Jonathan's Space Report No. 726 2016 May 30 Somerville, MA --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- International Space Station --------------------------- Expedition 47 continues with commander Tim Kopra and flight engineers Yuriy Malenchenko, Tim Peake, Alexey Ovchinin, Oleg Skripochka and Jeff Williams. The Nanoracks NRCSD-7 cubesat deploys were completed on May 18 with the release of four Lemur-2 satellites from Spire Global. The Lemur system carries AIS and GPS radio occultation meteorology payloads. The distortion of the radio signal from a GPS satellite as it passes through the Earth's atmosphere and out again to the STRATOS detector on Lemur-2 depends on the temperature, pressure and humidity of the region of the atmosphere the signal is passing through - so STRATOS can infer the weather. Lemur's SENSE payload contributes to the network of automatic identification of shipping (AIS), relaying position and identification data from ships at sea. The four satellites, built in Glasgow, are named Theresacondor, Kane, Nick-Allain and Jeff after Spire employees. (Theresa Condor is VP Corp.Development for Spire. Nick Allain is their director of brand. Kane is probably named after Megan Kane, a Spire manager, and Jeff is possibly Spire satellite engineer Jeff Kuehne.) The two Nanoracks Cubesat Dispensers launched on OA-4 (Dec 2015, NRCSD-7) and OA-6 (Mar 2016, NRCSD-8) were stored on ISS until May and repacked to allow the high priority Dove 0D-class and Spire Global Lemur satellites to be deployed sooner: At launch After repacking on orbit NRCSD-7 MinXSS/CADRE MinXSS/CADRE NODES/STMSAT NODES/STMSAT Flock-2e 1 to 12 Flock-2e 1 to 4 Flock-2e' 1 to 4 Lemur-2 5 to 9 NRCSD-8 Flock-2e' 1 to 12 Flock-2e' 5 to 12 Lemur-2 5 to 9 Flock-2e 5 to 12 In addition there is an external deployer on OA-6 which I suspect contains Flock 2e' 13 to 20 and possibly 8 more Lemur-2s. It will be used after OA-6 departs the ISS in June. The MinXSS and Nodes cubesats released on May 16 are communicating with the ground, as are the Flock-2e/2e' satellites (whose deployment order has been corrected in the table below thanks to Mike Safyan of PlanetLabs). No signals have been reported from CADRE or STMSat-1. The empty NRCSD-7 cubesat deployer was brought back inside in late May and replaced by NRCSD-8, loaded with 8 Flock 2e and 8 Flock 2e'. NRCSD-8 was probably stowed in the Kibo ELM-PS storeroom in the interim. The NRCSD is mounted on a table called MPEP (multipurpose experiment platform) and put in the Kibo airlock. The Japanese JEM-RMS robot arm then picks up the MPEP and points the NRCSD in the right direction to spring-eject its satellites, two 3U cubesats at a time. On May 30 deploys began from NRCSD-8. The CRS-8 Dragon which landed on May 11 brought back to Earth the EMU 3011 spacesuit implicated in the Parmitano and Kopra water leaks. EMU 3011 was launched into space on mission STS-132 in 2010. Also brought back aboard CRS-8 were the Flock-2b 11 and 12 cubesats which failed to deploy from the ISS last October. Nanoracks deployers NRCSD-5 and NRCSD-6 were also returned to Earth on CRS-8. The Bigelow Expansion Activity Module (BEAM) remains attached to Node 3. On May 28 the module expansion was successfuly carried out; the process of expanding and pressurizing the module took from 1305 to 2044 UTC. The diameter of the module is now 3.2metres; its length was increased by 1.8m to about 3.7m. Galileo and Glonass ------------------- Two more Galileo satellites were launched on May 24 to join the European navigation system. The satellites are nicknamed Daniele and Alizee. Russia launched Glonass-M No. 53 to replenish their navigation satellite system on May 29. Thaicom 8 --------- SpaceX launched the Thaicom-8 satellite to a high apogee supersynchronous transfer orbit on May 27. The Falcon 9 first stage landed safely on the 'Of Course I Still Love You' in the Atlantic. The Thaicom satellites mainly use the 78.5E geostationary location: Satellite Operation dates Spacecraft type Location Thaicom 1 1993 Dec - 2010 Jan Hughes HS-376 78.5E (1994-1997) 120.0E (1997-2009) Thaicom 2 1994 Oct - 2010 Nov Hughes HS-376 78.5E Thaicom 3 1997 Apr - 2006 Oct Aerospatiale Spacebus-3000 78.5E Thaicom 4 2005 Aug- Loral SSL-1300 119.5E Thaicom 5 2006 May- Alcatel Alenia Spacebus-3000 78.5E Thaicom 6A 2013 Jul- 2014 Mar Loral SSL-1300 78.6E (On-orbit lease from Asiasat) Thaicom 6 2014 Jan- Orbital Star-2.3 78.5E Thaicom 7 2014 Sep- Loral SSL-1300 119.9E (Also called Asiasat 6) Thaicom 8 2016 May- Orbital Star-2.3 En route 78.5E ZY-3 launch ----------- The ZY-3 02 satellite (ziyuan san hao 02 xing) was launched from Taiyuan on May 30 for China's Satellite Surveying and Mapping Applications Center. It carries 2-meter-resolution Earth imaging cameras. Two small 37 kg imaging satellites for Satellogic of Argentina were also deployed; ÑUSAT-1 and -2 (not to be confused with the 1985 Nusat satellite from Weber State Univ.) are also called Fresco and Batata (cheese and sweet potato, a popular Argentine dessert pairing). Table of Recent Orbital Launches ---------------------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. Catalog Perigee Apogee Incl Notes km km deg May 6 0521 JCSAT 14 Falcon 9 FT Canaveral SLC40 Comms 28A S41471 35758 x 35864 x 0.0 GEO 176E May 15 0243 Yaogan 30 Chang Zheng 2D Jiuquan Imaging 29A S41473 628 x 656 x 98.1 0900LT SSO May 16 1005 MinXSS ) ISS, LEO Astronomy 9867HV S41475 398 x 402 x 51.6 CADRE ) Science 9867HU S41474 398 x 402 x 51.6 May 16 1440 STMSat-1 ) ISS, LEO Tech 9867HW S41476 399 x 402 x 51.6 Nodes 1 ) Tech 9867HX S41477 398 x 403 x 51.6 Nodes 2 ) Tech 9867HY S41478 400 x 401 x 51.6 May 17 0845 Flock 2e'-1/0D05) ISS, LEO Imaging 9867HZ S41479 399 x 402 x 51.6 Flock 2e'-2/0C1B) Imaging 9867JB S41481 400 x 401 x 51.6 May 17 1200 Flock 2e'-3/0D06) ISS, LEO Imaging 9867JA S41480 398 x 402 x 51.6 Flock 2e'-4/0C22) Imaging 9867JC S41482 399 x 402 x 51.6 May 17 2300 Flock 2e-1/0C37) ISS, LEO Imaging 9867JD S41483 398 x 403 x 51.6 Flock 2e-2/0C78) Imaging 9867JE S41484 398 x 402 x 51.6 May 18 0215 Flock 2e-3/0C60) ISS, LEO Imaging 9867JG S41486 399 x 402 x 51.6 Flock 2e-4/0C41) Imaging 9867JH S41487 398 x 403 x 51.6 May 18 0705 Lemur-2 Theresacondor ISS, LEO Met-RO 9867JF S41485 400 x 401 x 51.6 Lemur-2 Kane Met-RO 9867JJ S41488 399 x 401 x 51.6 May 18 1115 Lemur-2 Nick-Allain ISS, LEO Met-RO 9867JK S41489 399 x 401 x 51.6 Lemur-2 Jeff Met-RO 9867JL S41490 399 x 401 x 51.6 May 24 0848 GalileoSat-13 ) Soyuz ST-B CSG Navigation 30A S41549 23551 x 23566 x 57.4 GalileoSat-14 ) Navigation 30B S41550 23553 x 23616 x 57.4 May 27 2139 Thaicom 8 Falcon 9 FT Canaveral SLC40 Comms 31A S41552 347 x 90190 x 21.2 May 29 0844 Kosmos-2516 Soyuz-2-1B Plesetsk LC43/4 Navigation 32A S41554 19124 x 19152 x 64.8 May 30 0317 Ziyuan-3 02 ) Chang Zheng 4B Taiyuan Imaging 33A S41556 484 x 499 x 97.5 1024LT SSO Fresco ) Imaging 33B S41557 481 x 499 x 97.5 1024LT SSO Batata ) Imaging 33C S41558 481 x 499 x 97.5 1024LT SSO May 30 1140 Flock 2e-5/0C43) ISS, LEO Imaging 9867JM 401 x 404 x 51.6 Flock 2e-6/0C75) Imaging 9867JN 401 x 404 x 51.6 Table of Recent Suborbital Launches ----------------------------------- A US missile defense test on May 17 involved the launch of a medium-range target using an SR-19 solid motor first stage. HiFire-5B was a joint US/Australian hypersonic-research flight test from Woomera on May 18. Some reports said it was going to use a Terrier Mk 70/Lynx rocket (following the partial failure of HF-5 from Andoya in 2012) but a spokesperson at the U. of Queensland tells me it was moved back to the originally planned VS-30/Orion. Thanks to T. Schiller for alerting me to these launches. The Indian Space Research Organization launched an HS9 booster on May 23 carrying the RLV-TD hypersonic experiment; the vehicle's apogee of 70 km was within the mesosphere, so it's not included in the list here. The Washington Free Beacon reports that the US DoD detected a test launch of Russia's Nudol' antiballistic missile interceptor on May 25. Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km Target Apr 2 1518 New Shepard M4 New Shepard West Texas Test 103 West Texas Apr 12 DF-41 RVs? DF-41? Taiyuan? Test 1000? ? Apr 19 0641 Yu-71 No. 3 UR-100NU Yasniy Test 1000? Kura? Apr 19 0933 Test payload Simorgh Semnan Test 200? S Iran Apr 26 1700 Kunpeng-1B Tianying-3F Hainan Ionosphere 316 S China Sea May 18 0045? HiFire-5B VS-30/Orion Woomera Hypersonic 278 Woomera Range May 18 0702 FTX-21 Target MRBM-T3 Kauai Target 300? Pacific May 25 Nudol' Nudol' Plesetsk Test 100? - May 25 CTV-01a SM-3-IB DDG-70, Kauai Test 100? Pacific May 26 CTV-02 SM-3-IB DDG-70, Kauai Test 100? Pacific .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | | | Somerville MA 02143 | inter : planet4589 at gmail | | USA | twitter: @planet4589 | | | | JSR: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html | | Back issues: http://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: http://www.planet4589.org/mailman/listinfo/jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'