Jonathan's Space Report No. 545

Jonathan's Space Report
No. 545 2005 Mar 11, Somerville, MA
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Progress M-52
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The Russian Federal Space Agency has sent another robot cargo ship to
the Space Station. Progress vehicle 352 was launched at 1909 UTC on Feb
28 by a Soyuz-U rocket and entered orbit 9 minutes later becoming
Progress M-52. It is on ISS mission 17P to deliver supplies to the
International Space Station and docked with the Zvezda module at 2010
UTC on Mar 2.

Progress M-51 (vehicle 351) undocked from the Zvezda module at 1606 UTC
on Feb 27. It lowered its orbital perigee at around 1830 UTC and remained
in orbit for several days, with an engine firing dumping it in the
Pacific on Mar 9.

Expedition 10 crew Leroy Chiao and Salizan Sharipov remain aboard the
station with their Soyuz TMA-5 ferry ship docked to the Zarya port.
They are expected to be relieved in April by Expedition 11.

Inmarsat 4 F-1
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International Launch Services rocketed a Lockheed Martin Atlas V 431
into supersynchronous transfer orbit on March 11. The payload, Inmarsat
4 F-1, was placed in an orbit close to the planned 440 x 90500 km x 21
deg orbit; inclination will be reduced to near zero at apogee, and then
the orbit will be lowered and circularized to the 35780 km geostationary
altitude.

The Astrium Eurostar 3000 class satellite payload has a mass of 5940 kg
at launch, and spans 45 meters when its solar panels are deployed. It
will provide L-band mobile communications and wideband data transmission for
Inmarsat's global network.

Flight AV-004's Atlas V 431 model has three solid boosters, an Atlas V
CCB core booster, a single engine Centaur upper stage, and an extended
4-meter diameter payload fairing. This is the fifth Atlas V launch
following two Atlas V 401s and two Atlas V 521s, all of which have
launched commercial communications satellites. Three flights used the
supersynchronous orbit technique and two used the high-perigee transfer
orbit technique - both approaches save payload propellant compared to
the traditional geostationary transfer orbit. Below I show the
orbits reached by the Atlas V flights (thanks to Fran Slimmer for
the AV-004 parking orbit.) Unlike earlier Atlas vehicles which usually
used low circular parking orbits, the new vehicle has more energy at
first Centaur main engine cutoff (MECO-1), giving it a head start
on the way to higher orbit.

Date Flight Parking orbit Transfer orbit reached
km x km x deg km x km x deg
2002 Aug 21 AV-001 199 x 1482 x 27.4 304 x 45349 x 17.5
2003 May 14 AV-002 ? x ? x 27.0? 403 x 84651 x 17.0
2003 Jul 17 AV-003 167 x 4166 x 27.1 3815 x 35761 x 17.5
2004 Dec 17 AV-005 166 x 5239 x 27.2 4820 x 35717 x 18.0
2005 Mar 11 AV-004 185 x 2099 x 27.4 440 x 90500 x 20.8


MTSAT-1R
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Japan's H2A rocket returned to flight on Feb 26 with the successful
launch of MTSAT-1R. MTSAT-1R entered geostationary transfer orbit
and will be placed in geostationary orbit using its liquid apogee motor;
the first engine burn was made on Feb 27. The H2A second stage
made two burns to geostationary transfer orbit, and a third small test burn
after separating from MTSAT which raised the rocket stage's perigee
slightly. The launch restores some confidence in the troubled
JAXA (Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency); JAXA's next major
launch is the scientific Astro-E2 satellite on the M-V rocket.
The previous H2A launch in 2003 failed early in flight; an M-V flight
in 2000 carrying Astro-E1 also failed, but M-V worked well on the
2003 launch of the Hayabusa asteroid probe.

MTSAT-1R is an SS/L-1300 satellite built by Space Systems/Loral.
It will provide weather data for the Japanese Meteorological Agency
following on from the Himawari-GMS series, and air traffic control
support (airplane-ATC voice/data links, GPS augmentation and
airplane position tracking) for the Japanese Civil Aviation Bureau.

XM Radio 3
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XM-3 for XM Radio was launched into geostationary transfer orbit on Mar
1 by a Zenit-3SL rocket from the Sea Launch platform floating at the
equator. The DM-SL upper stage entered a 180 x 9452 km x 0 deg parking
orbit followed by a high-perigee 2491 x 35767 km x 0.1 deg geostationary
transfer orbit. The low inclination given by the equatorial sea launch
saves satellite apogee fuel - although this time the launch was delayed
several days because of rough seas. XM-3 is a 4700 kg Boeing 702
satellite. It will supplement XM's digital radio service currently
provided by XM-1 and XM-2.

NASA 40.17UE
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NASA Black Brant XII sounding rocket 40.17UE, carrying Dartmouth
College's CASCADES auroral research experiment, was launched from Poker
Flat, Alaska at 1037 UTC on Mar 6 but failed. The Talos and Terrier
solid-fuel boosters worked but the main Black Brant sustainer did not
ignite and it, the Nikha fourth stage and the five payloads reached an
apogee of only 29 km instead of the planned 800 km. Black Brant XII is
one of the highest performance sounding rockets in current use; its
(successful) payloads achieve 25 percent of the energy needed to reach
orbit, compared to 5 percent for a typical scientific sounding rocket.


Table of Recent Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission
INTL.

DES.

Feb 3 0227 AMC 12 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur PL81/24 Comms
03A
Feb 3 0741 USA 181 ) Atlas 3B Canaveral SLC36B Sigint
04A
USA 181 P/L 2 )
04C
Feb 12 2103 XTAR-EUR ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms
05A
Maqsat-B2 ) Tech
05D
SLOSHSAT ) Tech
05C
Feb 26 0925 MTSAT-1R H-2A Tanegashima Comms
06A
Feb 28 1909 Progress M-52 Soyuz-U Baykonur Cargo
07A
Mar 1 0351 XM Radio 3 Zenit-3SL Odyssey, PO Comms
08A
Mar 11 2142 Inmarsat 4 F-1 Atlas V 431 Canaveral SLC41 Comms
09A?

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--
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Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.info