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Le taxi Soyouz-TMA-7 arrive à l'arrimage sur l'ISS en 2005.
Il amène l'équipage d'Expedition-12. (Doc NASA 2005)




Désormais ma page actualité se trouve sur mon blog à l'adresse :


http://astro-notes.over-blog.fr



----------------------------------------------------



 Vous trouverez plus bas l'actualité du mois qui est résumée par notre excellent collègue
Jonathan Mc.Dowell, un dévoué astrophysicien du Harvard Smithsonian Center




Jonathan McDowell
(Doc Novosti Kosmonavtiki 2006)


Jonathan's Space Report
No. 726                                        30 mai 2016, Somerville, MA, USA
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

International Space Station
---------------------------

Expedition 47 continues with  commander Tim Kopra and flight engineers
Yuriy Malenchenko, Tim Peake, Alexey Ovchinin, Oleg Skripochka and Jeff
Williams.

The Nanoracks NRCSD-7 cubesat deploys were completed on May 18 with the
release of four Lemur-2 satellites from Spire Global. The Lemur system
carries AIS and GPS radio occultation meteorology payloads. The
distortion of the radio signal from a GPS satellite as it passes through
the Earth's atmosphere and out again to the STRATOS detector on Lemur-2
depends on the temperature, pressure and humidity of the region of the
atmosphere the signal is passing through - so STRATOS can infer the
weather. Lemur's SENSE payload contributes to the network of automatic
identification of shipping (AIS), relaying position and identification
data from ships at sea.

The four satellites, built in Glasgow, are named  Theresacondor, Kane,
Nick-Allain and Jeff after Spire employees. (Theresa Condor is VP
Corp.Development for Spire. Nick Allain is their director of brand. Kane
is probably named after Megan Kane, a Spire manager, and Jeff is
possibly Spire satellite engineer Jeff Kuehne.)

The two Nanoracks Cubesat Dispensers launched on OA-4 (Dec 2015, NRCSD-7)
and OA-6 (Mar 2016, NRCSD-8) were stored on ISS until May and repacked
to allow the high priority Dove 0D-class and Spire Global Lemur satellites
to be deployed sooner:

            At launch                    After repacking on orbit

  NRCSD-7   MinXSS/CADRE                 MinXSS/CADRE
            NODES/STMSAT                 NODES/STMSAT
            Flock-2e 1 to 12             Flock-2e 1 to 4
                                         Flock-2e' 1 to 4
                                         Lemur-2 5 to 9

  NRCSD-8   Flock-2e' 1 to 12            Flock-2e' 5 to 12             
            Lemur-2 5 to 9               Flock-2e 5 to 12

In addition there is an external deployer on OA-6 which I suspect
contains Flock 2e' 13 to 20 and possibly 8 more Lemur-2s. It will
be used after OA-6 departs the ISS in June.

The MinXSS and Nodes cubesats released on May 16 are communicating with
the ground, as are the Flock-2e/2e' satellites (whose deployment order
has been corrected in the table below thanks to Mike Safyan of
PlanetLabs). No signals have been reported from CADRE or STMSat-1. The
empty NRCSD-7 cubesat deployer was brought back inside in late May and
replaced by NRCSD-8, loaded with 8 Flock 2e and 8 Flock 2e'. NRCSD-8 was
probably stowed in the Kibo ELM-PS storeroom in the interim. The NRCSD is
mounted on a table called MPEP (multipurpose experiment platform) and put
in the Kibo airlock. The Japanese JEM-RMS robot arm then picks up the MPEP
and points the NRCSD in the right direction to spring-eject its satellites,
two 3U cubesats at a time. On May 30 deploys began from NRCSD-8.

The CRS-8 Dragon which landed on May 11 brought back to Earth the EMU
3011 spacesuit implicated in the Parmitano and Kopra water leaks. EMU
3011 was launched into space on mission STS-132 in 2010. Also brought
back aboard CRS-8 were the Flock-2b 11 and 12 cubesats which failed to
deploy from the ISS last October. Nanoracks deployers NRCSD-5 and
NRCSD-6 were also returned to Earth on CRS-8.  

The Bigelow Expansion Activity Module (BEAM) remains attached to Node 3.
On May 28 the module expansion was successfuly carried out; the process
of expanding and pressurizing the module took from 1305 to 2044 UTC. The
diameter of the module is now 3.2metres; its length was increased by
1.8m to about 3.7m.

Galileo and Glonass
-------------------

Two more Galileo satellites were launched on May 24 to join the European
navigation system. The satellites are nicknamed Daniele and Alizee.

Russia launched Glonass-M No. 53 to replenish their navigation satellite
system on May 29.

Thaicom 8
---------

SpaceX launched the Thaicom-8 satellite to a high apogee
supersynchronous transfer orbit on May 27. The Falcon 9 first stage
landed safely on the 'Of Course I Still Love You' in the Atlantic.

The Thaicom satellites mainly use the 78.5E geostationary location:

  Satellite   Operation dates       Spacecraft type                 Location

  Thaicom 1   1993 Dec - 2010 Jan   Hughes HS-376                    78.5E (1994-1997)
                                                                    120.0E (1997-2009)
  Thaicom 2   1994 Oct - 2010 Nov   Hughes HS-376                    78.5E
  Thaicom 3   1997 Apr - 2006 Oct   Aerospatiale Spacebus-3000       78.5E
  Thaicom 4   2005 Aug-             Loral SSL-1300                  119.5E
  Thaicom 5   2006 May-             Alcatel Alenia Spacebus-3000     78.5E
  Thaicom 6A  2013 Jul- 2014 Mar    Loral SSL-1300                   78.6E
                                   (On-orbit lease from Asiasat)
  Thaicom 6   2014 Jan-             Orbital Star-2.3                 78.5E
  Thaicom 7   2014 Sep-             Loral SSL-1300                  119.9E
                                   (Also called Asiasat 6)
  Thaicom 8   2016 May-             Orbital Star-2.3                En route 78.5E


ZY-3 launch
-----------

The ZY-3 02 satellite (ziyuan san hao 02 xing) was launched from Taiyuan
on May 30 for China's Satellite Surveying and Mapping Applications Center.
It carries 2-meter-resolution Earth imaging cameras. Two small 37 kg
imaging satellites for Satellogic of Argentina were also deployed;
ÑUSAT-1 and -2 (not to be confused with the 1985 Nusat satellite
from Weber State Univ.) are also called Fresco and Batata (cheese and sweet
potato, a popular Argentine dessert pairing).

Table of Recent Orbital Launches
 ----------------------------------
Date UT       Name            Launch Vehicle        Site            Mission       INTL.   Catalog  Perigee Apogee  Incl   Notes
                                                                                                      km      km   deg

May  6 0521   JCSAT 14            Falcon 9 FT        Canaveral SLC40   Comms          28A   S41471  35758 x 35864 x   0.0 GEO 176E
May 15 0243   Yaogan 30           Chang Zheng 2D     Jiuquan           Imaging        29A   S41473    628 x   656 x  98.1 0900LT SSO
May 16 1005   MinXSS )                               ISS, LEO          Astronomy   9867HV   S41475    398 x   402 x  51.6
              CADRE  )                                                 Science     9867HU   S41474    398 x   402 x  51.6
May 16 1440   STMSat-1 )                             ISS, LEO          Tech        9867HW   S41476    399 x   402 x  51.6
              Nodes 1  )                                               Tech        9867HX   S41477    398 x   403 x  51.6
              Nodes 2  )                                               Tech        9867HY   S41478    400 x   401 x  51.6
May 17 0845   Flock 2e'-1/0D05)                      ISS, LEO          Imaging     9867HZ   S41479    399 x   402 x  51.6
              Flock 2e'-2/0C1B)                                        Imaging     9867JB   S41481    400 x   401 x  51.6
May 17 1200   Flock 2e'-3/0D06)                      ISS, LEO          Imaging     9867JA   S41480    398 x   402 x  51.6
              Flock 2e'-4/0C22)                                        Imaging     9867JC   S41482    399 x   402 x  51.6
May 17 2300   Flock 2e-1/0C37)                       ISS, LEO          Imaging     9867JD   S41483    398 x   403 x  51.6
              Flock 2e-2/0C78)                                         Imaging     9867JE   S41484    398 x   402 x  51.6
May 18 0215   Flock 2e-3/0C60)                       ISS, LEO          Imaging     9867JG   S41486    399 x   402 x  51.6
              Flock 2e-4/0C41)                                         Imaging     9867JH   S41487    398 x   403 x  51.6
May 18 0705   Lemur-2 Theresacondor                  ISS, LEO          Met-RO      9867JF   S41485    400 x   401 x  51.6
              Lemur-2 Kane                                             Met-RO      9867JJ   S41488    399 x   401 x  51.6
May 18 1115   Lemur-2 Nick-Allain                    ISS, LEO          Met-RO      9867JK   S41489    399 x   401 x  51.6
              Lemur-2 Jeff                                             Met-RO      9867JL   S41490    399 x   401 x  51.6
May 24 0848   GalileoSat-13 )     Soyuz ST-B         CSG               Navigation   30A     S41549  23551 x 23566 x  57.4
              GalileoSat-14 )                                          Navigation   30B     S41550  23553 x 23616 x  57.4
May 27 2139   Thaicom 8           Falcon 9 FT        Canaveral SLC40   Comms        31A     S41552    347 x 90190 x  21.2
May 29 0844   Kosmos-2516         Soyuz-2-1B         Plesetsk LC43/4   Navigation   32A     S41554  19124 x 19152 x  64.8
May 30 0317   Ziyuan-3 02  )      Chang Zheng 4B     Taiyuan           Imaging      33A     S41556    484 x   499 x  97.5 1024LT SSO
              Fresco       )                                           Imaging      33B     S41557    481 x   499 x  97.5 1024LT SSO
              Batata       )                                           Imaging      33C     S41558    481 x   499 x  97.5 1024LT SSO
May 30 1140   Flock 2e-5/0C43)                       ISS, LEO          Imaging     9867JM             401 x   404 x  51.6
              Flock 2e-6/0C75)                                         Imaging     9867JN             401 x   404 x  51.6

Table of Recent Suborbital Launches
-----------------------------------

A US missile defense test on May 17 involved the launch of a
medium-range target using an SR-19 solid motor first stage.

HiFire-5B was a joint US/Australian hypersonic-research flight test from
Woomera on May 18. Some reports said it was going to use a Terrier Mk
70/Lynx rocket (following the partial failure of HF-5 from Andoya in
2012) but a spokesperson at the U. of Queensland tells me it was moved
back to the originally planned VS-30/Orion.  Thanks to T. Schiller for
alerting me to these launches.

The Indian Space Research Organization launched an HS9 booster on May 23
carrying the RLV-TD hypersonic experiment; the vehicle's apogee of 70 km
was within the mesosphere, so it's not included in the list here.

The Washington Free Beacon reports that the US DoD detected a test launch
of Russia's Nudol' antiballistic missile interceptor on May 25.


Date UT       Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle      Site                  Mission    Apogee/km    Target

Apr  2 1518   New Shepard M4   New Shepard         West Texas            Test          103       West Texas
Apr 12        DF-41 RVs?       DF-41?              Taiyuan?              Test         1000?      ?
Apr 19 0641   Yu-71 No. 3      UR-100NU            Yasniy                Test         1000?      Kura?
Apr 19 0933   Test payload     Simorgh             Semnan                Test          200?      S Iran
Apr 26 1700   Kunpeng-1B       Tianying-3F         Hainan                Ionosphere    316       S China Sea
May 18 0045?  HiFire-5B        VS-30/Orion         Woomera               Hypersonic    278       Woomera Range
May 18 0702   FTX-21 Target    MRBM-T3             Kauai                 Target        300?      Pacific
May 25        Nudol'           Nudol'              Plesetsk              Test          100?      -
May 25        CTV-01a          SM-3-IB            DDG-70, Kauai          Test          100?      Pacific
May 26        CTV-02           SM-3-IB            DDG-70, Kauai          Test          100?      Pacific

.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
|  Jonathan McDowell                 |                                    |
|  Somerville MA 02143               |  inter : planet4589 at gmail       |
|  USA                               |  twitter: @planet4589              |
|                                                                         |
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