is of course not a Centaur.

A source reports that the orbit of the Nanosat-2 satellite launched in
Dec 2004 on the first Delta 4 Heavy was 105 x 196 km x 27 deg.
Nanosat-2, which consisted of two small satellites which remained
attached to each other, is believed to have reentered less than one hour
after launch.

Yaogan 3
--------

As I reported previously, China's new radar satellite Yaogan 3 was
launched at 2248 UTC on Nov 11. The Yaogan 3 satellite originally
reached a 456 x 612 km x 97.9 deg orbit and separated from the third
stage at 2309 UTC on Nov 11. Although China announced that the rocket
had a new restart capability on the third stage, I can't tell if this
was used. At first apogee about 2315 UTC on Nov 11, Yaogan used its own onboard
engine to raise orbit to 613 x 623 km; on Nov 20 and 21 small adjustment
burns trimmed the orbit to 627 x 629 km.

EPOXI
-----------

The EPOXI (formerly Deep Impact) probe made a course correction on Nov 1
to set up for a Dec 31 Earth flyby, and an encounter with comet
103P/Hartley 2 on 2010 Oct 11, just before the comet reaches perihelion
at 1.06AU on 2010 Oct 28.

EPOXI will pass 15566 km over Australia at 1930 UTC on Dec 31. The flyby
will change its solar orbit from 0.98 x 1.64 AU x 0.7 deg to 0.91 x 1.09
AU x 4.2 deg.

NROL-24
-------

Atlas V mission AV-015 launched a classified satellite for the US
National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The payload for launch NROL-24 has
been given the cover name USA-198 and is thought to be
an SDS (Satellite Data System) data relay satellite used to relay
surveillance imagery and data from low altitude polar orbiting
NRO spacecraft.

The Centaur entered a low parking orbit and then a deployment orbit of
261 x 16776 km x 60.0 deg (according to visual observations reported by
independent sources). This compares with the 267 x 15379 km x 58.0 deg
deployment orbit of the previous mission in the series, USA 179. The
payload will use its own on-board propulsion to raise the orbit to
around 1000 x 39400 km x 63 deg.

Some observers speculated that the SBIRS HEO-2 infrared missile warning
package and the TWINS-B magnetospheric research package might also be
aboard, although I believe that next year's NROL-28 mission is a more
likely fit for these and for the third Interim Polar Adjunct
communications package.

The first generation SDS satellites were launched by Titan 34B/Agena D
rockets and deployed directly into 12-hour orbits. Here is a list of
more recent SDS HEO (highly elliptical orbit) satellites:

SDS HEO Launches
Parking orbit Deployment orbit

1989-61B USA 40 401 x 502 x 57.0 532 x 8135 x 57.0
1992-86B USA 89 364 x 380 x 57.0 372 x 7300?x 56.9
1996-38A USA 125 292 x 300 x 54.9 383 x 14072 x 55.4
1998-05A USA 137 (CAPRICORN) 191 x 795 x 62.5 Unknown
2004-34A USA 179 (NROL-1/NEMESIS) 191 x 400 x 58.4 267 x 15379 x 58.0
2007-60A USA 198 (NROL-24/SCORPIUS) 209 x 262 x 60.0 261 x 16776 x 60.0

Another constellation of NRO spacecraft uses a similar final orbit and
are thought to be primarily signals intelligence payloads associated
with the code-name TRUMPET. There were three such launches in 1994-1997.
A more recent launch may be related; USA 184 also carries the TWINS-A
and SBIRS HEO-1 payloads. NROL-28 is likely to be similar to USA-184.
Unlike the SDS launches, these flights deploy their payloads directly
into the 12-hour orbit.

1994-26A USA 103 200 x 200?x 57 1323 x 39035 x 64.4
1995-34A USA 112 245 x 255 x 56.1 Unknown
1997-68A USA 136 (+IPA-1?) 185 x 185 x 55.0 1098 x 39012 x 63.6

2006-27A USA 184 (NROL-22) 193 x 2215 x 62.5 1111 x 37594 x 62.4
(+TWINS-A/SBIRS-HEO-1/IPA-2?)
2008? USA ? (NROL-28 + TWINS-B/SBIRS-HEO-2/IPA-3?)


GPS 57
------

The Navstar Global Positioning System GPS space vehicle 57, the 18th
GPS IIR and 5th upgraded IIR-M, was launched from Cape Canaveral at 2004
UTC on Dec 20. It reached a preliminary 174 x 203 km x 37.5 deg parking
orbit at 2014 UTC and was delivered to elliptical transfer orbit at 2114 UTC.

Ariane L530
-----------

Arianespace launched Ariane 5GS vehicle L530 (flight V180) on Dec 21.
The EPC core stage reached a 30 x 1730 km x 7.3 deg orbit, reentering
on the first perigee. The EPS upper stage reached geostationary
transfer orbit and deployed two telecommunications satellites,
RASCOM-QAF-1 and Horizons 2.

RASCOM-QAF-1 is a Thales (Cannes) Spacebus 4000B3 with a hybrid Ku/C-band
payload for RascomStarQAF of Port Louis, Mauritius, a subsidiary of the
Regional African Satellite Communications Organization (RASCOM) based
in Cote d'Ivoire. The mission and satellite control centers are
in Cameroun and Libay; the satellite will provide voice, data and
internet in Africa.

Horizons 2 is an Orbital Star 2 Ku-band satellite for Horizons Satellite
Holdings LLC, a joint venture of Intelsat and the Japanese JSAT company.



Table of Recent (orbital) Launches
----------------------------------
Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
Nov 1 0051 SAR-Lupe 3 ) Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132/1 Radar 53A
AIS ) 53B
Nov 11 0150 DSP 23 Delta 4H Canaveral SLC37B Early Warn 54A
Nov 11 2248 Yaogan 3 Chang Zheng 4C Taiyuan Radar 55A
Nov 14 2206 Skynet 5B ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 56B
Star One C1 ) 56A
Nov 17 2239 Sirius 4 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 57A
Dec 9 0015 Kosmos-2434 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC81/24 Comms 58A
Dec 9 0231 Cosmo 2 Delta 7420-10 Vandenberg SLC2W Radar 59A
Dec 10 2205 USA 198 (NROL-24) Atlas V 401 Canaveral SLC41 Comms? 60A
Dec 14 1317 Radarsat-2 Soyuz-FG/Fregat Baykonur LC31 Radar 61A
Dec 20 2004 GPS 57 Delta 7925 Canaveral SLC17A Nav 62A?
Dec 21 2141 Rascom-QAF-1 ) Ariane 5GS Kourou ELA3 Comms 63A?
Horizons 2 ) Comms 63B?

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| Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : |
| USA | |
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