Footage of ATV 3 passing in morning twilight of March 24

The footage above shows the European cargoship ATV 3 'Edouardo Amaldi' as it passed over Leiden this morning near 4:54 UTC (5:54 am local time), deep in morning twilight (sun at less than -7 degrees elevation only). In the opening shot, Arcturus can be seen top right, and the ATV will appear from behind the chimney-pipe of the roof below.

ATV 3 was bright (magnitude 0 to -1.5) and easily visible by the naked eye. It was somewhat orangish in colour. Once past culmination, I lost it in the twilight glare to the east.

The footage was recorded with a WATEC 902H camera and a 1.4/12mm lens.

I also made some photographic pictures this morning, including this one:

click image to enlarge

ATV 3 was launched by ESA yesterday from Kourou in French Guyana, and is on its way to the International Space Station (ISS) with supplies. I observed it yesterday morning as well, only 22 minutes after launch (see post and pictures here).

Video of Metop-A (06-044A) flaring brilliantly

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Metop-A (06-044A) is the first operational satellite in a planned series of European meteorological (weather) satellites. It was launched on 19 October 2006. Among satellite observers, it is known for frequently producing very bright flares. These flares occur when the solar panels reflect sunlight to the observer on Earth.

I captured such a flare with my video system yesterday evening: see the video above. The brilliant flare reached mag. -2 at 20:11:11.2 UTC (22 March 2012) and had a FWHM of 6.0 seconds.

Below the video is an integration of all the video frames, and a diagram of the brightness profile (made using LiMovie, wonderful software by Kazuhisa Miyashita). Camera was a WATEC 902H with Canon EF 2.0/35mm lens.

My GPS time-inserter unfortunately lost signal about a minute before the flare - hence why the display says "Bad GPS" in the video. Fortunately, in the preceding minutes I had recorded enough of time-signal in the video to extrapolate the time using the video frame rate. Hence, I am quite confident about the accuracy of the brightness profile.

Newly launched ATV 3 cargoship in twilight

This morning at 4:34 UTC, the European Space Agency ESA launched the third Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) cargoship, ATV 3 "Edouardo Amaldi", from Kourou in French Guyana, bringing supplies to the International Space Station.

click images to enlarge

Only 22 minutes later, around 4:56 UTC (5:56 am local time), it made a pass visible from Europe. The ATV was still connected to the Ariane upper stage at that moment. As seen from Leiden, it was a low pass at a maximum elevation of 24 degrees in the S-SE, and in deep twilight: sun at -7 degrees altitude.

Nevertheless it was easily visible by the naked eye around culmination, as a fast and steady mag. 0 to -1 object moving against a bright blue twilight background. The picture above is a 4-second exposure taken with the Canon EOS 450D + EF 2.8/24mm lens, 400 ISO.

Note added 24/03/2012: More observations from following nights, including video of a pass on the 24th, available here.

SAR Lupe 4 and USA 129 (pass footage)

Like a few days ago, I used the WATEC 902H video camera  yesterday evening to film a pass of  USA 129.

Near 19:41:30 UTC (21 March), the same 10-degree wide FOV first saw the German military Radar satellite SAR Lupe 4 (08-014A) pass and then, only some 10 seconds later, the American KH-12 Keyhole optical reconnaissance satellite USA 129 (96-072A). Below is the resulting footage:



The FOV is about 10 degrees wide, and the two brightest stars are delta and gamma Uma in the Big Dipper. The lens used was a Canon EF 2.0/35mm lens. The camera is a WATEC 902H. Time insert is done by a GPS time inserter.

Footage of a pass of the KH-12 Keyhole optical reconnaissance satellite USA 129

Spring is a time when not only some birds appear out of their winter hiding, but some satellites emerge from winter darkness as well. Among them the evening plane KH-12 "Improved Crystal" Keyhole satellites.

The footage above shows one of these evening plane KH-12 Keyholes, USA 129 (96-072A), the oldest one still in orbit. The footage was shot by me in the evening of Monday 19 March, from my observatory in Leiden. The star field is a part of the tail of the Big Dipper: epsilon Uma at lower left and delta Uma at upper left. A WATEC 902H camera, GPS time inserter and Canon EF 2.0/35mm lens were used.

USA 129 was quite bright during this pass and well visible by the naked eye: initially near magnitude zero in Leo, then near magnitude +2.5 once culminating near Uma (the segment of footage shows it while it was near +2.5.)

The Keyholes are optical reconnaissance satellites, resembling Hubble Space Telescopes pointing to Earth surface. They image the earth with a resolution that is believed to be in the order of 10 centimeters (about 4 inch). Four of them are in orbit currently: USA 129 imaged above, USA 161, USA 186 and USA 224. USA 186 is an evening plane Keyhole just like USA 129: the other two are midnight plane Keyholes. On my 52 degree latitude, the evening plane Keyholes start to make visible evening passes in March, the midnight plane Keyholes during the late spring and summer (starting April-May).

MiTEx 1, AEHF 1 and Prowler

Weather conditions have not been too well lately. In the evening of March 14, I could do some imaging from Leiden, albeit under hazy skies. The relatively bright geostationary SIGINT Mentor 2 (98-029A) was the target.

In addition, I used a "remote" telescope, the 37-cm F14 Rigel Cassegrain of Winer Observatory (MPC 587) to image a few geostationary objects over US longitudes. Targets were (below images from top to bottom) the communication satellite AEHF 1 (10-039A), and the enigmatic objects MiTEx 1 (06-024A) and Prowler (90-097A).

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AEHF 1 (aka USA 214) is the first of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency communication satellites that should replace the Milstar system. Because one of its onboard rocket boosters failed, the satellite had to be brought from GTO to its geostationary destination using smaller thrusters designed for station keeping, a procedure which took over a year.

This was the first time I imaged AEHF 1.

Prowler and MiTEx 1 are both enigmatic objects. Prowler's unique story has been discussed here before. MiTEx 1 (USA 187)  is an enigmatic object that has some connection to the Prowler legacy. Like Prowler presumably was, it was designed to inspect other satellites. Two MiTEx satellites were launched (in the same launch in 2006), MiTEx 1 and 2. They were used to inspect, amongst others, the failed DSP satellite DSP-23 in 2009. I imaged MiTEx 2 before, this was the first time I also imaged MiTEx 1.

André Kuipers talking from Space

This morning near 11:14 local time (10:14 UTC), Dutch astronaut André Kuipers onboard the ISS had a radio talk with a school class in Belgium on 145.800 MHz. From Leiden, I listened in using my old scanner radio and a homebrew dipole antenna (two hardware store 50 cm metal rods connected to a coax cable). Below is a recording of part of the reception (voice is André Kuipers, in Dutch):


The school class in question was a class from primary school De Regenboog in Bree, Belgium.

It is always cool to directly hear astronauts from Space. I listened in on André Kuipers talking from space before during his 2004 mission and several times have picked up communications between ISS astronauts and Russian ground stations in the past. You don't need fancy equipment for that: a normal scanner-radio and the kind of simple homebrew antenna I use will do. I use an old second-hand Realistic Pro 2042 receiver and a dipole antenna made out of a 1 meter M5 rod from the hardware store that I sawed in to 50 cm halfs, which are connected to the coax cable. Very simple but it works! See below image (cat is vital for good reception ;-p  )

Space debris lands in Brazil village

Through Carlos Bella on the satobs mailing list, news broke today that an object which almost certainly is space-debris crashed in the Brazilian village of Anapurus on February 22, 2012, near 6 am local time (9 UTC). It landed about 6 yards from a house and damaged trees upon impact.

Photo's of the object can be see here.They show a spherical object that strongly resembles a spherical rocket fuel cell (tank) or a Helium pressurization tank. These are the most resistent objects among space debris and often involved in reported cases of space-debris reaching earth surface.

Ted Molczan quickly noted that date, time and location correspond well to the re-entry of 1997-016C, an Ariane 44L rocket stage from the launch of two geostationary satellites, Thaicom 3 and Bsat-1A, on 17 April 1997.

The Ariane 44L r/b in question re-entered at 9:09 UTC +/- 1 min on 22 February 2012, near 4 S, 312 E. This corresponds well with the time and location of the Anapurus event (3.7 S, 317 E). Anapurus is located right on the re-entry track and was passed within a minute of the estimated re-entry time (movement of the r/b was from West to East, i.e. to the right in the map):

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Lacrosse 5

For those arriving here through the link with Thierry's imaging of Lacrosse 5 on Spaceweather: a discussion of the Lacrosse 5 "disappearance trick" including a video of such an event, can be found here.

The Iranian satellite Navid photographed

On February 3, 2012, Iran succesfully launched its third satellite into orbit, Navid (2012-005A), using a Safir rocket.

This evening was clear and I had a 86 degree pass of this new Iranian satellite. It is very small (a 50 kg semi-kube, only 50 x 60 cm large!) and hence faint. Using the 1.4/85mm SamYang lens, I nevertheless managed to photograph it, catching it as a faint trail just south of the alpha Persei star group on a 5 second exposure:

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This is probably the smallest object in orbit I have ever photographed.

Navid is reportedly an imaging satellite, taking photographs from a 250 x 375 km orbit. At the time the photograph above was taken, it was at 316 km altitude.

FIA Radar 1 through the Pleiades, and Geostationary satellites in Orion

 click image to enlarge

The picture above (10s exposure taken with a Canon 450D and SamYang 1.4/85 mm lens) shows the classified military Radar reconnaissance satellite FIA Radar 1 (10-046A) sailing smack through the Pleiades last Friday.

Friday evening started clear, and I took the opportunity do so some observing. Using the SamYang 1.4/85 mm and the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 2.8/180mm, I not only obtained the picture of FIA Radar 1 above, but I also targetted some geostationary satellites, imaging several of them in Orion.

Among the targets were the classified military communication satellite Milstar 5 (02-001A), the SDS data relay satellite USA 227 (11-011A) and the SIGINT satellite Mentor 2 (98-029A). Two other classified objects were captured as by-catch of these objects: the SIGINT satellite Vortex 6 (89-035A) and the object "Unknown 110623" (11-674A), an amateur-discovered object in GTO that is probably a spent rocket booster of a military launch. Note how it created a tiny trail in the image below as it was moving northwards through Orion.

The images below show these objects. Milstar 5, Vortex 6, UNK 110623 plus the two non-classified commercial communication satellites Eutelsat W2 (98-056A) and Intelsat New Dawn (11-016A) are all in the same 10-degree wide 85mm image. The stars of Orion's belt are visible in the top of the image, and Milstar 5 is close to the Orion Nebula. Orion's belt stars are visible at left in the Mentor 2 image as well.

click images to enlarge

 

In one of the other images taken last Friday evening, another commercial geostationary communication satellite, Intelsat 4 (95-040A) was captured while it briefly flared brightly at about 18:58:30 UTC (27 Jan).

The FIA radar and a number of geostationary objects (Mentor 2, Mentor 4) and the NOSS 3-3 r/b were imaged by me two weeks earlier as well, observations on January 14 and 15 which I had not reported here earlier. I also tried to relocate PAN, which recently has been relocated again but so far has not been recovered, although both Greg in South Africa and I in the Netherlands have tried.

Phobos-Grunt: a final TIP on where it came down

USSTRATCOM today (Jan 23rd) has finally released a traditional format final TIP for Phobos-Grunt. It yields similar values to the ones initially circulating through Russian press releases (see earlier post here): 17:46 GMT (+/- 1 m) and a location in the southern Pacific, near 46 S, 87 W.

click map to enlarge

More thoughts on the Phobos-Grunt reentry

It appears that the Russian news bulletins claiming that Phobos-Grunt reentered over the southern Pacific at 17:45 UT yesterday (see my previous post) rather were model predictions than reentry times based on actual final track detections. The Russians (nor the US, for that matter) actually do not have much in terms of tracking facilities in the indicated area (S-Pacific, S-America and S-Atlantic).

The southern Oceans: a blind spot

This highlights the problem, and the similarity between the UARS case last September and the current Phobos-Grunt case. In both cases, determining where it came down was likely hampered by the final revolution and final half hour or more of its trajectory being largely over remote and empty territory. Specifically, in both cases: the southern Oceans.

A lack of tracking facilities (and humans in general) in these areas, mean that they represent a large blind spot for those who's profession it is to track these objects. Once a satellite near decay starts to make its final passes and significant parts of that happen to be over these remote locations, it basically disappears into a black hole. That's what happened with UARS in September, and what now happened with Phobos-Grunt.

Not as in the movies

While some in the media and public have expressed frustration about the lack of published information (and the contradictory information) right after Phobos-Grunt presumably came down, I feel those people lack a realistic outlook on these matters. These people apparently expect that the military is able to determine a clearcut point of reentry within minutes after the satellite has reentered.

In reality, this is not how it works. The military has intermittent detections when the object moves over tracking facilities, spread wide and far over a number of places around the globe. They do not have continuous coverage. They cannot track where they have no tracking facilities. And the big and empty southern oceans represent a large swath of Earth where that is the case.

In Hollywood movies and TV-series, the military (or "NASA", even though in reality it is not NASA doing the tracking) are portrayed as having a second-to-second real-time tracking opportunity of objects, with a moving dot on the screen that disappears in real-time as soon as the satellite reenters. That however, as most things in movies, is a highly unrealistic view which has little resemblance to reality.

It will take the professional analysts at USSTRATCOM and elsewhere some time to ponder the last tracking data, detections and non-detections, and maybe even then there will remain uncertainty about where Phobos-Grunt came down. Such is life, and reality.

Space-Based detections?

In the case of UARS last September, some of us have had some suspicion that Space-Based observations (Infra-Red detections by the early warning satellites of Missile Defense) were perhaps involved in the final determination of the point of reentry. These resort under another part of the military, and comments by those "in the loop" have indicated that normally there is little data exchange between these guys and the groundbased tracking guys. There is also the open question whether reentry fireballs are bright enough for these space-based systems (the DSP and SBIRS satellites) to detect them. As the specifications of these systems are of course classified, little is known about this.

[Updated] Phobos-Grunt down over the southeast Pacific?

click map to enlarge

Early reports in the Russian media report that Phobos-Grunt has come down over the southern Pacific Ocean at 17:45 UT (15 Jan).

These same Russian media have misinterpreted decay bulletins in the (recent) past however, so this is all under some caveat until clear data from non-media sources (e.g.a USSTRATCOM TIP message) appears.

The map above is a preliminary map based on orbital elements from 16:35 UT, an hour before the reentry, and shows the approximate position for Phobos-Grunt for 17:45 UT. There  might be some small discrepancy between the pictured position and real position as it is based on orbital elements from one hour before the reentry.

Note added 20:30 GMT:  Confusingly, Ria-Novosti in a new press release mentions another time and position: 17:59 UT and the Atlantic, 18S and 311 E (49 W). This exemplifies what I mean above with the caveats....

Update 20:40 GMT: USSTRATCOM released a TIP message at 20:34 UT simply saying: "Object Decayed Inside Predicted Window".
That probably means: within the window of their earlier TIP message: 16:59-17:47 UT. This could be taken to support the 17:45 UT value of the Russians and reentry over the S-Pacific.

Summary of current Phobos-Grunt reentry predictions (15 jan 11:00 UT)

Summary of current Fobos-Grunt reentry predictions, round-up of predictions compiled at 15 Jan 11:00 UTC:

USSTRATCOM (14 Jan 20:30): interval 14:52 - 19:40 UTC
Harro Zimmer (15 Jan 07:10): 17:49 +/- 45 m UTC
Ted Molczan (15 Jan 04:59): 20:39 +/- 3 hrs UTC
Aerospace Corp. (15 Jan 06:25): 19:21 +/- 3 hrs UTC 
Roscosmos (14 Jan):  18:36 UTC (uncertainty window not stated)

Listed are: source; time prediction was issued (UTC); predicted time and uncertainty interval, or predicted interval.

My own current prediction, using Alan Pickup's SatEvo, current F10.7cm flux and 09:21 UT epoch orbital elements:  20:07 +/- 2 hrs.

PLEASE take note of the still large uncertainty intervals. As yet, it is still impossible to realistically say where it will come down.

[Updated] Summary of Phobos-Grunt reentry predictions as off 14 Jan, 13:00 UTC

Current predictions by various sources for the reentry of the failed Russian Mars probe Fobos-Grunt all still have a very large uncertainty window. Therefore, it is still impossible to provide any realistic statements about the when and especially where the reentry will happen. Suggestions in the press such as these only demonstrate a continuing and thorough misunderstanding of the whole issue among some journalists.

Perhaps as a result of this, USSTRATCOM has changed the way it presents it's Fobos-Grunt reentry predictions. While for other objects they still use the classical TIP format (time with uncertainty interval, and position at the nominal time), they altered the presentation for F-G: they only list the uncertainty interval, without positions or nominal time. Given the way that TIP messages were taken completely out of context and misinterpreted in the press recently (e.g. the notorious and utterly misinformed Novosti-RIA publication here), this is all a very understandable precaution.

A summary of the current predictions (round-up of predictions at 14 Jan, 13:45 UTC. Listed are: source; time/date prediction was issued; predicted time plus uncertainty interval, or uncertainty interval only):

USSTRATCOM (13  Jan 15:30 UTC): 15 Jan 08:25 - 16 Jan 03:37 UTC
Harro Zimmer (13 Jan 11:51 UTC): 15 Jan 17:05 +/- 3 hrs UTC
Ted Molczan (14 Jan 08:35 UTC): 15 Jan 22:31 +/- 8 hrs UTC
Celestrak (T.S. Kelso, 14 Jan 11:00 UTC): 17 Jan 10:04 +/- 1 day UTC
AeroSpace Corp. (13 Jan 10:40 UTC): 15 jan 17:52 +/- 14 hrs UTC
Roscosmos (14 Jan UTC):  15 Jan  21:51 17:51 UTC (no uncertainty window listed)

[added 15:45 UT, 14 Jan] My own estimate, using Alan Pickup's SatEvo and the current space weather (F10.7 cm flux) and the Jan 14.54 orbit, is for 15 Jan, 21:50 +/- 7 hrs UTC.

PLEASE take note of the large uncertainty windows on all these predictions! The uncertainty amounts to many revolutions of F-G around the Earth, so it is impossible to even indicate a Continent or Ocean (as some media sources do) where F-G will end up, at this moment.

Most of the predictions favour the 2nd part of Sunday Jan 15th.

Gearing up for the Phobos-Grunt reentry

We are in for an interesting weekend, as the failed Russian Mars probe Phobos-Grunt is experiencing it's last days of existence. Gradually having come down over the past two months, it is expected to re-enter and burn up (but perhaps not completely) in the Earth atmosphere on Sunday or Monday.

Several days before the re-entry date, it is still not possible (whatever some news outlets erroneously write) to pinpoint when and where it will come down. At the moment of writing (early Friday), the SSC prediction amounts to a still over a day wide window between 15 Jan 02:40 and 16 jan 07:40 UTC. Harro Zimmer's latest prediction is for Jan 15 between 9:00 - 15:00 UTC. Both predictions encompass multiple revolutions around the earth. Please note: all these time windows can still shift, depending on actual developments in space weather (solar activity)  and other factors.

Below video has been posted here before, and shows a Fobos-Grunt pass filmed by me from Leiden, the Netherlands, on November 28:

ISS, Prowler, and a flashing Vortex 1 rocket

Apart from a  glimpse through clouds of the ISS on January 2nd (video posted here earlier), I managed to do my first observations of 2012 this weekend, in the evening of January 7 from Leiden and (using a remote telescope in the USA) on January 9.

Conditions were not ideal on January 7th: a lot of moonlight and intermittent clouds. I observed the HEO object USA 200 (08-010A), but due to the moonlight interference the trails were weak (but good enough to get a few positions) and the pictures not pretty.

For the night of January 8-9, I scheduled a few observations on a "remote" telescope, the 61-cm F10 Cassegrain of SSON in California. Target was Prowler (90-097E), an enigmatic object discussed here earlier.

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The image series on Prowler (I always take a series of at least three images at minute intervals, in case the object is a bit off from predictions) contained a flashing stray.

This turned out to be a classified object as well: Vortex 1r, the r/b from the Vortex 1 launch (78-058B). This rocket stage is clearly tumbling or spinning, as attested by a quite regular flash pattern:

click image and diagram to enlarge

The main flashes are 2.96 seconds apart, and flanked on each side by slow secondary flashes about 0.47s before and after the sharp main flashes, giving the trail on the image a dash-dotted appearance.

An iPad falling from "Space"?

The video above is going viral currently, being posted on many news websites, Facebook pages etcetera. It shows an iPad being dropped from a balloon at a large height (100,000 feet or 30 km (19 miles)): and surviving.

The video was released by the G-Form company, to promote it's "extreme sleeve" protective sleeve for tablets.

A few remarks on this video:

1) it does not drop from "Space" or even remotely near-Space, as is claimed.

The international boundary of space is at 100 km (62.5 miles), while the USA (deviating from the rest of the world) maintains their version of the space boundary at 80 km (50 miles).

Hence, with approximately 30 km altitude the iPad is nowhere near Space when it is dropped from the balloon. In fact, some military aircraft can and did fly at this altitude, for example the Lockheed A-12/SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft. This is the edge of airspace, but nowhere near true space.

2) It doesn't make a particularly hard landing

Analysing the above video carefully, one can note that after some intitial tumbling, the iPad stabilizes its orientation, and from a certain point on "falls" with the flat back towards the ground, level with the horizon. This is probably helped by the rigged cylindrical device on the back (the GPS tracker probably) and the metal rod attached to one end (that also holds the camera). The weight and position of these probably helps to stabilize the contraption.

As a result, the iPad falls with the flat underside towards earth, i.e. maximizing it's airdrag. This slows the iPad's fall, it basically starts to develop some lift and acts like a wing. A good analogue is a falling leaf. It is no longer truely falling: it is rather gliding.

Look at the screenshots below: this shows the stable attitude of the contraption. Look especially at the third screenshot, which shows the iPad just a fraction of a second before ground impact.

As can be seen in picture 3, details of the ground surface (pebbles, plant stems) are not smeared at all in this single frame. Had the iPad hit earth at large speed, there would have been smearing and not this much detail visible in a single frame.

The fact that all this detail is visible and hardly smeared, simply and undeniably points out that the iPad did not hit earth surface with high velocity. It shows that the iPad in reality glided down at relatively low speed, a speed of at best a few meters/second, similar to a parachute drop.

That is hardly a "hard landing" at all! It underlines that the iPad is gliding down gently, rather than making a true impact. The conspicuous lack of an impact pit is also a sign.

It should be noted that the final part of the video with the landing appears to be sped-up, compressing a longer timespan in just a few seconds. Look for example at the fast movement of the aircraft contrail in the sky just after landing.  This speeding-up of the video aids to give the impression of a "hard" landing, while in reality it was a quite gentle landing.

So: this video is not entirely what it purports to be. Yes, the iPad makes an impressive drop from a high altitude (but not from "near-Space" or "Space"). But no, it does not survive solely because of the protective sleeve. The truth is, that the iPad does not land with high speed at all.

Cloud-hampered ISS pass of January 2nd, and deep twilight pass of January 3rd

The evening of January 2nd started clear, so I set up the video to film another pass (17:01 UTC) of the International Space Station (ISS) which currently has the Dutch astronaut André Kuipers on board.

Unfortunately, an episode with many clouds commenced just before the pass. I managed to film glimpses of the ISS through gaps in the cloud cover.

Very frustratingly, it was completely clear again 10 minutes after the pass.

On January 3rd, it was clear. ISS made a pass in very deep twilight (16:04 UTC), with the sun at an altitude of only -3.5 degrees! Nevertheless, the ISS was well visible by the naked eye, in a bright blue sky with no stars yet.