All information in this publication was received between 1 May 2003 and 31 May 2003.
COSPAR/WWAS USSPACECOM SPACECRAFT LAUNCH
INT.ID CAT. # NAME DATE (UT)
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2003-021A (27813) Beidou 1C 24 May 2003
2003-020A (27811) Hellas-Sat 13 May 2003
2003-019A (27809) Muses-C 09 May 2003
2003-018A (27807) GSat 2 08 May 2003
| 2003-021A | Beidou 1C is a Chinese (PRC) geostationary navigational satellite that was launched by a Long March 3A rocket from Xichang launching center in Sichuan province at 16:34 UT on 24 May 2003. It joins two others, Beidou 1A and Beidou 1B, that were launched in 2000 and enables a viable global positioning constellation. Besides enabling positioning, it will be used in weather monitoring and telecommunications. The parking longitude is not available. |
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| 2003-020A | Hellas-Sat is a joint Greece-Cyprus geostationary communications spacecraft that was launched by an Atlas 5 rocket (fitted with a Russian RD-180 motor) from Cape Canaveral at 22:10 UT on 13 May 2003. The 3.45 tonne satellite carries 30 Ku-band transponders to provide direct-to-home voice and video transmissions to much of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, after parking over 39°E longitude. |
| 2003-019A | Muses-C, renamed Hayabusa (meaning Falcon) after the launch, is a Japanese (ISAS) asteroid explorer that was launched by an M-5 solid fuel rocket from Kogoshima Space Center at 04:29 UT on 9 May 2003. The 510 kg spacecraft is expected to arrive at the 700 m x 300 m asteroid 1998SF36 in June 2005 (after an encounter with Earth in June 2004 to obtain a gravity assisted boost), and orbit around it at an altitude of 19 km from its surface. After several months of orbiting, it will be maneuvered to skim on the surface a few times and gather a total of one gram of surface material from several sites. The sample collection will be enabled by firing tiny metal projectiles on the surface. The material will be funneled into a capsule to be returned to Earth by a parachute in Australia in June 2007. The Mission Leader is Junichiro Kawaguchi of ISAS. In all, Hayabusa would have done over two orbits around the Sun before re-entering Earth. A human interest angle of the mission is that it will leave a 10-cm ball on the asteroid containing the names of 870,000 human Earthlings from many countries. The heliocentric orbits will have approximately, period 560 days, aphelion 1.6 AU, perihelion 1.0 AU and inclination 1.5°. This will be the last launch by ISAS. In October 2003 ISAS, NASDA, and the National Aerospace Laboratory will be merged into a single new agency named Space Aeronautics Research and Development Agency (probably with SARADA as the acronym). More details of the mission may be seen in http://www.isas.ac.jp/e/enterp/missions/muses-c/, and /nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=2003-019A. |
| 2003-018A | GSat 2 is an Indian (ISRO) geostationary communications and space monitoring spacecraft that was launched by a 414 tonne GSLV-D2 rocket from Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota on the southeastern coast of India at 11:28 UT on 8 May 2003. The main mission was to test for the second time the rocket configuration, with the proven PSLV lower stages and a cryogenic third stage that uses a Russian motor. The 1.9 tonne, 1.4 kW GSAT 2 carries four C-band and two Ku-band transponders to provide voice and video transmissions to India and neighboring countries, a Coherent RAdio Beacon EXperiment (CRABEX) of ionospheric interest, a SOlar X-ray Spectrometer (SOXS) to monitor 4 keV-10 MeV x-rays, an external Total Radiation Dose Monitor (TRDM), an internal radiation monitor called RADiation sensitive Field Effect Transistor (RADFET), and a Surface Charge Monitor (SCM). For more details, see http://www.isro.org/. It was maneuvered into the designated parking lot at 48°E longitude on 19 May 2003. |
Note: The full list appeared in SPX 545. The list will not be repeated in future issues until significantly revised again.
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 51 (GPS 2R-8), 2003-005A.
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.
See http://www.space-track.org/perl/bulk_files.pl. Users must register. Conditions apply.
Designations Common Name Decay Date (2003) 2002-042A (27515) USERS 29 May 1991-018B (21150) R/B Delta 2 26 May 1999-037E (25855) R/B Delta 2 16 May 2002-050A (27552) Soyuz TM 04 May 1988-063C (19332) R/B Ariane 3 30 April
See http://www.space-track.org/perl/60day_decay_predict.pl. Users must register for access. Conditions apply
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/
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