SPX-548

                     SPACEWARN Activities
A publication of NASA NSSDC/WDC-A-R&S and the WWAS for ISES/COSPAR

    (All information in this publication was received between
                1 June 1999 and 30 June 1999.)

A.  List of New International Designations and Launch Dates (UT).
    (USSPACECOM Catalog numbers are in parentheses.)

            1999-035A (25791) FUSE                      24 June 99
            1999-034A (25789) QUIKSCAT                  20 June 99
            1999-033A (25785) ASTRA 1H                  18 June 99
            1999-032B (25778) IRIDIUM SV-21A            11 June 99
            1999-032A (25777) IRIDIUM SV-14A            11 June 99
            1999-031D (25773) GLOBALSTAR 47             10 June 99
            1999-031C (25772) GLOBALSTAR 25             10 June 99
            1999-031B (25771) GLOBALSTAR 49             10 June 99
            1999-031A (25770) GLOBALSTAR 52             10 June 99
            1999-030B (25769) STARSHINE                 05 June 99

B.  Text of Launch Announcements.

1999-035A  FUSE (Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer) is an American
           astronomical spacecraft that was launched by a Delta 2 rocket at 
           15:44 UT from Cape Canaveral. The 1,400 kg spacecraft carries a 
           2.4 m focal length telescope with a  primary mirror made of
           four separated segments; two them are coated with silicon carbide 
           (to reflect 90 - 110 nm wavelnghts ) and the other two with aluminum
           and lithium flouride (to reflect 100 - 119 nm). The focussed beams
           then fall on four separate (correspondingly coated) Rowland 
           gratings that disperse the spectrum into four separate photon 
           counting microchannel flat-plate detectors. A separate star tracking
           Fine Error Sensor (FES) enables location of the source and a
           pointing stability within 0.5 arcseconds so as to enable large 
           integration times. While there have been other FUV satellites such 
           as Copernicus, HST, etc., the investigative thrust on the FUSE data 
           will be intergalactic clouds and interstellar clouds which, 
           presumably, carry the pristine (Big Bang) deuteriums undepleted by 
           the voracious consumption in steller cores. The D/H ratios so 
           obtained may proxy the status of the universe minutes after the 
           Bang. For more details, see http://fuse.pha.jhu.edu/. Initial 
           orbital parameters were period 100 min, apogee 770 km, perigee 754 
           km, and inclination 25 deg.

1999-034A  QUIKSCAT (QUIcKSCATterometer) is an American oceanographic 
           satellite that was launched by a Titan 2 rocket from Vandenberg AFB
           at 02:15 UT. It will measure ocean winds and directions by 
           monitoring wind-induced ripples by means of a microwave 
           scatterometer. The scanning width is 1,800 km. The instrument is a 
           followup to the scatterometer that was onboard the Japanese ADEOS 
           spacecraft (1996-046A) that operated until 30 June 1997. It will 
           also be onboard ADEOS 2, to be launched in 2000. Initial orbital 
           parameters of the Sun-synchronous spacecraft were period 95.6 min, 
           apogee 815 km, perigee 281 km, and inclination 98.7 deg.

1999-033A  ASTRA 1H is the latest member of the ASTRA fleet of geosynchronous 
           spacecraft owned and operated by SES consortium in Luxembourg. It 
           was launched by a Proton-K rocket from Baikonur at 01:49 UT. The 
           2,300 kg spacecraft carries 30 Ku-band, 100 W transponders to 
           provide direct-to-home voice and video programs after parking over 
           19.2 deg-E  

1999-032A, IRIDIUM 14A and IRIDIUM 21A are the latest to join the American 
-032B      IRIDIUM fleet of minisatellites to provide voice and data
           transmissions from/to mobile telephones located in areas beyond 
           cellular networks. They were launched from Taiyuan in Shanxi 
           province of PRC by a Long March 2C rocket. Initial orbital 
           parameters were period 99 min, apogee 712 km, perigee 709 km, and 
           inclination 86.5 deg.

1999-031A, GLOBALSTAR 52, 49, 25, and 47 are the latest to join the fleet
031B,031C, of communications spacecraft owned by that international consortium.
031D       They were launched by a Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral at 13:48
           UT. The fleet enables voice and data links from/to phones far away 
           from cellular networks. Initial orbital parameters of all four were 
           similar: period 114 min, apogee 1,414 km, perigee 1,406 km, and 
           inclination 52 deg.

1999-030B  STARSHINE is a passive reflector that was released from STS 96
           on 05 June 1999. (STS had been launched on 27 May 1999.) STARSHINE 
           is a hollow sphere of 48 cm diameter and studded with 878 tiny 
           mirrors which had been polished by school children in Zimbabwe, 
           Pakistan and 16 other countries. Some 25,000 high school students 
           around the world are expected to track the reflector during twilight
           hours. Initial orbital parameters of STARSHINE were period 92 min, 
           apogee 395 km, perigee 376 km, and inclination 51.6 deg.

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.  ("NNN" denotes no national name.  SPACEWARN Bulletin
appreciates suggestions to update this list. An asterisk [*] denotes changes in
this issue. 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.utexas.edu/depts/grg/gcraft/notes/gps/gps.html#DODSystem.
It provides many links to GPS-related data bases. The latest member of
the GPS fleet is NAVSTAR 38 (1997-067A), launched on 6 November 1997.

    3. Russian Global Navigational (Positioning) Spacecraft, GLONASS
constellation. (SPACEWARN requests updates or additions from readers to this
list. An asterisk [*] indicates updates or additions 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.rssi.ru/SFCSIC/glonass.html, maintained by the Coordinational
Scientific Information Center (CSIC), Russian Space Forces.

    4. Actual decays or landings of payload spacecraft and rocket bodies (R/B)
only. No further information is available.

Designations         Common Name                       1999

1986-031D   (16686)  R/B that launched Molniya 3-28   28 Jun
1999-033B   (25786)  R/B Proton-K                     19 Jun
1969-084B   (04120)  R/B that launched Meteor 2       15 Jun
1994-043B   (23186)  R/B Long March                   08 Jun
1999-024B   (25728)  R/B Delta 2                      05 Jun
1994-079B   (23414)  R/B Atlas 2A                     31 May

    5. 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.)

The names of 1999-029A, -029B, and -029C that were launched by an Indian
PSLV rocket were reported in SPX 547 as IRS-P4/OCEANSAT, KITSAT 3, and TUBSAT. 
However, USSPACECOM continues to list the names as KITSAT 3, TUBSAT, and 
OCEANSAT. We have contacted USSPACECOM and are awaiting their confirmation or 
correction.

    6. Related NSSDC resources.

NSSDC/WDC-A-R&S 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/space
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 parameters of many magnetospheric and heliospheric science-
payload spacecraft may be FTP'ed as follows:
            FTP nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov
            name: user anonymous
            password: your name@node
            cd pub/orbits

Other files interest for Earth-centered s/c can be generated thru the URL,
                  http://sscweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Codes related to the heliospheric spacecraft trajectories can be executed 
through the URL,
                 http://nssdc/space/helios/heli.html
Descriptions of many spacecraft, experiments and datasets are available 
through links from  
                  http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/
===========================================================================

                         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.