SPACEWARN Activities

2011-011A

USA 227 was launched from Cape Canaveral on 11 March 2011 at 23:38 UT by a Delta 4 rocket. USA 227 is a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) classified satellite.

2011-010A

OTV 2 (Orbital Test Vehicle 2), a U.S. Air Force military satellite also known as USA 226 or X-37B, was launched from Cape Canaveral on 05 March 2011 at 22:46 UT. The satellite was launched by an Atlas 5 rocket and weighed approximately 5 tonnes. OTV 2 is the second mission of the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV). The OTV was designed to examine how highly complex technologies will perform in space before they are made operational. OTV was the first vehicle since NASA's shuttle orbiter capable of returning experiments to Earth for further inspection and analysis.

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 Cosmos 2471 (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)

2011-003A(37351)     HTV 2                            30 March
2010-031B(36609)     SHAVIT R/B                       28 March
2004-043H(28478)     SL-12 R/B(AUX MOTOR)             20 March
2011-001C(37346)     SL-23 R/B                        19 March
2010-052A(37183)     SOYUZ-TMA 1M                     16 March
2003-030A(27838)     ORBVIEW 3                        13 March
2011-008A(37371)     STS-133                          09 March
1999-055C(25935)     NAVSTAR 46 R/B(PAM-D)            06 March
2008-019B(32780)     CZ-3C R/B                        05 March
2003-058C(28131)     NAVSTAR 53 R/B(PAM-D)            03 March

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/