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Questions/comments about the content of these pages should be directed to: The World Warning Agency for Satellites, wwas@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov National Space Science Data Center, Mail Code 633 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 |
| 01 November 2000 |
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COSPAR/WWAS USSPACECOM SPACECRAFT LAUNCH
INT.ID CAT. # NAME DATE (2000)
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2000-070A (26603) Soyuz TMA-1 31 Oct
2000-069A (26599) Beidou 30 Oct
2000-068A (26590) Europe*Star 1 29 Oct
2000-067A (26580) GE 6 21 Oct
2000-066A (26578) Thuraya 1 21 Oct
2000-065A (26575) USA 153 20 Oct
2000-064A (26570) Progress M-43 16 Oct
2000-063C (26566) Cosmos 2376 13 Oct
2000-063B (26565) Cosmos 2375 13 Oct
2000-063A (26564) Cosmos 2374 13 Oct
2000-062A (26563) STS 92 11 Oct
2000-061A (26561) HETE 2 09 Oct
2000-060A (26559) NSat 110 06 Oct
2000-059A (26554) GE 1A 01 Oct
In SPX 563, we had listed five International IDs in Sec.A without the names of the spacecraft. Brief descriptions of the five spacecraft were, however, provided in Sec.B. The USSPACECOM have since matched the names and numbers as follows:
COSPAR/WWAS USSPACECOM SPACECRAFT LAUNCH
INT.ID CAT. # NAME DATE (2000)
-------------------------------------------------------
2000-057A (26545) Tiungsat 1 26 Sep
2000-057B (26546) Megsat 1 26 Sep
2000-057C (26547) Unisat 26 Sep
2000-057D (26548) Saudisat 1A 26 Sep
2000-057E (26549) Saudisat 1B 26 Sep
| 2000-070A | Soyuz TMA-1 is Russian passenger transportation satellite that was launched by a Soyuz-U rocket at 07:52 UT. It carries a crew of three to dock it with the Zvezda module of the International Space Station (ISS) at about 09:20 UT on 2 November. The Progress M1-3 cargo craft that remains docked with Zvezda will first be evicted to make way for the Soyuz. The crew of two Russian and one American cosmonauts will spend over three months in the ISS, and return to Earth in an American shuttle (STS 102) in February 2001. In the initial days, the crew will bring a variety of life support systems on-line, and create a lap-top computer network that will help run all systems in the ISS. The remaining months will be allotted for exercise and space endurance practice. The crew is the first batch of a decade-long "permanent inhabitation" of the ISS. Initial orbital parameters of the Soyuz TMA-1 were period 92.2 min, apogee 383 km, perigee 374 km, and inclination 51.6 deg. |
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| 2000-069A | Beidou is a Chinese (PRC) test model of a navigational system satellite that was launched by a Long March 3A rocket from Xichang launch center in south-west China at 16:30 UT (00:02 Beijing Time). When completed, the Beidou Navigational System (BNS) will help to locate and navigate highway, railway, and oceanic transportation. Initial orbital parameters were period 753 min, apogee 41,887 km, perigee 173 km, and inclination 25 deg. |
| 2000-068A | Europe*Star 1 (with that embedded "*" in the name) is a European geosynchronous communications spacecraft that was launched by an Ariane 44LP rocket at 04:59 UT from Kourou. The 4.2 tonne (with fuel) spacecraft carries 30 Ku-band transponders to provide direct-to-home video, internet, and high speed data transmission among South Africa, Europe and the Indian subcontinent after parking over 45 deg-E longitude. It was the 100th successful launch by Ariane rockets, almost coinciding with the 100th launch of the American Shuttle mission. |
| 2000-067A | GE 6 is an American geosynchronous communications spacecraft that was launched by a Proton-K rocket from Baikonur at 22:00 UT. It carries 24 C-band and 24 Ku-band transponders to provide direct-to-home voice, video and data transmission to America and the Caribbean countries after parking over 83 deg-W longitude. |
| 2000-066A | Thuraya 1 is a United Arab Emirate (UAE) geosynchronous communications spacecraft that was launched at 05:52 UT by a Zenit 3SL rocket from a floating Sea Launch platform in the equatorial Pacific. The 3,200 kg (5,100 kg with fuel), 13 kW spacecraft is designed to handle thousands of voice, fax, and data transmissions simultaneously from/to mobile telephones, via its 128-element phased array antenna of 12 m x 16 m dimension in the L-band, after parking over 44 deg-E longitude. |
| 2000-065A | USA 153 is an American geosynchronous military communications spacecraft that was launched by an Atlas 2A rocket from Cape Canaveral. It is a member of the fleet of Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS). The communications will be in six channels covering the frequency band of 50-85 MHz. |
| 2000-064A | Progress M-43 is a Russian automatic cargo carrier that was launched from Baikonur at 21:27 UT by a Soyuz-U rocket. It carried food and fuel for a probable crew that may enter Mir early 2001. It docked with Mir after four days of orbiting, rather than the usual two days. This slow docking enabled the cargo ship to conserve 150 kg of fuel that will be spent in raising Mir to a higher altitude from the currently perilous orbit. Initial orbital parameters of Progress M-43 were period 91.4 min, apogee 359 km, perigee 331 km, and inclination 51.7 deg. |
| 2000-063A, 2000-063B, 2000-063C |
Cosmos 2374 (Glonass 783), Cosmos 2375 (Glonass 787), and Cosmos 2376 (Glonass 788) are the latest additions to the Russian fleet of Glonass navigational system, and were launched by a Proton-K rocket from Baikonur at 18:10 UT. The Cosmos/Glonass numbers are matched according to the Russian sources, but the match of names and IDs are often uncertain in any multiple launch. If that matching is revised, a later issue of the Bulletin will carry that list. More details of the Glonass fleet may be accessed through Sec. C-2 below. Initial orbital parameters of all three were similar: period 675.5 min, apogee 19,129 km, perigee 19,120 km and inclination 64.8 deg. |
| 2000-062A | STS 92 is an American shuttle spacecraft that was launched from Cape Canaveral at 23:17 UT. The crew carried out space walks to install a 8.5 tonne, aluminum Z-1 truss on the Unity module. The truss is intended to support a football-field sized solar array that will be installed during a later mission in December 2000. A triaxial attitude control gyroscope and a Ku-band satellite dish were then installed on the truss. The crew also installed a major 1.2 tonne docking port named Pressurized Mating Adapter (PMA) on the Unity module. They fired thrusters in the shuttle to raise the altitude of the ISS. Among other activities was a practice run of a device named SAFER (Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue) to rescue an untethered astronaut and to assess whether a dead or gravely ill spacewalker could also be retrieved back to a shuttle or the ISS. The shuttle landed in Edwards AFB in California on 24 October at 20:59 UT. A Cape Canaveral landing had to be cancelled because of persistent bad weather in southern Florida. The potential uses of the ISS for furthering science and engineering are outlined in a NASA site, http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/science/. STS 92 was the 100th shuttle mission, almost coinciding with the 100th successful launch of the European Ariane rocket. Initial orbital parameters of the STS 92 were period 92 min, apogee 381 km, perigee 380 km, and inclination 51.6 deg. |
| 2000-061A | HETE 2 (High Energy Transient Explorer) is an American astrophysical research spacecraft that was launched at 05:38 UT from over Kwajalein Missile Range (in the Marshall Islands) by a Pegasus rocket released from a L-1011 cargo aircraft that flew out of Vandenberg AFB. (An earlier version, HETE 1 had failed on launch in 1996.) The 130 kg satellite carries three instruments to measure gamma rays and x-rays in the bands 6-400, 2-25, and 0.5-10 keV. As soon as a radiation burst is recorded by the instruments, an automatic alarm will be relayed to a number of ground astronomy stations around the world to look for the source in visible wavelengths. The sources to look for will always be in the anti-solar direction monitored by HETE 2. These very rare/transient bursts are presumed to be extra-galactic, but source identification remains elusive. Ongoing updates to the mission may be accessible through http://space.mit.edu/HETE/. Initial orbital parameters were period 97 min, apogee 637 km, perigee 594 km, and inclination 2 deg. |
| 2000-060A | NSat 110 is a Japanese geosynchronous communications spacecraft that was launched by an Ariane 42L rocket from Korou at 23:00 UT. It carries 24 Ku-band transponders to provide direct-to-home television, internet and data transmission service to all of Japan after parking over approximately 135 deg-E longitude. |
| 2000-059A | GE 1A is an American geosynchronous communications spacecraft that was launched by a Proton-K rocket from Baikonur at 22:00 UT. The 3.9 tonne satellite will provide direct-to-home voice, video and data transmission in India, China and Philippines through its 24 C-band and 24 Ku-band transponders. |
Note: The full list appeared in SPX 545. The list will not be repeated in future issues until significantly revised again.
High precision (<20 cm) GPS constellation tracking data obtained from the network of about 80 dedicated global stations that are of interest to geodetic study may be obtained through the following services provided by the International Association of Geodesy (IGS)
FTP: igscb.jpl.nasa.gov [directory /igscb]
WWW: http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/
E-mail: igscb@cobra.jpl.nasa.gov
The standard format of the GPS situation appeared in SPX-518. It will not be repeated since an excellent source of trajectory- and science-related GPS information is at http://www.utexas.edu/depts/grg/gcraft/notes/gps/gps.html#DODSystem It provides many links to GPS related databases.
All GLONASS spacecraft are in the general COSMOS series. The COSMOS numbers (nnnn) invoked by USSPACECOM have often differed from the numbers (NNNN) associated in Russia; when different, the USSPACECOM COSMOS numbers are shown in parentheses. The corresponding GLONASS numbers are Russian numbers, followed by the numbers in parentheses that are sometimes attributed to them outside Russia.
The operating frequencies in MHz are computed from the channel number K. Frequencies (MHz) = 1602.0 + 0.5625K and L2 = 1246.0 + 0.4375K.
The standard format of the GLONASS situation appeared in SPX-545. It will not be repeated in view of the excellent updated source at: http://www.rssi.ru/SFCSIC/english.html maintained by the Coordinational Scientific Information Center (CSIC),Russian Space Forces.
The latest addition to the Glonass fleet are Cosmos 2374 (2000-063A), Cosmos 2375 (2000-063B) and Cosmos 2376 (2000-063C) that were launched on 13 October 2000. See Sec. A above.
Designations Common Name Decay Date (2000) 1997-067B (25031) R/B Delta 2 26 Oct 2000-062A (26563) STS 92 Landed on 24 Oct 2000-021A (26301) PROGRESS M1-2 24 Oct 1995-018A (23549) OFEQ 3 24 Oct 2000-067B (26581) R/B Proton-K 23 Oct 1998-042B (25390) TUBSAT N1 21 Oct 1996-015B (23817) R/B Ariane 44LP 19 Oct 2000-064B (26571) R/B Soyuz-U 18 Oct 1995-039A (23632) INTERBALL_TAIL 16 Oct 2000-063E (26568) R/B Proton-K 15 Oct 2000-040B (26408) R/B Delta 2 14 Oct 2000-056B (26539) R/B Zenit 2 11 Oct 1998-012B (25234) BATSAT 09 Oct 1996-041B (23954) R/B Delta 2 08 Oct 1991-087F (21829) R/B Proton 08 Oct 1998-068B (25547) R/B Delta 2 07 Oct 1997-086D (25129) R/B Proton-K 07 Oct 2000-013E (26104) R/B Proton-K 05 Oct 2000-059B (26555) R/B Proton-K 03 Oct 2000-058B (26553) R/B Soyuz-U 02 Oct 2000-038B (26403) R/B Atlas 2A 01 Oct 1999-026C (25737) R/B Pegasus 24 Sep 1999-069B (25995) Atlas 2A 21 Sep
Geoffrey Lindop of Carlisle, England has kindly drawn our attention to an error in SPX 562. There Raduga-1 5 (2000-049A) was reported to have an alternative name, Cosmos 2372. Errors of this kind occur because we use FBIS messages from Moscow quoting local TV or newspapers as one of the sources of information. In fact, as SPX 563 reported, Cosmos 2372 (2000-056A) was launched a month later.
NSSDC/WDC for Satellite Information is an archival center for science
data from many spacecraft. Many space physics datasets are on-line for
electronic access through:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/space/
For off-line data, please contact the Request Office, NSSDC, Code 633, NASA GSFC, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, U.S.A., for specific information (request@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov). Information on the current status of the instruments on board from the investigators will be most welcomed. Precomputed trajectory files and orbital parameters of many magnetospheric and heliospheric science-payload spacecraft may be accessed via anonymous FTP from NSSDC. (See About the SPACEWARN Bulletin for access method; a file in the active directory named AAREADME.TXT, outlines the contents.)
Other files interest for Earth-centered spacecraft can be generated through the URL,
http://sscweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Programs related to the heliospheric spacecraft trajectories can be executed
through the URL,
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/space/helios/heli.html
Magnetospheric, Planetary, and Astronomical science data from many spacecraft
may be accessed through links from the URL:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/sc-query.html
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Questions/comments about the content of these pages should be directed to: The World Warning Agency for Satellites, wwas@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov National Space Science Data Center, Mail Code 633 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 |