SPACEWARN Bulletin, SPX-605 A publication of NASA NSSDC/WDC for Satellite Information, and the World Warning Agency for Satellites, for COSPAR/ISES. (All information in this publication was received between 1 March 2004 and 31 March 2004.) A. List of New International Designations and Launch Dates (UT). (USSPACECOM Catalog numbers are in parentheses.) COSPAR/WWAS USSPACECOM SPACECRAFT INT.ID CAT. # NAME LAUNCH DATE, UT ------------------------------------------------------------- 2004-010A (28194) COSMOS 2406 27 March 2004 2004-009A (28190) NAVSTAR 54 (USA 177) 20 March 2004 2004-008A (28187) EUTELSAT W3A 15 March 2004 2004-007A (28184) MBSAT 13 March 2004 2004-006A (28169) ROSETTA 02 March 2004 B. Text of Launch Information 2004-010A COSMOS 2406 is a Russian geostationary military spacecraft that was launched by a Proton-K rocket from Baikonur on 27 March 2004. 2004-009A NAVSTAR 54, also known as USA 177 and as GPS 2R-11 is an American navigational satellite in the GPS fleet. It was launched by a Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral at 17:39 UT on 20 March 2004. It will take Slot 3 in Plane C, replacing the aging GPS 2A-19. The fleet consists of 24 operational satellites (plus a few spares) located in six (inertial) planes with four slots in each. The initial orbital parameters were period 718 min, apogee 20,277 km, perigee 20090 km, and inclination 55.1 deg. 2004-008A EUTELSAT W3A is a geostationary communications satellite belonging to that European consortium, and was launched by a Proton-M rocket (with a Breeze-M upper stage) from Baikonur at 23:06 UT on 15 March 2004. The 4.4 tonne satellite carries a total of 58 Ku-band transponders and a few steerable transmission beams to provide direct-to-home voice, data, and video channels to Europe, Middle East and Africa. It will replace the W3 satellite at 7 deg-E longitude. 2004-007A MBSAT (Mobile Broadcasting SATellite) is a Japanese-South Korean geostationary communications satellite that was launched by an Atlas 3 rocket from Cape Canaveral at 05:40 UT on 13 March 2004. The 4.1 tonne satellite will provide video, CD-quality radio, and data to cellular phones and other portable devices in Japan and South Korea, after parking over 144 deg-E longitude. 2004-006A ROSETTA is a European (ESA) cometary probe that was launched by an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou at 07:17 UT on 2 March 2004. The three tonne spacecraft will orbit around a comet named 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko after releasing a lander named Philae sometime in 2014. On the way to reaching the comet, it will undergo one Mars swingby (in February 2007) and three Earth Swingbys (March 2005, November 2007, and November 2009) to boost its speed and undertake a 675 million km cruise. The mission will have ground support/commands from RMOC at ESOC, the DSN stations in Madrid, Spain, and Goldstone, USA, and the New Norcia station near Perth, Australia. The science operations center, RSOC will handle the science data acquisition and dissemination. ROSETTA is a cubical box (2.8 m x 2.1 m x 2.0 m) with two solar panels of size 14 m x 2.3 m. Besides the lander, it carries 11 instruments to sense the comet. Gerhard Schwehm of ESA's ESTEC, Netherlands is the Project Scientist for the mission. Details of the mission is available thru, http://www.esa.int/export/esaMI/ Rosetta. The 11 instruments are outlined below. ALICE is a UV spectrometer that will monitor the sublimation rates of water vapor and carbon monoxide/dioxide. S. A. Stern, SwRI, Boulder, Co, USA is the Principal Investigator. CONSERT (COmet Nucleus Sounding Experiment by Radiowave Transmission) will transmit radiowaves that will penetrate the cometary nucleus (and received by the CONSERT on the lander) to probe the inhomogeneity of the nucleus as an assemblage of component "cometesimals". W. Kofman, LPG, Grenoble, France is the Principal Investigator. COSIMA (COmetary Secondary Ion Mass Analyzer) will analyze the composition of key atomic elements and organic molecules in the cometary dust (in the tail). J. Kissel, MPAe, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany is the Principal Investigator. GIADA (Grain Impact Analyzer and Dust Accumulator) will measure the number, mass, momentum and velocity distribution of the dust grains. L. Colangeli, Oss Astronomico di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy is the Principal Investigator. MIDAS (Micro-Imaging Dust Analysis System) will provide the population, size, volume and shape of the grains. W. Riedler, IWF, Graz, Austria is the Principal Investigator. MIRO (Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter) is a radiometer that will monitor the surface temperature of the comet (and a few asteroids during its cruise phase). It will also monitor the abundance of water vapor and carbon monoxide, to determine how the sublimation varies according to the distance from the Sun. S. Gulkis, NASA-JPL, Pasadena, CA, USA is the Principal Investigator. OSIRS (Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote-imaging System) is a joint wide-angle and narrow-angle panchromatic camera to photograph the cometary nucleus. H. U. Keller, MPAe, Katlenburg- Lindau, Germany, is the Principal Investigator. ROSINA (Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis) carries two sensors to determine the composition of the comet's atmosphere and ionosphere, and the velocities of ions. H. Balsiger, University of Bern, Switzerland is the Principal Investigator. RPC (Rosetta Plasma Consortium) carries five sensors to measure the physical properties of the cometary nucleus, examine the structure of the inner coma, monitor cometary activity, and study the comet's interaction with the solar wind. Among the co-investigators is R. Lundin, Swedish Institute of Physics, Kiruna, Sweden. RSI (Radio Science Investigation) will infer the ionization in the cometary environment by analysing Rosetta's telemetry waves that passed through the environment on the way to Earth. The Principal Investigator is M. Patzold, University of Cologne, Germany. VIRTIS (Visible and InfraRed Thermal Imaging Spectrometer) will map the nature of the solids, and the temperature of the nucleus' surface. It will also identify the gases in the coma and help identify a suitable landing site. The Principal Investigator is A. Coradini, IFSI, Rome, Italy. PHILAE is the lander of mass 100 kg, and is covered by solar panels. It will unfold its three legs upon release from the orbiter, which will help to damp out the impact and enable the lander to stand upright. Upon landing, it will fire a harpoon to anchor it to the soil. The data from the instruments will be sent to the ground stations via the orbiter. It has three Project Managers: Stephen Ulamac, DLR, Koln Proz-Wahn, Germany; Denis Moura, CNES, Toulouse, France; and R. Mugnuolo, Italian Space Agency, Matera, Italy. The WDC_SI will assign an International/COSPAR ID, 2004-006C after it lands on the comet. The following are the instruments on PHILAE. APXS (Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer) will help infer the atomic composition of the cometary surface minerals. The Principal Investigator is Rudolf Rieder, Max Planck Institut fur Chemie, Mainz, Germany. CIVA is a set of six identical micro-cameras that will take panoramic pictures of the cometary surface. Jean-Pierre Bibring of the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, University of Paris, France is the Principal Investigator. CONSERT (COmet Nucleus Sounding Experiment by Radiowave Transmission) in the lander will receive the transmissions from the CONSERT instrument on the orbiter. Wlodek Kofman of the Laboratoire de Planetologie, Grenoble, France is the Principal Investigator. COSAC (COmetary Sampling And Composition experiment) is a gas analyzer that will identify the organic molecules emanating from the comet. Helmut Rosenbauer of the Max-Planck Institut fur Aeronomie, Lindau, Germany is the Principal Investigator. MODULUS PTOLEMY is a gas analyzer that will provide isotopic ratios of light elements. Ian Wright, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK is the Principal Investigator. MUPUS consists of sensors to ascertain the density, and thermal and mechanical properties of the surface. Tilman Spohn, Universitat Munster, Germany is the Principal Investigator. ROLIS (ROsetta Lander Imaging System) is a CCD camera to obtain high- resolution pictures during landing, and panoramic images of areas sampled by other instruments. Stefano Mottola, DLR, Berlin, Germany is the Principal Investigator. ROMAP (ROsetta lander Magnetometer And PLasma monitor) consists of a magnetometer and a plasma probe to monitor the cometary environment and the impacting solar wind. Hans-Ulrich Auster, Technische Universitat, Braunschweig, Germany is the Principal Investigator. SD2 (Sampling and Distribution device) will drill 20 cm into the cometary surface, collect samples either for microscopic inspection or for sending it to different ovens. Ercol Finzi, Politechnico, Milan, Italy is the Principal Investigator. SESAME (Surface Electrical, Seismic and Acoustic Monitoring Experiment) will emit and receive sound waves that have traversed the surface. Dietrich Mohlmann, DLR, Cologne, Germany is a Principal Investigator. C. Spacecraft Particularly Suited for International Participation 1. Spacecraft with essentially continuous radio beacons on frequencies less than 150 MHz, or higher frequencies if especially suited for ionospheric or geodetic studies. (NNSS denotes U.S. Navy Navigational Satellite System. Updates or corrections to the list are possible only with information from the user community.) THE FULL LIST APPEARED IN SPX 545. (See http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/ spacewarn/) THE LIST WILL NOT BE REPEATED IN FUTURE ISSUES, UNTIL SIGNIFICANTLY REVISED AGAIN. 2. 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 80 dedicated global stations that are of interest to geodetic study may be obtained through the following services provided by the International Association of Geodesy [IGS]). 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 SPX-518. It will not be repeated since an excellent source of trajectory- and science-related GPS information is at URL http://www.colorado.edu/geography/gcraft/notes/gps/gps_f.html. It provides many links to GPS-related data bases. The latest addition to the fleet is NAVSTAR 54, 2004-009A. 3. Russian Global Navigational (Positioning) Spacecraft, GLONASS constellation. SPACEWARN requests updates or additions from readers to the list. All GLONASS spacecraft are in the general COSMOS series. The COSMOS numbers invoked by USSPACECOM have sometimes differed from the numbers (NNNN) associated in Russia. The operating frequencies in MHz are computed from the channel number K. Frequencies (MHz) are L1 = 1602.0 + 0.5625K and L2 = 1246.0 + 0.4375K. The standard format of the GLONASS situation appeared in SPX-545. It will not be repeated in view of the excellent updated source, with the URL http://www.glonass-center.ru/frame.html, maintained by the Coordinational Scientific Information Center (CSIC), Russian Space Forces. 4. Visually bright objects. A comprehensive list of visually bright objects with their 2-line orbital elements is available from USSPACECOM, via a NASA URL. Go to Sec C-6 below and, after steps (1) through (6), click on "Special Interest Group Report". Then click on "Visible Interest Satellites", along with "Header and TLE". The list does not provide visual magnitude, but are expected to be brighter than magnitude 5. 5. Actual decays or landings of payload spacecraft and rocket bodies (R/B) only. No further information is available. Designations Common Name Decay Date (UT), 2004 ------------ ----------- ---------- 2004-010C (28196) R/B(1) Proton-K 29 March 2001-057A (27053) COSMOS 2383 20 March 1970-037A (04393) METEOR 1-4 16 March 1985-061D (15916) R/B(2) that launched MOLNIYA 3-25 08 March 1996-005F (23813) R/B (Aux.Mot.) Proton 07 March 6. 60-day Decay Predictions. The USSPACECOM forecasts and maintains a list of decays of orbiting objects expected in the next 60 days, with fair accuracy. The list may be accessed through a NASA site, http://oig1.gsfc. nasa.gov/scripts/foxweb.exe/app01?, as follows. (1) Click on "OIG Main Page". (2) Click on "Send Message to System administrator", who will provide a login account. (3) After getting an ID and a Password, click on "Registered User Login". (Step (2) is not needed after obtaining an account.) (4) Click on "Continue". (5) Click on "General information". (6) Click on "Reports". (7) Click on "Sixty Day Decay......". The login need is enforced after the 11 September 2001 events. 7. 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.) 8. Related NSSDC resources. NSSDC/WDC for Satellite Information is an archival center for science data from many spacecraft. Many datasets are on-line for electronic access, through the URL, http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/ For off-line data, please contact the Request Office, NSSDC, Code 633, NASA GSFC, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, U.S.A., for specific information (REQUEST@ NSSDCA.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 elements of many magnetospheric and heliospheric science- payload spacecraft may be obtained from: ftp://nssdcftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/miscellaneous/orbits Other files of interest for Earth-centered s/c can be generated through the URL, http://sscweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/ Codes related to the heliospheric spacecraft trajectories can be executed through the URL, http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/space/helios/heli.html Descriptions of many spacecraft, experiments and datasets are available through links from http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/sc-query.html =========================================================================== SPACEWARN Bulletin The bulletin is intended to serve as an international communication medium for the rapid distribution of information on satellites and space probes. The material it contains is based on guidelines in the COSPAR Guide to Rocket and Satellite Information and Data Exchange, COSPAR Transactions #8, December 1972, and various Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) resolutions. All bulletins beginning with January 1991 (SPX-447) are now available on line; the SPX number increases by one for each succeeding month (for example, the January 1993 bulletin is SPX-471). The bulletin may be accessed through the World Wide Web (WWW). The URL is http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacewarn/ Users are encouraged to submit their comments and suggestions for the improvement of this bulletin to SPACEWARN Bulletin: WWAS@NDADSB.GSFC.NASA.GOV. Categories of Spacecraft To improve the effectiveness of international distribution of satellite and space probe information via the SPACEWARN system, spacecraft are identified in categories according to the urgency and detail of information needed by the scientific community as follows: CATEGORY 1: Spacecraft that carry essentially continuous telemetry or radio beacons, usually on frequencies less than 150 MHz. CATEGORY 2: GPS constellation of positioning/navigational spacecraft. CATEGORY 3: GLONASS constellation of positioning/navigational spacecraft. CATEGORY 4: Occasionally, a list of bright, orbiting objects of visual magnitude 4 or brighter. The bulletin also carries launch dates, international IDs, and USSPACECOM catalog numbers, followed by a brief outline of the payload and orbital parameters, re-entry of major objects, and miscellaneous sections. These data are based on launch announcements or on information received from individuals, launching authorities, FBIS and USSPACECOM emails, news papers, and some Web sites.