[extropy-chat] FWD [UASR] Jonathan's Space Report, No. 548

Terry W. Colvin fortean1 at mindspring.com
Thu Jun 16 22:46:43 UTC 2005


[Note: Unknown if this is of interest to people on the lists, gives subscription
information at the end.  -Terry]


Jonathan's Space Report
No. 548                                            2005 Jun 15,  
Somerville, MA
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Space Station
-------------

Discovery was rolled back out to the pad on Jun 15 with its new
ET-121 external tank and RSRM-92 solid boosters. Launch is scheduled
for July.

NOAA 18
-------

A new NOAA POES (Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellite) weather
satellite was launched on May 20 at 1022 UTC. The 1442 kg NOAA-N
satellite, built by Lockheed Martin using the Advanced Tiros-N bus,
became NOAA 18 after reaching orbit. NOAA, the National Oceanographic
and Atmospheric Administration, is the US weather agency. Earlier NOAA
satellites were launched by surplus Atlas E and Titan II missiles, but
these have now been retired and so a Boeing Delta 7320 was used for this
mission. The satellite entered a 846 x 866 km x 98.8 deg orbit. It
carries weather imagers, microwave sensors, particle detectors, an
infrared sounder, and the SARSAT-10 search and rescue transponder.


DirecTV 8
---------

DirecTV 8 was launched on May 22 by International Launch Services aboard
a Krunichev Proton-M/Briz-M from Baykonur. The satellite carries Ka-band
and Ku-band communications payloads for US domestic television
broadcasting. By June 2, DirecTV 8 was in a 35772 x 35792 km x 0.1 deg
orbit drifting over 102.9W towards its 101W location where it will
join DirecTV 1/1R, 2, and 4S.

DirecTV satellites launched so far:
  DirecTV 1   1993 Dec 18   Hughes HS-601          GEO 101.1W
  DirecTV 2   1994 Aug  3   Hughes HS-601          GEO 100.8W
  DirecTV 3   1995 Jun 10   Hughes HS-601          GEO  91.1W
  DirecTV 6   1997 Apr  7   Loral LS-1300          GEO 109.8W
  DirecTV 1R  1999 Nov  9   Hughes HS-601HP        GEO 100.9W
  DirecTV 4S  2001 Nov 27   Boeing BSS-601HP       GEO 101.1W
  DirecTV 5   2002 May  7   Loral LS-1300          GEO  72.5W
  DirecTV 7S  2004 May  4   Loral LS-1300          GEO 119.1W
  DirecTV 8   2005 May 22   Loral LS-1300          GEO 102.9W drifting

DirecTV also owns the Spaceway 1 satellite launched in April, now
in a 28255 x 43325 km x 0.2 deg orbit. It reached a 26062 x 45473 km
orbit with 24 hr period on May 11 and since then has been making small
maneuvers to decrease eccentricity, possibly using its XIPS-25 electric
propulsion system.

Foton
-----

The second Foton-M satellite was launched on May 31. The Foton
satellites, built by TsSKB-Progress in Samara, are modified versions of
the Vostok/Zenit design and have a recoverable spherical pressurized
module used for microgravity and life science experiments. A lot of the
capacity on this flight is taken up with European Space Agency
experiments, including an exterior 2 kg reentry capsule called Fotino
which will separate during reentry on Jun 16 and  land uprange.

This is the first Foton launch from Baykonur and it entered a 258 x 291
km x 63.0 deg orbit. The first 12 Foton satellites were launched from
Plesetsk into more eccentric 215 x 350-390 km x 62.8 deg orbits;  they
were followed by launch of Foton-M No. 1 from Plesetsk on 2002 Oct 15,
which failed seconds after launch falling back on the pad and causing
one fatality.


HAMSAT
------

AMSAT-VU's HAMSAT has been assigned an international OSCAR amateur  
satellite number: it is VO-52 (VUSat-Oscar 52). (AMSAT-VU is the Indian
branch of AMSAT, and VU is the international amateur callsign prefix for India.)

Cassini
-------

Cassini made another pass through the inner Saturnian system on Jun 8
with a 156400 km periapsis at 1037 UTC. On this pass, there were distant
encounters with the small moons Calypso (Saturn XIV) and Pallene (Saturn  
XXIII).
Cassini has already made a lot of close approaches to Saturnian moons,
not all of which involved science observations.

Here are Saturnian moon encounters to date within 120000 km (for
non-science encounters, I calculated the approaches from JPL Horizons,
and these may be off by 20000 km or more because of inconsistent
trajectory data - best I can do right now. Horizons doesn't have any
Pallene ephemeris data so I don't know how close that approach was, and
for the same reason I don't have a time for the Polydeuces pass.)

Encounter time UTC  Moon      Height above surface

1979 Sep  1 1452    Janus         2500 km  Pioneer-11
1979 Sep  1 1620    Mimas       103000 km  Pioneer-11
1980 Nov 12 0540    Titan         3915 km  Voyager-1
1980 Nov 12 0621    Rhea         73216 km  Voyager-1
1980 Nov 13 0142    Mimas        88231 km  Voyager-1
1981 Aug 26 0345?   Enceladus    86754 km  Voyager-2
1981 Aug 26 0612?   Tethys       92474 km  Voyager-2

Cassini

2004 Jun 11 1903    Phoebe        2068 km
2004 Jun 30 2227    Calypso      52080 km
2004 Jul  1 0031    Mimas        76400 km
2004 Jul  1 0117    Pandora      89850 km
2004 Jul  1 0152    Janus        67800 km
2004 Jul  1 0358    Prometheus  107400 km
2004 Oct 26 1530    Titan         1174 km  Ta
2004 Dec 13 1138    Titan         1200 km  Tb
2004 Dec 15 0144    Dione        72500 km
2004 Dec 15 0501    Mimas       107500 km
2005 Jan  1 0137    Iapetus     123400 km
2005 Jan 14 1112    Titan        60000 km  Tc
2005 Jan 16 0608    Mimas       108000 km
2005 Feb 15 0658    Titan         1577 km  T3
2005 Feb 16 2304    Pandora     102600 km
2005 Feb 17         Polydeuces    6189 km
2005 Feb 17 0011    Epimetheus   73500 km
2005 Feb 17 0024    Atlas         6170 km
2005 Feb 17 0330    Enceladus     1176 km  E03
2005 Mar  9 0434    Helene       74500 km
2005 Mar  9 0908    Enceladus      504 km  E04
2005 Mar  9 1129    Atlas        73800 km
2005 Mar  9 1155    Tethys       82500 km
2005 Mar 29 1847    Tethys      109200 km
2005 Mar 29 2034    Enceladus    55600 km
2005 Mar 29 2202    Atlas        97400 km
2005 Mar 29 2325    Epimetheus   62100 km
2005 Mar 31 2005    Titan         2402 km  T4
2005 Apr 15 0015    Epimetheus   46000 km
2005 Apr 15 0126    Mimas        82600 km
2005 Apr 15 0422    Calypso      70470 km
2005 Apr 16 1911    Titan         1025 km  T5 (06TI)
2005 May  2 1920    Helene      114200 km
2005 May  2 2148    Tethys       51800 km
2005 May  2 2303    Epimetheus  118500 km
2005 May 21 0630    Atlas        99700 km
2005 May 21 0648    Prometheus  107400 km
2005 May 21 0815    Enceladus   102100 km
2005 Jun  8 1025    Calypso      97810 km
2005 Jun  8?        Pallene      Unknown

Cassini has more flybys of Titan, Enceladus and Mimas lined up in the  
coming
months.

Table of Recent Launches
-----------------------

Date UT        Name               Launch Vehicle      Site/Mission          INTL. DES.
Apr 11 1335   XSS-11            Minotaur              Vandenberg SLC8   Tech        11A
Apr 12 1200   Apstar 6          CZ-3B                 Xichang                  Comms     12A
Apr 15 0046  Soyuz TMA-6  Soyuz-FG             Baykonur LC1         Spaceship 13A
Apr 15 1726   DART              Pegasus XL/HAPS Vandenberg            Tech        14A
Apr 26 0731   Spaceway 1      Zenit-3SL            Odyssey                 Comms     15A
Apr 30 0050   USA 182?       Titan 4B               Canaveral SLC40    Radar?    16A
May  5 0445   Cartosat )        PSLV                    SDLC SLP               Imaging   17A
                      HAMSAT   )                                                              Comms      17B
May 20 1022  NOAA 18         Delta 7320           Vandenberg SLC2W  Weather 18A
May 22 1759  DirecTV 8        Proton-M/Briz      Baykonur LC200/39  Comms    19A
May 31 1200   Foton-M No. 2  Soyuz-U               Baykonur LC1           Micrograv 20A

.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------.
|  Jonathan McDowell                 |  phone : (617) 495-7176                        |
|  Somerville MA 02143              |  inter : jcm at host.planet4589.org           |
|  USA                                       |  jcm at cfa.harvard.edu                            |
|                                                                                                              |
| JSR: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html                                               |
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-- 

"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
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