Jonathan's Space Report
No. 837 draft 2024 Aug 26 Somerville, MA
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International Space Station
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Expedition 71 continues. Crew are Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, Matthew
Dominick, Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps, Aleksandr Grebyonkin, Tracy
Dyson, Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams.
The Cygnus NG-21 cargo ship fired its engines for a 19 min, 1.1m/s ISS reboost burn on Aug 22.
The burn was scheduled at 1721 UTC.
The Progress MS-28 cargo ship fired its engines for a 18min, 2.0 m/s ISS reboost burn on Aug 28
and again on Sep 5 for a 13 min, 1.4m/s reboost.
Seven 1U cubesats were deployed from the JAXA J-SSOD No. 31 deployer on Aug 29 -
four of them from Japanese organizations (Sakura, Emma, Sagansat0, Wisseed Sat) and
three from Australia's Curtin University (Binar 2 to 4).
Starliner undocked from IDA-2 at 2204 UTC Sep 6, with no crew aboard. It performed
its deorbit burn at 0317 UTC Sep 7 and jettisoned the service module at 0318 UTC.
Starliner landed at White Sands Missile Range at 0401:35 UTC.
Soyuz MS-26 was launched on Sep 11 with astronauts Ovchinin, Vagner and Pettit.
It docked with the Rassvet module 3h later.
Starlink launches
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Starlink Group 8-6 (21 sats) was launched from Canaveral on Aug 28.
Starlink Group 8-10 (21 sats) was launched from Canaveral on Aug 31.
Starlink Group 9-5 (21 sats) was launched from Vandenberg on Aug 31.
Starlink Group 8-11 (21 sats) was launched from Canaveral on Sep 5.
Starlink Group 9-6 (21 sats) was launched from Vandenberg on Sep 13.
The first stage from Group 8-6, B1062.23, caught fire and was destroyed
shortly after landing on A Shortfall of Gravitas.
Transporter-11
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It has been confirmed that the GNA-3 satellite is owned by the Swedish defense research agency FOI.
The ION tug has released four Spire Global Lemur-2 satellites.
Gushenxing-1
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Galactic Energy (Xinhe Dongli) launched a Gushenxing-1 from the Dongfeng
Hangtiangang barge at about 123.2E 36.4N in the Yellow Sea on Aug 29 to
a sun sync orbit with 1330 local time descending node. The payloads
were three Yunyao-1 GNSS-RO meteorology satellites, the Jitianxing A-03
imaging satellite from Jitian Xingzhou Space Technology of Suzhou, the
Suxing 1-01 imaging satellite from Taicang Yangtze River Delta Research
Inst. and the Tianfu Gaofen 2 imaging satellite from Xiamen Tianwei Tech
Co Ltd.
SAST launches
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On Sep 3 SAST launched a CZ-4B with the second group of Yaogan 43 satellites. They are possibly
military comm satellites.
On Sep 5 SAST launched a CZ-6 with 10 autonomous-driving-support comm satellites for Geely.
Vega VV24
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Arianespace launched the final base-model Vega, flight VV24, on Sep 4, placing the Sentinel 2C
satellite in sun-sync orbit.
BepiColombo
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The BepiColombo probe made a 165 km altitude flyby of Mercury on Sep 4 at 2148 UTC. In its
passage through Mercury's gravitational sphere of influence from Sep 4 0441 UTC to Sep 5 1459 UTC
it changed its solar orbit from 0.31 x 0.58 AU x 5.8 deg to 0.31 x 0.47 AU x 4.3 deg.
Starshield
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The third Starshield launch, NROL-113, was launched by Falcon 9 on Sep 6.
Chinese spaceplane
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The Chinese spaceplane (possible X-37 analog) completed its third flight with a landing on Sep 6.
TLE analysis suggests landing at Lop Nor at circa 0110 UTC Sep 6.
Polaris Dawn
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Dragon Resilience (C207) has begun its third flight on a private mission, Polaris Dawn.
This was the second flight to be
funded by Jared Isaacman following the Inspiration 4 mission, which also used Resilience,
and the first in the Polaris Program.
Joining Isaacman as commander were Kidd Potteet (Mission Pilot) and
SpaceX engineers Anna Menon (MS and medical officer) and Sarah Gillis
(MS).
Polaris Dawn was launched on Falcon 9 from KSC on 2024 Sep 10 to an
elliptical 196 x 1200 km x 51.6 deg orbit. Early on Sep 11 the orbit
apogee was boosted to 1400 km, higher than that of Gemini XI, and at the
first post-burn apogee at 0111 UTC Sep 11 they achieved the highest
geocentric distance for humans since the flight of Apollo 17 in 1972.
Orbit lowering burns began around 1200 UTC Sep 11 to a 192 x 730 km orbit.
The Dragon cabin was depressurized at 1044 UTC Sep 12 for the first
spacewalk by private astronauts. The hatch was opened at 1049 UTC. The
airlock was depressurized below 5 kPA for 33m 25s, and the hatch was
open for 26m 40s. Isaacman ventured outside for 8 min then returned to
the cabin; then Gillis went outside for 7 min and returned. Poteet and
Menon remained in the cabin. Repressurization of the airlock began at
1116 UTC and was complete by 1154 UTC.
Dragon jettisoned its trunk at 0635 UTC Sep 15 and carried out the
deorbit burn at 0641 UTC. It splashed down in the Tortuga recovery area
at 83.0W 25.1N at 0737 UTC.
Chamran-1
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On Sep 14 the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps launched a Qaem-100 from Shahroud,
placing the 60 kg Chamran-1 satellite in orbit.
LDPE-2
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The LDPE-2 mission (2022-144) has deployed another classified satellite, USA 399, in a GEO drift orbit
with unknown parameters.
BlueBird
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On Sep 12 SpaceX launched five 1500 kg BlueBird direct-to-cell comms satellites for AST Space
Mobile. These are similar to the BlueWalker 3 test satellite launched in 2022.
Errata
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I missed Starlink Group 10-7 from the narrative in the last issue, and wrote EOS-07 instead of EOS-08.
Also, ZX-4A launch site was Wenchang.
The data in GCAT are correct.
Table of Recent Orbital Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. Catalog Perigee Apogee Incl Notes
Aug? USA 399 LDPE 2, GSO Unknown 22144K -
Aug 16 1856 Transporter-11 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Rideshare 149 590 x 595 x 97.8
Aug 20 1320 Starlink Group 10-5 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 150 284 x 297 x 53.2
Aug 22 1225 ZX-4A Chang Zheng 7A Wenchang Comms 151A 220 x 35790 x 14.6
Aug 26 Lemur-2 ION SCV012, LEO Met 149
Aug 27 Lemur-2 ION SCV012, LEO Met 149
Aug 28 0654 Starlink Group 8-6 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 152 283 x 298 x 53.2
Aug 28 Lemur-2 ION SCV012, LEO Met 149
Aug 29 0522 Yunyao-1 15 Gushenxing-1 DFHT, Yellow Sea Met 153 528 x 549 x 97.6
Yunyao-1 16 Met 153
Yunyao-1 17 Met 153
Jitianxing A-03 Imaging 153
Suxing 1-01 Imaging 153
Tianfu Gaofen 2 Imaging 153
Aug 29 0945 Sakura ISS, LEO Tech 98067WS
Emma Tech 98067WT
Sagansat0 Tech 98067WU
WisseedSat Tech 98067WV
Aug 29 1120 Binar-2 ISS, LEO Tech 98067WW
Binar-3 Tech 98067WX
Binar-4 Tech 98067WY
Aug 29 Lemur-2 ION SCV012, LEO Met 149
Aug 31 0743 Starlink Group 8-10 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 154 287 x 300 x 53.2
Aug 31 0848 Starlink Group 9-5 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 155 282 x 292 x 53.2
ep 3 0115 Yaogan 43-02 01 to 06 Chang Zheng 4B Xichang Comms? 156 489 x 501 x 35.0
Sep 4 0150 Sentinel 2C Vega CSG ELV Imaging 157A 776 x 780 x 98.6
Sep 5 1533 Starlink Group 8-11 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 158 288 x 302 x 53.2
Sep 5 1830 Geely Group 03 01 to 10 Chang Zheng 6 Taiyuan Comms 159 553 x 564 x 50.0
Sep 6 0320 Starshield Group 1-3 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 160 300?x300? x 70
Sep 10 0923 Polaris Dawn Falcon 9 Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 161A 196 x1400 x51.6
Sep 11 1623 Soyuz MS-26 Soyuz-2-1a Baykonur LC31 Spaceship 162A
Sep 12 0852 BlueBird 1 Falcon 9 Canaveral LC40 Comms 163A 505 x 522 x 53.0
BlueBird 2 Comms 163B
BlueBird 3 Comms 163C
BlueBird 4 Comms 163D
BlueBird 5 Comms 163E
Sep 13 0145 Starlink Group 9-6 Falcon 9 Vandenberg SLC4E Comms 164 288 x 298 x 53.2
Sep 14 0558? Chamran-1 Qaem-100 Shahroud Tech 165A 546 x 557 x 64.1
Table of Recent Suborbital Launches
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Blue Origin flew New Shepard flight NS-26 on Aug 29, with passengers Ephraim Rabin, Nicolina Elrick,
Eugene Grin, Robert Ferl, Karsen Kitchen and Eiman Jahangir becoming space travellers 699 to 704.
Date UT Payload Rocket Site Mission Apogee Target
Aug 13 1000 RockSat-X Terrer Imp. Mal. Wallops I. Education 164 Atlantic Ocean
Aug 26 0400 OAxFORTIS Black Brant 9 White Sands UV Astron 272 White Sands
Aug 29 1308 NS-26 New Shepard W Texas Priv.Sflt 104? W Texas
Sep 2 0941 BOLT-1B Black Brant VC Andoya Hypersonic 254 Norwegian Sea
Sep 3 1921 FURST Black Brant IX White Sands Solar UV 300? White Sands
Sep 6 Agni RV Agni 4 Chandipur Op. Test 600 Indian Ocean
Sep 15 0330 Warhead Toufan Yemen Weapon 300? Israel
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| Jonathan McDowell | |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail |
| USA | twitter: @planet4589 |
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