SPX-556
                     SPACEWARN Activities

A publication of NASA NSSDC/WDC for Satellite Information, and the WWAS for
                           COSPAR

    (All information in this publication was received between
                1 February 2000 and 29 February 2000.)

A.  List of New International Designations and Launch Dates (UT).
    (USSPACECOM Catalog numbers are in parentheses.)
              
            INT.ID    CAT. #  NAME                   DATE (2000)
           -------------------------------------------------------

            2000-012A (26095) SUPERBIRD 4            18 February
            2000-011A (26089) GARUDA 1               12 February
            2000-010A (26088) STS 99                 11 February
            2000-009B (26087) FREGAT                 08 February 
            2000-009A (26086) DUMSAT                 08 February
            2000-008D (26084) GLOBALSTAR D           08 February
            2000-008C (26083) GLOBALSTAR C           08 February
            2000-008B (26082) GLOBALSTAR B           08 February
            2000-008A (26081) GLOBALSTAR A           08 February
            2000-007A (26071) HISPASAT 1C            03 February
            2000-006A (26069) COSMOS 2369            03 February
            2000-005A (26067) PROGRESS M-1           01 February
            2000-004H (26080) TETHERED PICOSATS      27 January
            2000-004J (26091) PICOSAT 5              27 January
            2000-004K (26092) PICOSAT 6              27 January
            2000-004L (26093) PICOSAT 7              27 January
            2000-004M (26094) PICOSAT 8              27 January

B.  Text of Launch Announcements.

2000-012A  SUPERBIRD 4 is a Japanese geosynchronous communications spacecraft 
           that was launched by an Ariane 44 rocket from Kourou at 01:04 UT.
           The 4.1 tonne spacecraft carries 23 Ku-band (80 W), and six Ka-band
           (50 W) transponders to provide business communications to Japan and
           Asia-Pacific countries, after parking over 162-E longitude. Its 
           thrusters employ a xenon ion propulsion (XIPS) system.

2000-011A  GARUDA 1 is an Indonesian geosynchronous satellite that was launched
           by a Proton-K rocket from Baikonur at 09:11 UT. The 4.1 tonne 
           spacecraft will relay in L-band mobile telephone communications in 
           Asia-Pacific region, after parking over Indonesia at the equator. It
           is the first of the ACeS (Asia Cellular Satellite) constellation, to
           be followed by GARUDA 2 and others.
                      
2000-010A  STS 99 is an American shuttle spacecraft that was launched from
           Cape Canaveral at 17:43 UT. The main mission is to obtain a 3-D map
           of about 70%  global terrain. It is a joint mapping mission by NASA 
           and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), utilizing the 
           Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) radars. The 13,600 kg SRTM 
           instrument consisted of a pair of transmit/receive antennas below 
           the cargo bay, and a pair of receiving antennas at the end of a 60 
           m "rigid" tower. The operation was in interferometric synthetic 
           aperture radar (IF-SAR) modes with steerable C-band (5.6 cm) and 
           a non-steerable X-band (3.0 cm) transmissions of pulse widths 100 
           milliseconds, and power levels 10 kW. The accuracy of the mapping 
           was modest: in any "terrain" segment, the relative height accuracy 
           was 10 m and the relative horizontal accuracy was 20 m; on forests, 
           the surface of reflection at both frequencies were the canopy tops,
           not the terrain. The tower was an assembly of stacked cubical 
           frames made of steel, titanium and plastic, initially contained in a
           three meter can, pushed out by a motor and held in rigid shape by a 
           thruster at the high end. It was erected at an angle of 45 deg
           from the vertical. The cargo bay antennas and the transmitters were 
           the same that were used in the SIR-C/X-SAR radars that were flown 
           on two shuttle missions in 1994; SRTM just had additional receiving
           antennas at the end of the mast to do interferometry. It landed 
           back in Cape Canaveral on 22 February at 23:22 UT after mapping 112
           million square-kilometers of earth's land mass onto 300 digital 
           tapes. Data reduction at analysis centers will take two or three 
           years to complete. More information on SRTM is available at http://
           www.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/, and the data will be distributed by the EROS 
           Data Center, http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/landdaac/. Initial orbital 
           parameters were period 89.2 min, apogee 242 km, perigee 224 km, and 
           inclination 57 deg.

2000-009B  FREGAT is a Russian reusable spacecraft that was launched by
           a Soyuz-U rocket from Baikonur at 23:20 UT. It is primarily a rocket
           that is equipped with an inflatable heat shield (IRDT) that opens 
           up during re-entry and appears like a giant shuttlecock. It is 
           capable of stopping and starting its engines at least five times 
           during a mission so as to launch about 20 satellites in different 
           orbits. It carried and released a recoverable dummy satellite 
           called, DUMSAT. FREGAT is designed to execute major routine tasks, 
           hauling cargo to/from the International Space Station. FREGAT is 
           believed to have re-entered after 5 orbits, as planned, but has not
           yet been located in the southern Ural mountain region. In fact,
           radio contact was lost at 100 km level. Initial orbital parameters 
           were period 96.5 min, apogee 604 km, perigee 581 km, and inclination
           64.9 deg.

2000-009A  DUMSAT is just a 110 kg Russian dummy payload to simulate future 
           spacecraft launches. Like the FREGAT that launched it, it was 
           equipped with an inflatable heat shield and landed on 14 February 
           2000. Initial orbital parameters were period 96.6 min, apogee 
           606 km, perigee 581 km, and inclination 64.9 deg.

2000-008A, GLOBALSTARs A, B, C, and D are the final members of the GLOBALSTAR 
008B,008C, fleet which already had the planned 48 satellites. With the addition
008D       of these four, any four members of the 52 member fleet may be held
           in reserve. The fleet enables relay of data and voice communications
           from/to mobile or remote telephones located almost anywhere in the
           world. Initial orbital parameters of all four were similar: period 
           103.5 min, apogee 930 km, perigee 914 km, and inclination 52 deg.

2000-007A  HISPASAT 1C is a Spanish geosynchronous communications spacecraft 
           that was launched by an Atlas 2AS rocket from Cape Canaveral at
           23:30 UT. The 3,100 kg, 6,000 W spacecraft carries 24 transponders 
           in Ku-band to provide Spanish language voice and video 
           communications to countries on either side of the Atlantic.

2000-006A  COSMOS 2369 is a Russian military communications spacecraft that 
           was launched from Baikonur. Initial orbital parameters were 
           period 102 min, apogee 854 km, perigee 848 km, and inclination 71 
           deg.

2000-005A  PROGRESS M-1 is a Russian automatic cargo carrier that was launched
           by a Soyuz-U rocket at 06:47 UT to dock with MIR. It is equipped to
           raise the altitude of MIR from 320 km to 400 km, and to repressurize
           it with 150 kg of nitrogen. (Currently the pressure has degraded to
           570 mm of Hg.) It also carried fuel, water, food and other 
           provisions for the two cosmonauts who are expected to arrive there 
           in late March 2000, to spend 7-10 weeks on board. The initial 
           orbital parameters were period 91.6 min, apogee 353 km, perigee 348
           km, and inclination 51.7 deg.

2000-004H,  TETHERED PICOSATS, PICOSAT 5, PICOSAT 6, PICOSAT 7, and PICOSAT 8
004J,004K,  are hectogram mass satellites that were ejected from OPAL (2000-
004L,004M   004C). They were built mostly by engineering students at Santa 
            Clara University in California, from off-the-shelf components
            and miniature batteries, for technology tests. According to our 
            information from the investigator teams, the TETHERED PICOSATS, 
            consisting of a pair of Picosats tethered together by a short wire
            was ejected on 8 February, PICOSATs 7 and 8 on 11 February, and 
            PICOSATs 5 and 6 on 12 February. They have also common names given
            by the investigators: PICOSATs 7 and 8 are the Thelma and Louise 
            pair and PICOSATs 5 and 6 are the JAK and Stensat pair; but not 
            necessarily in that order. The TETHERED PICOSATS appear to have 
            been functional for a short while after ejection, communicating 
            with each other by microwatt radio transmitters. On the other hand,
            there has been no indication whether any of the the PICOSATs (5, 6,
            7,and 8) were operational at least soon after ejection. It appears 
            that USSPACECOM's Picosat numbers extending to eight is erroneous; 
            there were only six Picosats on board the OPAL, with perhaps 
            one or two at the ground level intended to communicate with the 
            orbiters. The tests were sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research
            Project Agency (DARPA). The orbital parameters of all these were 
            closely alike: period 100.4 min, apogee 805 km, perigee 750 km, and 
            inlination 100.2 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.

    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/, or http://www.rssi.ru/SFCSIC/english.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                  Decay Date, 2000
------------         -----------                  ----------
1999-030B    (25769) STARSHINE                       18 Feb
1999-049E    (25911) R/B Soyuz-U                     17 Feb
1977-015B    (09854) R/B that launched COSMOS 895    14 Feb
2000-009B    (26087) FREGAT                          09 Feb
1993-042C    (22702) R/B Delta 2                     05 Feb 
1999-038A    (25858) PROGRESS M-42                   04 Feb
2000-005B    (26068) R/B Soyuz-U                     02 Feb
1998-011B    (25176) R/B H-2                         01 Feb

    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 American heliospheric spacecraft NEAR (1996-008A) was thrust into an orbit
around the asteroid Eros at 15:33 UT on 14 February 2000 in an elliptical orbit
of 320 km x 480 km from the asteroid. It is expected to orbit for a year
slowly reaching lower altitudes. Eros is a potato-shaped body of 34 km x 13 
km size. A similar attempt in January 1999 had failed, and NEAR tumbled along 
on an orbit around the Sun, but returning again to the general vicinity of 
Eros, with sunward orientation of its power panels. It could then be 
maneuvered toward the asteroid. It is expected to produce many close-up 
pictures of the asteroid.

The American planetary spacecraft GALILEO (1989-084B) approached the 
volcanic moon of Jupiter, Io, on 22 February 2000 within 200 km from its 
surface without any radiation damage and produced pictures of the surface. It 
had earlier (October 1999) approached the surface within 610 km and discovered
about 100 volcanoes. In November 1999 it had passed by within 300 km from the 
surface and imaged a one kilometer-high lava plume.

On 22 February 2000, the heliospheric spacecraft STARDUST (1999-033A) deployed 
its interstellar dust collector. It will deploy again in 2002. The collector's 
other surface will be exposed to cometary dust from Comet Wild-2 in 2004. 
During its final Earth swingby in 2006, the collector will be released to 
parachute down for analysis. 

There have been difficulties in matching spacecraft names and their
IDs for launches involving multiple spacecraft. The USSPACECOM (presumably,
on the advice of the spacecraft companies) has the following revised names
to match the IDs and Catalog numbers:

1998-008A (25162) GLOBALSTAR M001; 1998-008B (25163) GLOBALSTAR M004;
1998-008C (25164) GLOBALSTAR M002; 1998-008D (25165) GLOBALSTAR M003.

1999-065A (25980) ORBCOMM FM 30; 1999-065B (25981) ORBCOMM FM 31;
1999-065C (25982) ORBCOMM FM 32; 1999-065D (25983) ORBCOMM FM 33;
1999-065E (25984) ORBCOMM FM 36; 1999-065F (25985) ORBCOMM FM 35;
1999-065G (25986) ORBCOMM FM 34.

    6. 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/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.