SPACEWARN Activities

2011-009A

Glonass-K, also known as Cosmos 2471, was launched from Plesetsk on 26 February 2011 at 03:07 UT by a Soyuz 2 rocket. The satellite weighed 935 kg at launch. It is the first Glonass-K satellite of the Russian fleet of the Glonass navigational system. This next generation satellite is smaller than earlier platforms, will transmit more navigation signals, and has a longer design life. It has five navigation channels, four in special L1 and L2 bands and one for civilian applications in the L3 band. The design life is ten years. The Glonass constellation currently includes twenty-two operational satellites and four in maintenance. The fleet requires twenty-four operational satellites to achieve global navigation service.

2011-008A

STS 133 was launched from Kennedy Space Center on 24 February 2011 at 16:53 UT. Shuttle Discovery docked with the International Space Station's (ISS) Harmony module on 26 February 2011 at 19:14 UT. The mission is the 39^th and final flight of Discovery and the 133^rd flight of the Space Shuttle program. STS 133 carried six astronauts. The primary goals of the shuttle mission are to deliver critical spare parts, supplies and a U.S. storage module to the International Space Station. Two key components carried in this mission were the Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM), which is to be left permanently docked to one of the station's ports as a storage and research module, and the Express Logistics Carrier 4 (ELC4) which will provide spare parts and storage capacity to the orbiting complex. It also delivered Robonaut 2, which will become the first humanoid robot in space. Robonaut 2 will help NASA understand robotic capabilities for future deep space missions. The STS 133 mission includes several experiments that will be performed on the space shuttle Discovery and on the station during and after the shuttle mission. Discovery is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center 09 March 2011 at 16:57 UT.

2011-007A

ATV 2 (Automated Transfer Vehicle 2) was launched from Kourou on 16 February 2011 at 21:51 UT by an Ariane 5 rocket. The craft docked with the International Space Station's (ISS) Zvezda service module on 24 February at 15:59 UT. The European robotic resupply ship weighed approximately 20 tonnes making it the heaviest Ariane payload to date. It carried 1,600 kg of equipment and other dry supplies, 998 kg of rocket propellant for the station's thrusters and 100 kg of oxygen for the station's crew. There is also 4,853 kg of propellant stored aboard the ATV 2 craft itself to help boost the space station's orbit from time to time. ATV 2, named after the famous German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler, is the second flight of Europe's ATV system. The ATV will be the biggest space station resupply craft after the shuttle's retirement, placing it in a crucial role to keep the ISS laboratory operating. ATV 2 is scheduled to remain docked to the ISS for 96 days, however, the 96 day docked mission is classed as under review and will be evaluated as the mission progresses, and extended if necessary.

2011-006A

USA 225 was launched from Vandenburg Air force Base on 06 February 2011 at 12:26 UT by a Minotaur rocket. USA 225 is a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) classified technology development satellite. The satellite is also called Rapid Pathfinder Program (RPP).

2011-005A

Geo-IK 2, a Russian military satellite, was launched from Plesetsk on 01 February 2011 at 14:00 UT. The satellite was launched by a Rokot/Breeze KM rocket, however, the launch was unsuccessful as the satellite was placed into a lower than planned orbit. It was intended to operate in a circular orbit at an altitude of approximately 1,000 km, but only reached a low-earth orbit. Geo-IK 2 payload was the first of two new satellites planned for geodetic measurements of Earth's shape, rotation, and gravitational field. Geo-IK 2 was also designed to probe plate tectonics, tides, and movements of the poles.

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 2F-1 (2010-022A).

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 addition to the fleet is 2011-009A.

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 (2011)

2010-044A(37156)     Progress-M 07M                  20 February
2011-007B(37369)     Ariane 5 R/B                    17 February
2006-058A(29653)     TACSAT 2                        05 February
2006-005D(28942)     M-5 R/B                         02 February
1998-040A(25379)     Molniya 3-49                    02 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.

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/