Wednesday Rockets: 3 launches and a landing (sort of)

It’s Wednesday, and that means just one thing: It’s time for a Rocket Roundup. This week we have news of launches from 3 nations, 2 capsuls on their way to the ISS with 4tons of cargo and 3 people, and an update on the Vikram lander.

Transcript

This is the Daily Space for today, Wednesday, September 25, 2019.

Around here, Wednesdays mean just one thing: it’s time to check out what has launched, landed, and potentially failed along the way. That’s right: today is our Wednesday Rocket Review. Normally, these episodes are brought to you by Annie Wilson, but she is away on a well-deserved day off today. This episode was written by David Ballard.

Let’s start with the things that launched.

On Sunday September 22, A pair of 3rd generation BeiDou (“BAY-doo”) navigation satellites were lofted aboard a Chinese Long March 3B early Monday morning local time from the Xichang space center in Sichuan province in the southwest of China. These were the 47th & 48th satellites in this constellation to be launched, and US military tracking data indicates they were deployed into nearly circular orbits inclined about 55 degrees with respect to the Earth’s equator, at an altitude of ~20,900 km / ~13,000 miles above the Earth. The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), the state-owned contractor for the Long March booster, confirmed that the satellites had been successfully placed into the desired orbits.

These were the 4th & 5th Beidou satellites launched this year, there are some 12 others, also 3rd generation, which are scheduled for launch between this year and next, and China has indicated that global coverage of this analogue to the US military’s GPS will be complete some time next year.

This pair (and a future pair) have an additional payload: Cospas-Sarsat. The International Cospas-Sarsat Programme supports search and rescue operations by detecting and locating emergency beacons. The location of the distress beacon is then forwarded to authorities who go out to rescue the people that activated the beacon. Between September 1983 and December 2017, over 46,000 people were rescued with the help of this program. The best part? This service is provided AT NO COST to the distress beacon owners or the countries the signal is forwarded to.

This week China also launched the Yunhai-1-02 weather satellite aboard a Long March 2D from Launch Area-4 / Pad 603 (SLS-2), Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The rocket lifted off at 8:54 pm EDT on Tuesday (00:54 UTC / 08:54 am local on Wednesday). CALT, the rocket manufacturer, has announced the satellite’s successful deployment into its intended polar orbit. The Long March 2 is a two-stage rocket primarily intended to loft smaller satellites (<1,300 kg / <2,900 lbs) into low Earth and Sun-synchronous orbits (LEO & SSO). Like most Chinese rockets, both stages have engines which use a UDMH / N2O4 (unsymmetrical dimethyhydrazine & di-nitrogen tetroxide) liquid fuel/oxidizer combination, resulting in a characteristically ominous — and highly toxic — reddish-orange flame & smoke plume on launch.

The Yunhai satellite is the second of its kind to be placed into orbit. Built by the Shanghai Academy of Satellite Technology, these satellites are described as meteorological satellites with the ability to take monitor atmospheric, marine & space environments, with additional capability directed toward disaster prediction & mitigation.

Reminding us just how many nations are regular rocket launchers, our next story takes us to Japan. Yesterday Japan was finally able to launch HTV-8 cargo module was delayed during its scheduled 10SEP19 countdown due to a fire which started near an “exit hole” in the launch pad designed to allow exhaust gasses during launch to escape through the pad to the exhaust trench below. Investigators have concluded that the most likely cause was static electricity, facilitated by the presence of excess oxygen.

Normally, a small amount of liquid oxygen leaks from the rocket during fueling & and once vaporized is carried away by the local air currents. In this case, they think exceptionally calm winds may have led to a build-up of the excess oxygen, while splashing of liquid oxygen against the heat-resistant material of the pad caused the eventual static spark.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, makers of both the rocket & the cargo module, as well as the maintainers of the Tanegashima Space Center, said in a statement that “As a result of the investigation, it was confirmed that there was a high possibility that the fire spread due to the static electricity generated by the oxygen dripping from the engine exhaust port during the propellant filling operation, which continued to blow on the heat-resistant material in the exit hole at the movable launch pad.
“We have taken corrective measures and have confirmed normal functioning of the rocket and facility.”

While MHI did not specify what corrections were made, they did state that the vehicle, cargo module & mobile launch pad sustained only a minimal amount of cosmetic damage, and that all were ready for another launch attempt.

This supply vessel is expected to arrive at the ISS early Saturday Eastern time.

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The HTV-8 cargo vessel actually isn’t the next capsule slated to reach the ISS. Earlier today the Soyuz MS-15/61S launched with commander Oleg Skripochka strapped into the command module’s center seat, alongside flight engineer Jessica Meir and guest cosmonaut Hazzaa Ali Almansoori, the first Emirate to fly to space.

The soyuz is performing a quick four-orbits on their way to rendezvous with the space station, where they will dock at the Russian Zvezda module at 3:45 p.m. Eastern.

Now we have an update on things that launched and landed… Sort of.

In an update on the India Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan 2 mission, NASA has announced that while the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) was able to take images of the region where the Vikram lander was thought to have hard-landed on the Lunar surface, the lander itself was not seen in the images. This was possibly due to the lengthening shadows of the oncoming Lunar night, as the larger shadows due to lowering Sun angle may have placed the site in darkness too deep to penetrate. The LRO overflight & image-taking operation was executed on 17SEP due to the current orbital position of that craft, and while the approaching night may have affected its ability to image the site, it is also possible, however unlikely, that earlier reports of the lander being imaged from the still-healthy Chandrayaan 2 orbiter were somehow incorrectly interpreted.

Any further investigation into the current state of the lander will likely have to wait until more daylight overflights can take place. No signals of any kind have been confirmed from the Vikram lander, and being primarily solar-powered it was not expected to last through the two-week-long solar night, even under the best of circumstances. Night fell over the region on Sunday the 21st.

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And finally, here are the things that will be launching.

Tomorrow, an EKS-3 (aka “Tundra”) military early warning satellite will launch aboard a Soyuz 2.1b rocket into a highly elliptical orbit which allows visual & communications coverage of high Earth latitudes.

Being a military mission, live video is not expected, & the launch date/time may slip as well with little/no warning. Constructed by RKK Energia, the 14F142 type satellite is expected to take up a highly elliptical & specifically inclined “Molinya” orbit, so as to make use of the tug applied to the satellite by the Earth’s gravity & rotation. This particular orbit has the craft race past the earth at a lower orbital height when it is far from it’s target areas, and than it passes at close to geostationary speeds when it is further out.

Satellites in this constellation are thought to have ~1m resolution in 5 light bands: UV, optical, and three different infra-red. RKK Energia points out that they can see & recognize a “brush fire” in the area of coverage within 25 seconds of it starting, and also track targets climbing above 1,000 km / 600 mi in altitude. It is thought these satellites may be able to perform both tasks simultaneously.

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And that rounds out all our stories for today.

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We do have a couple of quick announcements. A week from Saturday the world is invited to celebrate International Observe the Moon Night. That October 5, astronomy clubs, museums, and luna loving lunatics will be gathering together to look up. If you are near Tucson, Arizona, you are invited to join me at the Flandau Center, where I’ll be giving a free public talk at 7pm in the planetarium.

Thank you all for listening. The Daily Space is produced by Susie Murph, and is a product of the Planetary Science Institute, a 501(c)3 non profit dedicated to exploring our Solar System and beyond. We are made possible through the generous contributions of people like you. If you would like to learn more, please check us out on patreon.com/cosmoquestx

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Wednesday Rockets: 3 launches and a landing (sort of)

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