Author Topic: Angara-A5/Orion - GMM KA, Gagarinets, smallsat mass model - Vostochny - 11 April 2024 (09:00:00.164  (Read 51016 times)

Online B. Hendrickx

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Here are two pictures of Gagarinets, one published in the "Rosskiyskaya gazeta" newspaper and another (taken in the assembly bulding at Vostochny) posted on the NK forum.

Also posted on the NK forum were pictures of the Kosmolab cubesat dispenser. It is attached to the upper part of the GMM mass simulator, which was not immediately clear in the upper view posted here earlier.

The Kosmolab container can be flown in the configurations shown below. Since Gagarinets is a 3U cubesat, the reported mock-up cubesat deployed from Orion must have been either another 3U or a 6U type. In any case, one or more boxes in the dispenser must have remained empty.

Meanwhile, the two objects deployed from the dispenser are decaying rapidly:
2024-069B: 193x422 km
2024-069C: 188x391 km
Object C is decaying faster than Object B, a possible sign that they are not exactly the same size. Object A (the Orion upper stage with the attached mass simulator) does not seem to have been tracked yet after being placed into its graveyard orbit.
 

Offline Dmitry_V_home

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I suppose that that maneuver while clearing the launch tower is normal (?)

Yeah. This is a maneuver of withdrawal from the launch pad

Offline ZachS09

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I suppose that that maneuver while clearing the launch tower is normal (?)

Yeah. This is a maneuver of withdrawal from the launch pad

Also known as a tower avoidance maneuver.
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  • Jonathan McDowell
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A new object 2024-069D has been tracked in the low orbit.
Still no orbit data for 2024-069A.
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Offline russianhalo117

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I suppose that that maneuver while clearing the launch tower is normal (?)

Yeah. This is a maneuver of withdrawal from the launch pad

Also known as a tower avoidance maneuver.
He is referring mainly to the Launch Mount Avoidance Manuver, reference all Zenit and other failures resulting in an immediate failure and fallback before gravity turn start resulting in the heart of the pad being destroyed immensely.
« Last Edit: 04/17/2024 05:44 am by russianhalo117 »

Offline starbase

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Gagarinets is already coming down.

https://x.com/jremis/status/1780250634970714403

Another object (maybe the other CubeSat dummy) is destined for reentry today.

https://x.com/jremis/status/1780499847646224477
bit.ly/SpaceLaunchCalendar ☆ bit.ly/SpaceEventCalendar

Offline owais.usmani

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I suppose that that maneuver while clearing the launch tower is normal (?)

Yeah. This is a maneuver of withdrawal from the launch pad

Hey Dmitry V, about this Angara 5 cross-feed schematic you posted many years back, was this ever implemeted? Did the A5 launched from Vostochny last week had this cross-feed plumbing or not?

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=28424.msg877014#msg877014


Online B. Hendrickx

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Object A from this launch (the Orion upper stage with the attached dummy payload) has finally been tracked in a 36,051x36,470 km orbit with an inclination of 0.07°.

Meanwhile, an announcement has appeared on the website of KosmoLab (the manufacturer of the cubesat dispenser) saying that two satellites were ejected from it, namely Gagarinets (a 3U cubesat) and another identified simply as “a 6U cubesat”. See:
https://kosmolab.ru/

This is the first official confirmation that a second cubesat was on board. The secrecy surrounding the second satellite (including the fact that no name has been announced for it) is a strong indication that it is military in nature. 

The cubesat may well have been built by the Military Innovation Technopolis ERA, a huge military R&D center in the Black Sea resort of Anapa. It was established in 2018 and can be considered the military equivalent of the Skolkovo Innovation Center near Moscow. In 2021 plans were published in a Russian military journal for the launch of military cubesats in a joint effort between ERA and KosmoLab. They would be deployed from KosmoLab dispensers and fly as co-passengers with bigger military satellites. See here:
https://mil.ru/files/morf/VESTNIK_1_2021_1%20макет%20печать.pdf
(p. 55-57)

It's not clear whether a contract was actually signed between the two parties, but that is perfectly possible and the unidentified 6U cubesat could well be the first flown under this program. ERA has two divisions that are engaged in cubesat development and co-operates with partners in the Russian space industry. One of those mentioned by one source is Avant Space, the company that owns the Gagarinets cubesat, so ERA may have had some kind of role in its development too.

It's worth noting that an experimental military nanosat called both Kosmos-2548 and ERA-1 was launched piggyback with three Gonets-M satellites in December 2020. The name suggests that ERA was involved in this mission as well, but it can be determined from a court document published in 2022  that the prime contractor for ERA-1 was the Central Scientific Research Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics (CNIIHM) in Moscow, which specializes in building small military satellites.


The announcement by KosmoLab makes it clear that the cubesat dispenser was flown in the configuration 2x3U+6U (see the attachment). The question is if the second 3U slot was occupied or not. As is said in the aforementioned military journal, the KosmoLab dispensers can be configured to fly with unoccupied slots, in which case they are filled with what is called “a spacer imitating a payload”.

Still, there are two possible signs that a second 3U cubesat was indeed on board. First, the KosmoLab announcement literally said that “we began the countdown of our [deployments] with the 3U cubesat Gagarinets and a 6U cubesat”, which suggests they were not the only ones.

Second, aside from objects B and C (presumably Gagarinets and the 6U cubesat), US tracking systems also spotted another object (2024-069D), which wasn’t catalogued until six days after launch. It was initially tracked in a 196x550 km orbit. The perigee was the same as the initial perigee of objects B and C, but the apogee was about 100 km higher. Its inclination also slightly differed from that of objects B and C  (51.49° vs. 51.72°/51.70°).
 
There are only two ways it could have ended up in the higher orbit. Either it was ejected from the Orion upper stage shortly after the latter started its burn to a geostationary transfer orbit or it maneuvered to that orbit by itself after having been deployed together with Gagarinets and the 6U cubesat during Orion’s coast in its parking orbit. In the first scenario, object D would most likely be some type of debris (it would be very unusual to deploy a satellite during an upper stage burn). However, Blok-DM type upper stages have no history of shedding debris at this stage in their missions.
 
If it is indeed a second 3U cubesat, how could it have maneuvered to the higher orbit? One possibility is that it is a cubesat developed by CNIIHM that is equipped with a miniature solid-fuel propulsion system. CNIIHM has a Nanotechnology Center that is known to have worked on such propulsion systems under research projects known as Nota-Kh and Naveska-Kh. For more details, see the CNIIHM thread (post nr. 9):
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=48108.0

It may look questionable that such a small propulsion system could raise the apogee by 100 km. However, a comparison can be drawn with two other objects most likely developed by CNIIHM that are believed to have been anti-satellite projectiles. They were tested in October 2017 and July 2020. The first of these (named Kosmos-2523) was ejected from Kosmos-2521 (which in turn had been deployed from Kosmos-2519) and the second (not registered by Russia) was ejected from Kosmos-2543 (which in turn had been deployed from Kosmos-2542). Both of them performed a single burn that significantly changed their orbits. Their perigees were lowered by 100 km and, in addition to that, the unnamed object’s apogee was raised by 160 km. These must have been very small objects (considering the fact they were deployed from small satellites) and the single burn indicates they used a solid-fuel propulsion system. I’m not saying that the possible 3U cubesat has anything to do with anti-satellite technology, only that CNIIHM already seems to have demonstrated the capability of performing significant maneuvers with small solid-fuel propulsion systems.

If objects C and D are indeed military satellites, they may be registered as such by Russia with the United Nations in several weeks or months, but that remains to be seen.

Finally, in one picture posted here earlier of launch preparations at Vostochny, a satellite can be seen in the background of Gagarinets and the dummy payload (it’s sitting on a table with wheels). One poster on the NK forum wrote it may be a mock-up of the Kanopus-V remote sensing satellite and there is indeed a close resemblance with that satellite. A Kanopus-V satellite is due to be launched from Vostochny next year. There are no indications that it has anything to do with the Angara-A5 payload.   


 

Online Alter Sachse

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Object C burned up on April 23
Object D on April 24
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Online Alter Sachse

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Object C burned up on April 23
Object D on April 24
Object B (Gagarinets ?) on April 29
One day you're a hero  next day you're a clown  there's nothing that is in between
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Offline starbase

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bit.ly/SpaceLaunchCalendar ☆ bit.ly/SpaceEventCalendar

Online Alter Sachse

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Here are different data
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Online jcm

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Here are different data

Debris decay dates from Space-Track are no longer reliable. They should now be interpreted  as 'no later than' dates.
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Offline GWR64

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Here are different data

Debris decay dates from Space-Track are no longer reliable. They should now be interpreted  as 'no later than' dates.

Many objects are temporarily lost when the orbit changes.
When satellites maneuver, or as here, due to the increasing friction of the atmosphere. For example, object D.
An extreme example is O3b mPower 5 and 6, where there have been no TLEs for weeks.
Subjectively, I think that this has increased compared to before. Maybe due to too many new objects?
Or is the impression misleading?
« Last Edit: 05/12/2024 09:38 am by GWR64 »

Online B. Hendrickx

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Gagarinets re-entered on April 20.
Announcement from the head of the company that built the satellite:
https://vk.com/wall703599903_81
Also confirmed by the fact that this is the last day that radio amateurs received signals from it:
https://r4uab.ru/satdb/gagarinecz/

Online jcm

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Here are different data

Debris decay dates from Space-Track are no longer reliable. They should now be interpreted  as 'no later than' dates.

Many objects are temporarily lost when the orbit changes.
When satellites maneuver, or as here, due to the increasing friction of the atmosphere. For example, object D.
An extreme example is O3b mPower 5 and 6, where there have been no TLEs for weeks.
Subjectively, I think that this has increased compared to before. Maybe due to too many new objects?
Or is the impression misleading?

I agree that the 'missing objects, no TLEs for weeks' problem has increased in recent years.
This is a separate issue from the 'decay dates for debris objects don't mean what they used to' issue.
If you plot altitude vs time for these objects from the TLEs it is clear that the extrapolated decay date is many days before the value given in Space-Track.
« Last Edit: 05/12/2024 10:55 pm by jcm »
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Online jcm

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In UN document ST/SG/SER.E/1199 Russia has registered two objects from the Angara launch:
the
Габаритно-массовый макет
as expected in a 1455 min orbit, and the object
АДВ.00.00.000-01
in  a 201 x 457 km orbit.
The ADV object is described as
"Отработка бортовых систем служебной платформы
в условиях космического пространства
и получение летной квалификации платформы"
or
"Testing of service platform on-board systems in the
outer space environment and achievement of flight
qualification of the platform"
It is recorded as reentering on Apr 21 and as being 2024-069B.
This is presumably the 6U cubesat?
There is NO registration entry for Gagarinets.



https://www.unoosa.org/res/osoindex/data/documents/ru/st/stsgser_e1199_html/ser1199R.pdf
« Last Edit: 08/04/2024 04:16 pm by jcm »
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Online B. Hendrickx

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In UN document ST/SG/SER.E/1199 Russia has registered two objects from the Angara launch:
the Габаритно-массовый макет as expected in a 1455 min orbit, and the object
АДВ.00.00.000-01 in  a 201 x 457 km orbit.
The ADV object is described as "Testing of service platform on-board systems in the outer space environment and achievement of flight qualification of the platform"
It is recorded as reentering on Apr 21 and as being 2024-069B.
This is presumably the 6U cubesat?
There is NO registration entry for Gagarinets.


I think this is Gagarinets, but that for some reason it was registered under another name. First, Gagarinets was announced as a test of a satellite platform that will later be used for advertising from space using laser diodes, so this matches the description given in the UN document. Second, the decay date (April 21) is close to the one given by the head of the company that built Gagarinets (April 20). SpaceTrack gives it as April 29, but that was obviously a mistake. The decay dates of Objects C and D were given as April 23 and April 24, but I don't know how accurate those are. As you pointed out earlier here, the SpaceTrack decay dates should be considered "no later than" dates.

As I explained earlier in this thread, there are reasons to believe that Objects C and D were military cubesats (see Reply 127). At least one of the two objects was definitely a satellite (the 6U cubesat announced by KosmoLab), but the Russians clearly decided not to register it with the UN.

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