SPACEWARN Activities

2009-010A

Raduga 1, a Russian military communications satellite, was launched from Baikonur on a Proton K rocket with a Block DM-2 upper stage on 28 February 2009 at 04:10 UT. The satellite will operate in a geosynchronous orbit.

2009-009A

Telstar 11N is a communications satellite intended for an orbital slot of 37.5° W longitude in geosynchronous orbit. This satellite was launched from Baikonur on 26 February 2009 at 18:30 UT using a Zenit-3SLB rocket with a Block DM-SLB upper stage. Telstar 11N was built by Space Systems/Loral for Telesat. The satellite will provide video and data applications for North America, Western Europe, and Africa as well as provide mobile broadband services to ships and airplanes on Atlantic transoceanic routes. The 4010 kg satellite has 39 Ku-band transponders and is designed for a service life of 15 years.

2009-008C,
  2009-008D

The SPIRALE A and SPIRALE B microsatellites were built by Thales Alenia Space for the French military and are designed to monitor ballistic missile launches using infrared imagery. These cube-shaped satellites were launched 11 February 2009 at 22:09 UT on an Ariane 5 ECA rocket from Kourou.

2009-008B

Hot Bird 10 is a geosynchronous communications satellite to be initially placed at longitude 7° W and eventually at 13° E longitude. Hot Bird 10 was built by EADS Astrium for Eutelsat and is equipped with 64 Ku-band transponders to deliver direct-to-home television. The 4892 kg satellite is designed for a service life of 15 years and was launched 11 February 2009 at 22:09 UT on an Ariane 5 ECA rocket from Kourou.

2009-008A

NSS 9, built by Orbital Sciences Corporation for SES New Skies, carries 64 C-band transponders and will serve customers on the Pacific rim from 177° W longitude in geosynchronous orbit. The satellite was launched 11 February 2009 at 22:09 UT on an Ariane 5 ECA rocket from Kourou.

2009-007B

Express MD1, a geosynchronous communications satellite, was launched 11 February 2009 at 00:03 UT from Baikonur on a Proton M rocket with a Breeze M upper stage. The 1140 kg satellite, built by Khrunichev for the Russian Satellite Communications Company, will be stationed at 80° E longitude and will provide communications, digital broadcasting and Internet access with eight C-band and one L-band transponder.

2009-007A

The Express AM-44 satellite, built by Reshetnev, will be stationed at 11° W longitude in geosynchronous orbit from which it will serve Russia as well as other countries in Europe, Asia and Africa. The satellite carries 16 Ku-band, 10 C-band and one L-band transponder. The 2532 kg satellite will provide digital television and radio broadcasting, data networking, videoconferencing and internet services for at least 12 years. Express AM44 was launched 11 February 2009 at 00:03 UT from Baikonur on a Proton M rocket with a Breeze M upper stage.

2009-006A

A Progress-M 66 spacecraft was launched 10 February 2009 at 05:49 UT from Baikonur on a Soyuz-U rocket. This resupply vessel was bound for the International Space Station. The spacecraft docked to the station on 13 February 2009 at 07:18 UT at the Pirs docking module. The Progress vehicle carried 1300 kg of equipment, food, clothing, life support system gear and a new Orlan spacesuit, 50 kg of oxygen and air for the station's atmosphere and 870 kg of propellant for the Russian maneuvering thrusters.

2009-005A

NOAA 19, or NOAA-N Prime, was launched 06 February 2009 at 10:22 UT aboard a Delta 2 rocket from Vandenberg. The 1440 kg satellite was built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. The NOAA polar operational environmental satellites collect global data on: cloud cover; surface conditions such as ice, snow, and vegetation; atmospheric temperatures; and, moisture, aerosol, and ozone distributions. They also collect and relay information from fixed and moving data platforms. Initial orbital parameters for the satellite are: period 102 minutes, apogee 866 km, perigee 846 km and inclination 98.7°.

The instruments on-board NOAA 19 include two radiometers, the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer/3 (AVHRR/3) and the Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet Radiometer/2 (SBUV-2); three sounders, the High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS/4), Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSU-A), and the Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS); a space weather monitor, the Space Environment Monitor/2 (SEM-2); and an Advanced Data Collection System (ADCS). In addition, the satellite carries two search and rescue instruments: the Search and Rescue Repeater; and, the Search and Rescue Processor and three Digital Data Recorders.

The Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer/3 (AVHRR/3) is the primary imaging system and consists of visible, near infrared (IR) and thermal IR channels. The AVHRR, built by ITT, observes vegetation, clouds, and the surface of bodies of water, shorelines, snow, aerosols and ice. The instrument has a scan mirror that continuously rotates and scans the Earth at six revolutions per second to provide continuous coverage.

The Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet Radiometer/2 (SBUV-2) instrument is both an imager and a sounder. As an imager, it produces total column ozone maps. As a sounder, it obtains and measures the ozone distribution in the atmosphere as a function of altitude. The SBUV, built by Ball Aerospace, is a long-term monitoring device that takes global measurements and observes how elements in the atmosphere change over time. Each channel on the nadir-pointing SBUV detects a particular near-ultraviolet wavelength whose intensity depends on the ozone density at a particular height in the atmosphere. The SBUV includes a Cloud Cover Radiometer that provides information on the amount of cloud cover in an image and removes the effects of the clouds from the data.

The Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS), the High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS/4) and the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSU-A), measure atmospheric temperature and humidity. MHS, built by EADS Astrium and donated by the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), is a five-channel microwave instrument intended primarily to measure profiles of atmospheric humidity. HIRS/4, built by ITT, has 19 infrared channels and one visible channel. The instrument principally measures carbon dioxide, water and ozone. These measurements allow scientists to determine the amount of each of these gases in the atmosphere and the altitude at which they appear. AMSU-A, built by Northrop Grumman, has 15 channels and continuously scans the Earth's surface and the atmosphere, measuring naturally emitted microwave signals radiated by the Earth's surface and atmosphere.

The Space Environment Monitor (SEM-2) was built by Panametrics, now Assurance Technology Corporation. It provides measurements to determine the intensity of the Earth's radiation belts and the flux of charged particles at satellite altitude. The SEM-2 consists of two separate sensor units and a common Data Processing Unit (DPU). The sensor units are the Total Energy Detector (TED) and the Medium Energy Proton and Electron Detector (MEPED).

The Advanced Data Collection System (ADCS), provided by CNES in France, measures environmental factors such as atmospheric temperature and pressure and the velocity and direction of ocean and wind currents. Data is collected from various transmitting devices on platforms (e.g., buoys, free-floating balloons and remote weather stations). Transmitters are even placed on migratory animals, sea turtles, bears, and other animals. Data is transmitted to the spacecraft for storage and subsequent transmission from the satellite to the ground. The stored data is transmitted once per orbit.

The Search and Rescue Repeater, built by the Department of National Defense in Canada, and the Search and Rescue Processor, built by Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, detect distress calls sent from emergency beacons on-board aircraft and boats and carried by people in remote areas. The instruments on the spacecraft transmit the data to ground receiving stations or local user terminals where the location of the emergency signals is determined by Doppler processing.

2009-004A

Omid, a small communications satellite, was launched by Iran on a Safir 2 rocket on 02 February 2009 at 18:34 UT. The satellite, whose name means hope in Farsi, consists of an experimental control system, communications equipment, and a small remote sensing payload. Initial orbital parameters are: period 90.7 minutes, apogee 364 km, perigee 258 km, and inclination 55.5°.

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 GPS 2R-19 (2008-012A).

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 IAC the latest additions to the fleet are 2008-067A, 2008-067B, and 2008-067C.

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 (2009)

2008-058A (33439)    COSMOS 2445                     23 February
2009-006B (33594)    SL-4 R/B                        13 February
1993-022D (22597)    SL-6 R/B(2)                     11 February
1994-051A (23211)    MOLNIYA 3-46                    10 February
2008-060A (33443)    PROGRESS-M 01M                  08 February
2000-048B (26475)    DELTA 3 R/B                     04 February
2008-016B (32764)    ATLAS 5 CENTAUR R/B             03 February

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.

On 10 February 2009 at approximately 16:56 UT two communications satellites, Iridium 33 (1997-051C) and Cosmos 2251 (1993-036A), collided. The collision took place at about 800 km altitude.

The Orbital Carbon Observatory on-board a Taurus XL rocket was launched on 24 February 2009 at 09:55 UT from Vandenberg. Due to the nose cone fairing failing to separate from the rocket early in the climb the spacecraft failed to reach orbit.

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/