SPACEWARN Activities

2006-034A

KoreaSat 5, also known as Mugungwha 5, is a South Korean geostationary satellite that was launched at 03:27 UT on 22 August 2006 by a Zenit 3SL rocket from the Odyssey platform floating on the equatorial Pacific Ocean at 154° W longitude. The 4.5 tonne (with fuel) satellite carries 24 Ku-band, 8 SHF-band, and 4 Ka-band transponders to provide digital television and conventional telecom services to the Asia-Pacific region, serving the interests of commercial and (primarily) military agencies, after parking over 113° E longitude. (It is reported that there has not been a KoreaSat 4, because the number four may be associated with death in some Asian cultures. Mugungwha is the Korean name for South Korea's national flower, the Rose of Sharon.)

2006-033B

Syracuse 3B is a French military geostationary satellite that was launched by an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou at 22:24 UT on 11 August 2006. It carries four spot beams in SHF frequencies and two spot beams in EHF frequencies. The parking longitude is not available.

2006-033A

JCSat 10 is a Japanese geostationary communications satellite that was launched by an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou at 22:14 UT on 11 August 2006. The 4.4 tonne satellite carries 30 Ku-band and 12 C-band transponders to provide direct-to-home radio and television services to Japan, Asia-Pacific, and Hawaii, after parking over 128° E longitude.

2006-032A

Hot Bird 8 is a European (EUTELSAT) geostationary satellite that was launched by a Proton-M rocket from Baikonur at 21:48 UT on 04 August 2006. The 4.9 tonne (with fuel), 14 kW satellite carries 64 Ku-band transponders to provide radio and television coverage through 950 digital channels to Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East after parking over 13° E longitude, replacing Hot Bird 3.

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 57, 2005-038A.

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 (2006)

None

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/