Jonathan's Space Report No. 539 2004 Nov 28, Somerville, MA. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Swift The Swift Gamma Ray Burst Explorer was launched at 1716 UTC on Nov 20 by a Boeing Delta 7320-10C from pad 17A at Cape Canaveral. Swift went into a 185 x 185 km x 28.5 deg parking orbit at 1720 UTC, the Delta restarted to enter a 181 x 618 km x 25.1 deg transfer orbit at 1742 UTC, and a third burn at 1827 UTC to reach the final 584 x 604 km x 20.6 deg orbit. Swift separated from the second stage at 1836 UTC, and the stage lowered its own orbit to 197 x 596 km x 19.5 deg to reduce its orbital lifetime. Gamma ray bursts - at least, most of them - occur in distant galaxies during a particular kind of supernova, and last only a few seconds. As the X-rays fade, the shockwave from the gamma-ray burst hits interstellar gas causing an optical 'afterglow'. The difficulty up to now has been that gamma-ray telescopes have fuzzy eyesight and only find rough positions for the bursts, making it hard to locate the much fainter optical-ultraviolet afterglow - by carrying both a wide-area search system and a high resolution followup telescope on the same spacecraft, Swift should fix this problem. Swift carries BAT, the Burst Alert Telescope, which is a coded-mask telescope working in the 15 to 150 keV hard-X-ray energy range with a cadmium-mercury-telluride detector. BAT can see ten percent of the sky at once, and when a gamma ray burst occurs will immediately trigger the satellite to point roughly at the site of the burst so that the XRT (X-ray Telescope), working in the lower 0.2-10 keV energy range (comparable to Chandra), and the 30-cm aperture UVOT (Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope), will catch the resulting light and can locate the burst more exactly. The accurate positions obtained by XRT and UVOT will also be flashed to astronomers worldwide, who will then rush to follow up the afterglow before it fades by using ground-based telescopes and other satellites. XRT and UVOT also take spectra to measure the glow's redshift and physical properties. Swift is a NASA Midex (medium-class Explorer) mission. It is the third to be launched, following IMAGE and WMAP, and the mission is led by NASA-Goddard's Neil Gehrels. * Shiyan-2 China launched another satellite on Nov 18; the Shiyan 2 satellite, developed by DFH Satellite Co., is a 300 kg remote sensing payload. It's not clear if it's the same design as the Harbin-developed Shiyan 1 launched in April. This is the 8th Chinese launch this year, a record for the country. Shiyan-2 is in a 694 x 711 km x 98.2 deg orbit; the CZ-2C final stage entered a more eccentric 705 x 913 km orbit. * GPS 61 The GPS SVN 61 satellite fired its apogee motor at around 0240 UTC on Nov 9 to leave its 159 x 20380 km x 39.1 deg transfer orbit and enter a 19794 x 20486 km x 54.9 deg orbit, which will be further trimmed as it enters the operational constellation. * Soyuz-2-1A Analysis of the small amount of information released about the Soyuz-2-1A rocket test flight, combined with informed guesses and unofficial suggestions about the likely Pacific impact point, leads me to believe that the rocket entered an orbit with an apogee between 150 and 250 km and a perigee between -100 and -200 km, and an inclination in the 50-52 degree range. My best guess is a -150 x 180 km x 51.8 deg orbit with reentry around 1855 UTC on Nov 8, 25 min after launch. * STS-114 Stacking of booster stack BI-124 with solid motors RSRM-90 on Mobile Launch Platform 1 has begun in High Bay 1 of the VAB. The redesigned External Tank ET-120 will be added after this is complete. Meanwhile work continues on orbiter OV-103 Discovery is in Orbiter Processing Facility bay 3. It will eventually be connected to the external tank in preparation for its launch into orbit, currently planned for May 2005. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Oct 14 0306 Soyuz TMA-5 Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1/5 Spaceship 40A Oct 14 2123 AMC 15 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 41A Oct 19 0120 FY-2C CZ-3A Xichang Weather 42A Oct 29 2211 Ekspress AM-1 Proton-K/DM-2M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 43A Nov 6 0310 ZY-2C CZ-4B Taiyuan Imaging 44A Nov 6 0539 GPS SVN 61 Delta 7925 Canaveral SLC17B Navigation 45A Nov 8 1830 Oblik Soyuz-2-1A Plesetsk LC43/4 Test U01 Nov 18 1045 Shiyan 2 CZ-2C Xichang Imaging 46A Nov 20 1716 Swift Delta 7320 Canaveral SLC17A Astronomy 47A .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Somerville MA 02143 | inter : jcm@host.planet4589.org | | USA | jcm@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html | | Back issues: http://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: mail majordomo@host.planet4589.org, (un)subscribe jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'