Jonathan's Space Report
No. 607                                             2009 Mar 2  Somerville, MA
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Shuttle and Station
--------------------

The Expedition 18 crew of Michael Fincke, Yuriy Lonchakov and Sandra Magnus
continue work on board ISS.  Progress M-66 is docked to the Pirs module.

OCO
---

NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory mission has failed. Launch from
Vandenberg was on Feb 24, but the Taurus XL's payload fairing failed
to separate. It is believed that the rocket and payload crashed
near the Antarctic.

Dawn
----

En route to the asteroid belt, the Dawn space probe has flown past Mars.
Closest approach of 543 km at a Mars-relative velocity of 5.31 km/s was
at 0028 UTC (SCET) on 2009 Feb 18. Dawn's hyperbolic orbit relative
to the Mars equator was about 543 x -20665 km x 119.5 deg; its solar
ecliptic orbit was changed from 1.22 x 1.68 AU x 1.8 deg to 1.37 x
1.84 AU x 6.1 deg. Dawn entered Mars' nominal gravitional sphere of
influence at 2009 Feb 15 1200 UTC and left it at Feb 20 1300 UTC.
Dawn's next appointment is its arrival in Vesta orbit during 2011 Sep.

I encourage readers to check out Marc Rayman's entertaining Dawn Journal
at http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/journal.asp

Satellite collision
-------------------

The first debris objects from Kosmos-2251 and Iridium 33 have been cataloged.
As of Mar 2, 128 Iridium and 274 Kosmos pieces were in the catalog.

Iranian satellite launch time
-----------------------------

Phillip Clark's Worldwide Satellite Launches newsletter quotes
a translation of an interview with a scientist connected to the Omid project,
giving the launch time of Omid as 2206 Iran time, which is 1836 UTC.
This is two minutes later than the time I estimated in the last issue.

Telstar 11N
-----------

Space International Services of Moscow launched a 'Land Launch'
Zenit-3SLB rocket from Baykonur with the Telstar 11N satellite on board.
The Blok DM-SLB third stage made three burns, from a -2268 x 373 km x
51.4 deg initial state to a 175 x 651 km x 51.4 deg parking orbit, a 202
x 35575 km x 50.7 deg intermediate orbit, and a planned 1494 x 35797 km
x 34.6 deg deployment orbit. The Telstar 11N then used its own
engine to raise its orbit to 6415 x 35803 km x 17.7 deg on the way to GEO.

Telstar 11N is owned by Telesat, which is based in Ottawa. Although
it is probably operated by Telesat's Bedminster, New Jersey office which is
the corporate successor to the original AT&T Telstar satellite operation,
it seems that it should be counted as a Canadian-owned satellite.


North Korean satellites
-----------------------

The Korean Committee of Space Technology of the Choson Minjujuui Inmin
Konghwaguk (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) has announced the
planned launch of the Kwangmyongsong-2 satellite. Kwangmyongsong-1 was
launched in 1998 Aug but failed to reach orbit, despite North Korean
claims to the contrary. The new satellite will use a rocket called
Unha-2 ("Galaxy-2"). The 1998 rocket was the Paektusan-1 (using the
McCune-Reischauer transliteration scheme; Taepo-Dong was a name assigned
by US intelligence and is not the North Korean name of the rocket). 
Wikipedia tells me that Paektusan ("White-headed mountain", also called
Baekdu or Baitoushan) is the tallest mountain in Korea.

The new statement reveals that the name of the launch site is the
Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground. The site, in Hwadae county of
Hamgyong Pukdo province, is near Cape Musu-dan and was previously
referred to in Western analysis as Musudan-ri. The KCST itself is an
organization I haven't heard referred to before - it is either newly
formed, or more probably, its existence is newly declassified by the
North Koreans. (I'm not sure what the Korean name for it would be -
something like Choson Wiwonhoe Uju Kisul perhaps? I hope Korean-speaking
readers can help out here.)

The Paektusan-1 uses as its first stage a North-Korean-modified R-17
(Scud) derived missile whose US intelligence designation is Nodong. We
still don't know its true name, so I'll continue calling it Nodong, 
which is the name of a village near Tonghae and also means 'worker'.
(In McCune-R it's probably written Rodong, but the Nodong name has stuck.)

Another large rocket was launched on 2006 Jul 4; in the west it is
called Taepodong 2 (TD-2). It's conceivable that this is the Unha-1, but
I'll resist the temptation to rename it at this stage. Although the
TD-2 is usually thought to be a new family of first stage, I am not convinced
of this and think it may be another Nodong-series vehicle like Paektusan
and like the Iranian Safir. I expect the same to be true of Unha-2;
we may soon find out.


Kosmos-2445
-----------

Kosmos-2445, a Russian Defense Ministry  reconnaissance satellite
(possibly designated 11F695U Kobal't-M), landed on Feb 23 after 101 days
in space. Two debris objects separated on Feb 23 around 1330 UTC;
they reentered within a day. The main spacecraft was probably deorbited
around 1540-1550 UTC and landed around 1615 UTC.

Raduga-1
--------

A Russian military communications satellite in the Globus series
(cover name Raduga-1) was launched on Feb 28 by a Khrunichev Proton-K
with an Energiya DM-2 upper stage. The previous launch in the series
was a modified Raduga-1M launched with the more modern Proton-M/Briz-M
rocket; the use of the older rocket suggests that this one is indeed just
a Raduga-1 and not a Raduga-1M. The new Raduga-1 was in geosynchronous
orbit in the 90 E region late on Feb 28.


Chang'e-1
---------

China's lunar probe, Chang'e-1, was deorbited at 0736 UTC on Mar 1 and
impacted the lunar surface at 1.50S 52.36E at 0813 UTC. The impact site
in Mare Fecunditatis is south-east of the crater Taruntius P and west of
the Luna-16 landing site.



Table of Recent (orbital) Launches
----------------------------------
Date UT       Name            Launch Vehicle  Site            Mission    INTL.  
                                                                          DES.
Jan 18 0247   USA 202 (NROL-26) Delta 4H         Canaveral SLC37B  Sigint    01A
Jan 23 0354   Ibuki      )      H-IIA 202        Tanegashima       Rem.Sens. 02A
              SDS-1      )                                         Tech      02C
              SOHLA-1    )                                         Imaging   02
              SpriteSat  )                                         Science   02
              Kagayaki   )                                         Tech      02
              KKS 1      )                                         Imaging   02
              Kukai      )                                         Tech      02G
              PRISM      )                                         Imaging   02B
Jan 30 1330   Koronas-Foton     Tsiklon-3        Plesetsk         Solar phys 03A
Feb  2 1836   Omid              Safir            (Iran)            Test      04A  
Feb  6 1022   NOAA 19           Delta 7320-10C   Vandenberg SLC2W  Weather   05A
Feb 10 0549   Progress M-66     Soyuz-U          Baykonur LC31     Cargo     06A
Feb 11 0003   Ekspress AM-44 )  Proton-M/Briz-M  Baykonur LC200/39 Comms     07A
              Ekspress MD-1  )                                     Comms     07B
Feb 12 2209   Hot Bird 10 )     Ariane 5ECA      Kourou ELA3       Comms     08B
              NSS 9       )                                        Comms     08A
              Spirale A   )                                       Early Warn 08C
              Spirale B   )                                       Early Warn 08D
Feb 24 0955   OCO               Taurus           Vandenberg 576E   Sci       F01
Feb 26 1830   Telstar 11N       Zenit-3SLB       Baykonur LC45     Comms     09A
Feb 28 0410   Raduga-1          Proton-K/DM2     Baykonur LC81/24  Comms     10A

Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches
----------------------------------

Date UT     Payload/Flt Name  Launch Vehicle  Site            Mission    Apogee/km
Dec 23 0300   RV x 3?         Bulava          TK-208, Barents R&D          100?
Jan 10 2317   NASA 30.073UO   Imp. Orion      Poker Flat      Ionosphere    98
Jan 26 0015   S-310-39        S-310           Andoya          Atmosphere   140?
Jan 29 0949   NASA 36.242UE   Black Brant IX  Poker Flat      Aurora       364
Jan 29 0951   NASA 21.139UE   Black Brant VC  Poker Flat      Aurora       133
Feb 18 0952   NASA 41.076     Terrier Orion   Poker Flat      Atmosphere   130?
Feb 18 1029   NASA 41.078     Terrier Orion   Poker Flat      Atmosphere   130?
Feb 18 1059   NASA 41.079     Terrier Orion   Poker Flat      Atmosphere   130?
Feb 18 1147   NASA 41.077     Terrier Orion   Poker Flat      Atmosphere   130?
Feb?          USN Mk 5 RV x 8? Trident D-5    SSBN, WTR       Test        1000?
Feb 13        USN Mk 5 RV x 8? Trident D-5    SSBN 731, WTR   Test        1000?
Feb 25 1045   NASA 36.226UG   Black Brant IX  White Sands     IR Astron.   300?

.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
|  Jonathan McDowell                 |  phone : (617) 495-7176            |
|  Somerville MA 02143               |  inter : jcm{at}host.planet4589.org   |
|  USA                               |          jcm{at}cfa.harvard.edu       |
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