SPACEWARN Activities

2007-052A,   2007-052B,   2007-052C

Cosmos 2431, Cosmos 2432, and Cosmos 2433 are the latest craft to join the Russian Glonass fleet of navigational satellites. They were launched by a Proton-K rocket from Baikonur at 7:35 UT on 26 October 2007. The launch had been delayed until Kazakhstan lifted the ban on Proton launches after the explosion of a Proton-M (on 06 September) spilled 219 tonnes of toxic heptyl fuel. The Glonass fleet will be completed in 2008, expanded to 24 satellites from the current 13, to become fully operational at all hours of the day. The initial orbital parameters of all three were period 675.7 min, apogee 1,935 km, perigee 1,925 km, and inclination 64.9°.

2007-051A

Chang'e 1 (named after a Chinese goddess who flew to the Moon) is a Chinese lunar orbit mission that was launched by a Long March 3A rocket on 24 October 2007 at 10:05 UT from Xichang launch center. It will enter the lunar orbit on 05 November 2007 after three Earth orbits with activated thrusters at each perigee. The 2.3 tonne (with fuel) craft carries a number of instruments:

Stereo Camera and Spectrometer Imager. Its resolution is 160 m, at the wavelength band of 0.48-0.96 microns.

Laser Altimeter. It is to operate at 1,064 nm outputting pulses of 150 micro-Joule, and will provide altitudes at 1.0 m accuracy.

Gamma and X-ray Spectrometer. The energy ranges are 0.3-9.0 MeV, and 0.5-50 keV

Microwave Radiometer. It will operate at 3.0, 7.8, 19.35 and 37 GHz sensing the soil at less than 1.0 m depth, at a temperature resolution of 0.5 K

High Energy Particle Detector and Solar Wind Detectors. It is capable of monitoring incident solar wind, and electrons and ions up to 700 MeV.

Full details of the mission is available at http://210.82.31.82/index.asp?modelname=eng\en-news. The instruments will enable the determination of the mineral content of the surface by means of the identified 14 atomic elements. The circular lunar orbit will be at an altitude of 200 km, and inclined from lunar equator by 64°. The orbital period will be 127 min. Wu Ji of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and Ouyang Ziyuan of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) are among the chief scientists in the mission.

2007-050A

STS 120 is an American shuttle satellite that was launched from Cape Canaveral at 15:38 UT on 23 October 2007, on its way to the International Space Station (ISS). It carried seven astronauts (six Americans and an Italian) and several tonnes of material to the station. It docked with the ISS on 25 October. In the first spacewalk on 26 October, two astronauts moved and installed an Italian-built, 4.4 m diameter, 7.2 m long, 14.3 tonne aluminum tubular module named Harmony to facilitate connecting, in future missions, the European Columbus laboratory in December 2007, and the Japanese Kibo laboratory in February and April of 2008. Harmony will be the passage corridor between the American Destiny labs and these future labs. On the second spacewalk, two astronauts moved a pre-installed massive truss to a different location. The truss work continued on the third spacewalk, when it was noticed that there was a 90 cm long tear on the solar panel. Additionally, the rotary joint that aims another solar panel to the Sun was also discovered to be in need of repair/replacement. The fourth four-hour long spacewalk by a single astronaut on 03 November was confined to successfully repairing the torn solar panel with "cuff links", and ensuring full power availability. The rotary joint problem was deferred until the next shuttle mission. The contemplated additional inspection of the shuttle tiles was also determined to be ignorable. The shuttle is scheduled to leave the station on 05 November 2007, returning to Earth by 07 November.

The initial orbital parameters were period 91.4 min, apogee 344 km, perigee 340 km, and inclination 51.6°.

2007-049A

Cosmos-Oko, also known as Cosmos 2430, is a Russian military satellite that was launched by a Molniya-M rocket from Plesetsk at 04:39 UT on 23 October 2007. It is part of a fleet to detect rocket launches by infrared light. The initial orbital parameters were period 704 min, apogee 39,170 km, perigee 522 km, and inclination 62.8°.

2007-048A,   2007-048B,   2007-048C,   2007-048D

Globalstar-A, Globalstar-B, Globalstar-C, and Globalstar-D are the latest to join the American Globalstar fleet. They were launched by a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur at 20:12 UT on 20 October 2007.

The launch completes the first generation fleet of 40 satellites, with further additions from second generation models. The fleet of craft, each of mass 420 kg, services mobile telephones and fixed point transmitters carrying voice and data transmissions, by an array of C-band transponders and mediated by dedicated ground stations. The latest four craft are tentatively subscripted as -A, -B, -C, and -D, pending the assignment of formal names. The initial orbital parameters of all four were similar: period 103.47 min, apogee 930 km, perigee 914 km, and inclination 51.98°.

2007-047A

GPS 2R-17, also known as Navstar 60 and as USA 196, is the latest addition to the American fleet of navigational satellites. It was launched by a Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral at 12:23 UT on 17 October 2007. It will replace the aging GPS 2A-14 in Plane F and Slot 2. The initial orbital parameters were period 356.6 min, apogee 20,369 km, perigee 192 km, and inclination 40°.

2007-046A

WGS F1 (Wideband Global SATCOM F1, also known as USA 195) is an American geostationary military communications spacecraft. It was launched by an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral at 00:22 UT on 11 October 2007.

2007-045A

Soyuz TMA-11 is a Russian passenger transport craft that was launched by a Soyuz-FG rocket from Baikonur at 13:22 UT on 10 October 2007. It carried three astronauts (a Russian, an American and a Malaysian) toward the International Space Station (ISS). It docked with the ISS (Zarya module) at 14:50 UT, on 12 October 2007 and the astronauts joined their colleagues already on-board the ISS. The initial orbital parameters were period 91.4 min, apogee 344 km, perigee 340 km, and inclination 51.64°.

2007-044B

Intelsat 11 (also known as PAS 11) of the Bermuda-based company is a geostationary communications satellite that was launched by an Ariane 5 rocket at 22:02 UT on 05 October 2007. It carries 25 C-band and 18 Ku-band transponders to provide direct-to-home (DTH) voice and video transmissions in Latin America, after parking over 317° E longitude. It will be phased-in to eventually replace Intelsat's 6B and 3R satellites.

2007-044A

Optus D2 is an Australian geostationary communications satellite that was launched by an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou at 22:02 UT on 05 October 2007. The 2.4 tonne (with fuel), 3.8 kW craft carries 24 Ku-band transponders to provide direct-to-home (DTH) television services to Australia and New Zealand, after parking over 152° E longitude.

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 60, 2007-047A.

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.

According to CSIC the latest additions to the fleet are 2007-052A, 2007-052B, and 2007-052C.

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 (2007)

2007-041B (32061)    R/B Delta 2                     28 October
2007-052B (32276)    R/B Proton-K                    27 October
2007-048E (32267)    R/B Soyuz                       24 October
1998-016B (25259)    R/B Atlas-Centaur               24 October
2007-008A (31100)    Soyuz-TMA 10  Landed on         21 October
1996-060A (24640)    MOLNIYA 3-48                    18 October
2000-082B (26644)    R/B Long March 3A               17 October
2007-045B (32257)    R/B Soyuz-FG                    14 October
2007-040B (32059)    R/B Soyuz-U                     14 October
2003-061B (28141)    R/B Long March 2C               14 October
2003-061A (28140)    DOUBLE STAR 1 (TC-1)            14 October

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.

The launch of the Japanese geostationary craft, JCSAT 11, by a Proton-K rocket from Baikonur on 05 September 2007 was a failure. The second stage failed to ignite, and the rocket crashed in Kazakhstan.

The China-ESA spacecraft named Double Star 1 (TC-1, 2003-061A) re-entered the Earth on 14 October 2007, after successfully completing its mission.

The Japanese lunar orbiter, Kaguya (SELENE, 2007-039A) released its subsatellites RSAT (2007-039B) and VRAD (2007-039C) into lunar orbit on 12 October 2007, and JAXA renamed them, respectively as Okina (meaning honorable elderly man) and Ouna (meaning honorable elderly woman). Kaguya entered the lunar orbit on 05 October 2007.

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/