National Aeronautics and Space Administration
SPACEWARN
Bulletin
A monthly publication of the National Space Science Data Center/World Data Center for Satellite Information
No. 615
01 Feb. 2005

SPACEWARN Activities

All information in this publication was received between 01 January 2005 and 31 January 2005.

A. List of New International Designations and Launch Dates (UTC).

USSPACECOM Catalog numbers are in parentheses.

  COSPAR/WWAS USSPACECOM  SPACECRAFT              LAUNCH
    INT.ID    CAT. #      NAME                   DATE (UT)
  ----------------------------------------------------------------
   2005-002C   (28523)    Tatiana                20 January 2005
   2005-002A   (28521)    Cosmos 2414            20 January 2005
   2005-001A   (28517)    Deep Impact            12 January 2005

B. Text of Launch Announcements.

2005-002C
Tatiana, also known as Universitesky, is a Russian microsatellite that was launched by a Cosmos-3M rocket from Plesetsk at 03:00 UT on 20 January 2005. The 30-kg satellite was built by the students of Lomonosov University as an educational program to advance space physics and to commemorate the university's 250th anniversary. Initial orbital parameters were period 103.7 min, apogee 967 km, perigee 912 km, and inclination 83°.
2005-002A
Cosmos 2414 is a Russian military satellite that was launched by a Cosmos-3M rocket from Plesetsk at 03:00 UT on 20 January 2005. Initial orbital parameters were period 103.8 min, apogee 967 km, perigee 910 km, and inclination 83°.
2005-001A
Deep Impact is an American (NASA) cometary probe that was launched by a Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral at 18:47 UT on 12 January 2005. The 650 kg, 620 W, 3.2 m x 1.7 m x 2.3 m flyby probe carries an impactor of an additional mass 370 kg, and 90 kg of instruments. On 4 July 2005, when the probe reaches the vicinity of the Comet Tempel 1 just a day prior to its perihelion, it will eject the impactor to collide with the comet at a relative speed of 37,000 km/hr, and impact energy of 4.5 tonnes of TNT, and create a crater of about 100 m width and 28 m depth. The episode will be watched by the two instruments on-board the probe in visible and infrared wavelengths.
(Tempel 1 was first discovered on 3 April 1867 by Ernst W. L. Tempel at Marseilles, France. Its orbit has undergone changes over the century, and now its perihelion is at 1.5 AU, aphelion at 4.7 AU, with an orbital period of 5.5 years.)
The flyby probe carries two instruments to watch the comet, the impact, and the aftermath.
HRI (High Resolution Instrument) is an f/35 telescope with an aperture of 35 cm and focal length 10.5 m and backed by a 1024 x 1024 array of 21-micron pixels. At an altitude of 700 km from the comet, each pixel covers in visible light about 1 m x 1 m of the cometary nucleus of estimated size, 6 km. The instrument's infrared capability covers the spectral range of 1.05-4.8 microns through 512 x 256 pixels of HgCdTe of size 36 microns.
MRI (Medium Resolution Instrument) is a f/17.5 telescope with an aperture of 12 cm, and focal length 2.1 m. Its wider field of view is useful in locating the nucleus amidst the stellar constellation. Each of the pixels will cover 7 m x 7 m of the cometary nucleus in visible light when the probe is 700 km from the nucleus. A duplicate of the MRI, named ITS, is also carried by the impactor to image the nucleus. Each pixel of the ITS on the impactor will cover 20 cm x 20 cm when it is at 20 km from the nucleus.
The impact and its aftermath will also be watched by Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra spacecraft, besides many ground-based telescopes.
The Principal Investigator is Michael F. A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, College Park. The Project Manager is Rick Grammier of the Jet Propulsion Lab, Pasadena, CA. For more information, see http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/main.

C. Spacecraft Particularly Suited for International Participation

Spacecraft with essentially continuous radio beacons on frequencies less than 150 MHz, or higher frequencies if especially suited for ionospheric or geodetic studies.

NNSS denotes U.S. Navy Navigational Satellite System. Updates or corrections to the list are possible only with information from the user community.

Note: The full list appeared in SPX 545. The list will not be repeated in future issues until significantly revised again.

Global Positioning System satellites useful for navigational purposes and geodetic studies.

High precision (<20 cm) GPS constellation tracking data obtained from the network of about 400 dedicated global stations that are of interest to geodetic study may be obtained through the following services provided by the International GNSS Service (IGS). The IGS is a service of the International Association of Geodesy (IAG).

     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 SPACEWARN Bulletin No. 518. It will not be repeated since an excellent source of trajectory- and science-related GPS information is at:

http://www.colorado.edu/geography/gcraft/notes/gps/gps_f.html

It provides many links to GPS related databases.

The latest addition to the fleet is Navstar 54, 2004-009A.

Russian Global Navigational (Positioning) Spacecraft, GLONASS constellation.

SPACEWARN requests updates/additions from readers to this list.

All GLONASS spacecraft are in the general Cosmos series. The Cosmos numbers 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 last appeared in SPACEWARN Bulletin No. 545. It will not be repeated in view of the excellent updated source at: http://www.glonass-ianc.rsa.ru/ maintained by the Information-Analytical Center (IAC), Russian Space Agency.

Visually bright objects.

See http://www.space-track.org/perl/bulk_files.pl. Users must register. Conditions apply.

Actual decays/landings of payload spacecraft and rocket bodies (R/B) only. No further information is available.

Designations         Common Name                  Decay Date (2005)

1996-025A (23853)  COSMOS 2332                       28 January
1968-116B (05978)  R/B(2) Delta 1                    26 January
2003-053G (28093)  R/B (Aux. Mot.) Proton-K          24 January
2004-038A (28396)  COSMOS 2410                       09 January

60-day Decay Predictions.

See http://www.space-track.org/perl/60day_decay_predict.pl. Users must register for access. Conditions apply

Miscellaneous Items.

This section contains information or data that are entered on occasion and may not be repeated in each issue of the SPACEWARN Bulletin.

Related NSSDC resources.

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 690.1, NASA GSFC, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, U.S.A., for specific information (nssdc-request@listserv.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 obtained from:
http://nssdcftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/miscellaneous/orbits/

Other files of interest for Earth-centered spacecraft can be generated via the URL,
http://sscweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Programs related to the heliospheric spacecraft trajectories can be executed through the URL:
http://cohoweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/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/nmc/

[USA.gov] NASA - nasa.gov