Wątek pomocniczy

[Orionid]

Zwiadowczy Bars
  23.03. o 06:40:11 z Plesiecka wystrzelona została RN Sojuz-2.1a, która wyniosła na orbitę o parametrach: hp=338 km, ha=499 km, i=97,64° prawdopodobnie satelitę Bars-M nr 4, który dostał oficjalne oznaczenie Kosmos 2567.
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/n230316.htm#08

Video z dnešního startu nosné rakety Sojuz 2.1a z kosmodromu Pleseck. Na oběžnou dráhu byla vynesena družice Kosmos 2567. Objekt se dle 18SPCS nyní nachází na oběžné dráze s výškou perigea 338 km, apogea 499 km a sklonem 97,64°. Jde tak velmi pravděpodobně o zmiňovaný Bars-M4.

https://twitter.com/Kosmo_Michal/status/1638850383350046721

В России запущен спутник военного назначения
23.03.2023 12:27

23 марта 2023 г. в 06:40 UTC (09:40 мск) с космодрома Плесецк боевыми расчетами космических войск ВКС РФ выполнен пуск РН "Союз-2.1а" с космическим аппаратом в интересах Минобороны России.

Пуск успешный, космический аппарат выведен на околоземную орбиту.

После отделения от последней ступени носителя спутник получил обозначение "Космос-2567".

https://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/news/85738/

(1/2) V 07:40 SEČ odstartovala z kosmodromu Pleseck nosná raketa Sojuz 2.1a. V krátké zprávě TASS je uvedeno jenom, že šlo o náklad pro ruské ministerstvo obrany. Letová trajektorie odpovídá startu z kosmodromu Pleseck z května 2022. /Foto ilustrační/

(2/2) Pokud je úvaha správná, pak se jedná o fotoprůzkumnou družici Bars-M4 vybavenou polovodičovou detekční technickou Karat. Družice má startovní hmotnost okolo 4000 kg a životnost 5 let. Prostorové rozlišení se pohybuje od 1,10 do 1,35 m až v sedmi spektrálních kanálech.

Kod: [Zaznacz]

https://twitter.com/Kosmo_Michal/status/1638805358071238657
https://www.russianspaceweb.com/bars-m.html
(?) Bars-M (14F148) https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/bars-m.htm

[Orionid]

13 marzec

Aleksandr Michajłowicz Samokutiajew 13.03.1970
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=1759.msg64246#msg64246


Percival Lowell (13.03.1855-12.11.1916)
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=3483.msg182519#msg182519


William Herschel odkrył Urana - 7. planetę Układu Słonecznego 13.03.1781
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg142355#msg142355


STS-29 Discovery/F-8 13.03.1989-18.03.1989
https://twitter.com/airandspace/status/1635433582326890496


14 marzec

Frank Frederick Borman II 14.03.1928
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=4756.msg169244#msg169244


Eugene Andrew 'Gene' Cernan 14.03.1934-16.01.2017
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=2770.msg101117#msg101117


Pedro Francisco Duque Duque 14.03.1963
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/383.htm
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/international/english/duque_pedro.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/d/duque.html
https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/ostatni/00383.htm
https://www.astronaut.ru/crossroad/386.htm
https://www.april12.eu/otherastron/duque383ru.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Duque
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Duque
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg164892#msg164892
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=41.msg150855#msg150855
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1635540011188908032
https://twitter.com/ESA_History/status/1635630337035304961

Edward Michael 'Mike' Fincke 14.03.1967
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/433.htm
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/astronauts/english/fincke_edward.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/f/fincke.html
https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/usa/00432.htm
https://www.astronaut.ru/register/514.htm
https://www.april12.eu/usaastron/fincke432ru.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Fincke
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Fincke
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1635541269656002560
https://twitter.com/ASE_Astronauts/status/1635672381304762369

Giovanni Schiaparelli (14.03.1835-04.07.1910)
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=3483.msg182543#msg182543


Albert Einstein (14.03.1879-18.04.1955)
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=3483.msg182544#msg182544


Sonda Giotto zbliżyła się do komety Halleya na minimalną odległość 596 km 14.03.1986
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=1895.msg182545#msg182545


Pierwsze obchody Dnia Liczby Pi 14.03.1988
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182547#msg182547


Wystartowała misja ExoMars 2016 - TGO i Schiaparelli 14.03.2016
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=1895.msg182545#msg182545



15 marzec

Alan LaVern Bean 15.03.1932
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=3225.msg118775#msg118775


15.03.1968
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1635901140696207362

Łotwa jako siódmy kraj podpisał Europejską Umowę o Współpracy z ESA 19.03.2013
https://www.esa.int/About_Us/Corporate_news/Latvia_becomes_seventh_ESA_European_Cooperating_State
https://twitter.com/ESA_History/status/1635966123291099137

STS-119 Discovery/F-36 15.03.2009-28.03.2009
https://twitter.com/airandspace/status/1636165404962766853

[Orionid]

16 marzec

Ronnie Walter Cunningham 16.03.1932-03.01.2023
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=5200.msg180954#msg180954


Michael John 'Bloomer' Bloomfield 16.03.1959
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/364.htm
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/astronauts/english/bloomfield_michael.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/b/bloomfield.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_J._Bloomfield
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bloomfield
https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/usa/00364.htm
https://www.astronaut.ru/register/514.htm
https://www.april12.eu/usaastron/bloomfield364ru.html
https://twitter.com/ASE_Astronauts/status/1636382162374262787
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1636299850533728256

Deng Qingming 16.03.1966
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=5286.msg182577#msg182577


Caroline Herschel (16.03.1750-09.01.1848)

https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=3483.msg182582#msg182582

Robert Goddard wystrzelił pierwszą rakietę na paliwo płynne 16.03.1926
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182586#msg182586


Pierwsze połączenie obiektów na orbicie: Gemini VIII/GT-8 16.03.1966-17.03.1966
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg128653#msg128653


NASA oficjalnie ogłosiła składy załóg pierwszych czterech misji w programie STS 16.03.1978
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182581#msg182581



17 marzec

James Benson Irwin (17.03.1930-08.08.1991)
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/55.htm
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/astronauts/english/irwin_james.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/i/irwin.html
https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/usa/00055.htm
https://www.astronaut.ru/register/514.htm
https://www.april12.eu/usaastron/irwin55ru.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Irwin
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Irwin
https://twitter.com/ASE_Astronauts/status/1636804976310616077
https://twitter.com/airandspace/status/1636748008430739456

Thomas Kenneth 'Ken' Mattingly II 17.03.1936
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=4002.msg142532#msg142532


Kalpana Chawla (17.03.1962-01.02.2003)
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=2917.msg181679#msg181679


RN Vanguard wyniosła na orbitę drugiego amerykańskiego satelitę Vanguard 1 17.03.1958
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182597#msg182597


Wystrzelona została RN Wostok-2M, która wyniosła na orbitę  indyjskiego satelitę teledetekcyjnego do badania zasobów Ziemi IRS-1A 17.03.1988
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182618#msg182618


RN Rokot/Briz-KM wyniosła na orbitę satelitę klimatologicznego i geofizycznego ESA GOCE 17.03.2009
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=1589.msg182609#msg182609


Pierwszy rollout Artemis 1  z High Bay 3 VAB do testu WDR 17.03.2022
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=3385.msg182608#msg182608



18 marzec

James Francis Reilly II 18.03.1954
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/370.htm
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/astronauts/english/reilly_james.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/r/reilly.html
https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/usa/00371.htm
https://www.astronaut.ru/register/514.htm
https://www.april12.eu/usaastron/reilly371ru.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_F._Reilly
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Reilly_(astronauta)
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1636987046504923136
https://twitter.com/ASE_Astronauts/status/1637212389727772673

Arne Christer Fuglesang 18.03.1957
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=4457.msg160697#msg160697


Matthias Jozef Maurer 18.03.1970
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=2778.msg171308#msg171308


Aleksiej Leonow wszedł do nadmuchiwanej śluzy, skąd wyszedł jako pierwszy człowiek w otwartą przestrzeń kosmiczną 18.03.1965
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg130219#msg130219


18.03.1978
https://twitter.com/davidhitt/status/1637046403607273473

Sonda MESSENGER wykonała udany manewr wejścia na orbitę wokół Merkurego 18.03.2011
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=92.msg182611#msg182611

[Orionid]

Zostały wyniesione dwa komercyjne satelity radarowe z syntetyczną aperturą (SAR) do teledetekcji dla Capella Space.
Był to drugi tego operatora start z Wallops w Wirginii oraz drugi w tym roku wykonany przez Rocket Lab.

Start z Wallops
  16.03 o 22:38:59 z Wallops wystrzelona została RN Electron/Curie, która wyniosła w T+57' 28" na orbitę o parametrach: hp=600 km, ha=600 km, i=44° satelity Capella-9 i Capella-10.
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/n230316.htm#01



https://twitter.com/RocketLab/status/1636573594687000577

Electron launches “Stronger Together”


Rocket Lab launches 2nd Electron mission from US soil with 2 satellites


Rocket Lab - 'Stronger Together' Launch

To avoid high winds at the pad, we’re now targeting no earlier than Thurs March 16th for our next launch attempt from LC-2 for @capellaspace.
Stronger Together:
Mar 16, EDT | 6pm
Mar 16, UTC | 10pm
Mar 16, PT | 3pm
Mar 17, NZDT | 11am

Kod: [Zaznacz]

https://twitter.com/RocketLab/status/1635805580542771201
https://twitter.com/RocketLab/status/1630692958906511362
https://twitter.com/Peter_J_Beck/status/1628165082101485573
https://twitter.com/rbalephoto/status/1634619860226375681
https://twitter.com/RocketLab/status/1636413533465481217
https://twitter.com/Kosmo_Michal/status/1636416443372695552
https://twitter.com/RocketLab/status/1636497613766942721
https://twitter.com/RocketLab/status/1636516312502652928
https://twitter.com/RocketLab/status/1636558224689360896
https://twitter.com/SpaceflightNow/status/1636512604121169920
https://twitter.com/capellaspace/status/1638307600172187650

Here are some statistics on today's launch:
34th Electron rocket launch
2nd Rocket Lab mission from Virginia
27th orbital launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport
7th launch for Capella Space
9th and 10th satellites for Capella Space
2nd Rocket Lab launch for Capella Space
2nd orbital launch from Wallops in 2023
20th orbital launch attempt by a U.S. rocket in 2023
38th global orbital launch attempt in 2023
https://spaceflightnow.com/2023/03/16/electron-capella-9-10-mission-status-center/

https://shoredailynews.com/headlines/rocket-lab-successfully-launches-capella-satelites-from-the-wallops-flight-facility-thursday-night/
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2023/03/stronger-together/
Capella 9 (112 kg)  https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/capella-2.htm
Capella 10

[Orionid]

pt

[Orionid]

19 marzec

19.03.1954
https://twitter.com/airandspace/status/1637518842099269632

Geraldine „Jerrie” Mock rozpoczęła lot, który uczynił ją pierwszą kobietą, która samotnie obleciała świat 19.03.1964
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=5278.msg182633#msg182633


Satelita Swift dokonał detekcji rentgenowskiego źródła GRB 080319B, który ustanowił nowy rekord najjaśniejszego obiektu, jaki kiedykolwiek zaobserwowano 19.03.2008
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=1072.msg182627#msg182627


20 marzec

Jurij Gieorgijewicz Szargin 20.03.1960
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/434.htm
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/cosmonauts/english/shargin_yuri.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/s/shargin.html
https://www.astronaut.ru/register/515.htm
https://www.astronaut.ru/register/515.htm
https://www.april12.eu/russcosm/shargin434ru.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Shargin
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurij_Szargin
  https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=1765.msg162775#msg162775
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1637711822349279232

20.03.1922
https://twitter.com/airandspace/status/1637923556037382144

Ratyfikowana została Konwencja ESRO 20.03.1964
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182650#msg182650


Wydobyto z Atlantyku silniki Apollo 11 20.03.2013
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=184.msg182651#msg182651


21 marzec

Dirk Dries David Damiaan Frimout 21.03.1941
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=5292.msg182671#msg182671


Wystrzelona została RN Atlas Agena B, która wyniosła w kierunku Księżyca sondę Ranger 9 21.03.1965
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182677#msg182677


21.03.1973
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1638074210361937922

21.03.1973 21.03.1974
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1638076726667296768

Okręt podwodny USS Tennessee (SSBN 734) przeprowadził u wybrzeży Florydy pierwszy podwodny test rakiety balistycznej Trident II (nieudany) 21.03.1989
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182689#msg182689


Bertrand Piccard i Brian Jones wylądowali balonem Breitling Orbiter 3 jako pierwsi po locie balonowym dookoła Ziemi bez międzylądowania  21.03.1999
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182676#msg182676


Opublikowano najstarsze zdjęcia Wszechświata wykonane przez teleskop kosmiczny Planck 21.03.2013
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=296.msg118833#msg118833


Sojuz MS-08 ISS-54S Gawaji 21.03.2018
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=3154.msg116630#msg116630

[Orionid]

Russia’s Space Program Is in Big Trouble
SCIENCE MAR 20, 2023 2:00 AM Update 3-20-2023 4:00 PM ET: This story was updated to correct the date of the Cosmos 2543 tests.  Ramin Skibba

A set of Soyuz spacecraft coolant leaks hints that Roscosmos is struggling as the space agency loses international partnerships and funding.

CRIPPLED BY WAR and sanctions, Russia now faces evidence that its already-struggling space program is falling apart. In the past three months alone, Roscosmos has scrambled to resolve two alarming incidents. First, one of its formerly dependable Soyuz spacecraft sprang a coolant leak. Then the same thing happened on one of its Progress cargo ships. The civil space program’s Soviet predecessor launched the first person into orbit, but with the International Space Station (ISS) nearing the end of its life, Russia’s space agency is staring into the abyss.

“What we’re seeing is the continuing demise of the Russian civil space program,” says Bruce McClintock,  a former defense attaché at the US embassy in Moscow and current head of the Space Enterprise Initiative of the Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization. Around 10 years ago, Russian leaders chose to prioritize the country’s military space program—which focuses on satellite and anti-satellite technologies—over its civilian one, McClintock says, and it shows.

Russia’s space fleet is largely designed to be expendable. The history of its series of Soyuz rockets and crew capsules (they both have the same name) dates back to the Soviet era, though they’ve gone through upgrades since. Its Progress cargo vessels also launch atop Soyuz rockets. The cargo ships, crewed ships, and rockets are all single-use spacecraft. Anatoly Zak, creator and publisher of the independent publication RussianSpaceWeb, estimates that Roscosmos launches about two Soyuz vehicles per year, takes about 1.5 to 2 years to build each one, and doesn’t keep a substantial standing fleet.

While Roscosmos officials did not respond to interview requests, the agency has been public about its recent technical issues: The Soyuz MS-22 docked at the ISS suffered a coolant leak on December 14, 2022, and astronauts inspected it with the space station’s robotic arm, Canadarm2. The incident canceled a planned spacewalk by Russian cosmonauts, and the agency later blamed the leak on a micrometeoroid impact.

On February 11, the agency reported another coolant leak, this time on a Progress MS-21 cargo ship, that caused it to depressurize. Roscosmos also attributed the leak to an “external impact.” That spacecraft cast off from the ISS in late February, and Roscosmos disposed of the ship, allowing it to burn up over the Pacific Ocean.

Micrometeoroid strikes can be a danger to any spacecraft, no matter who operates them or what shape they’re in. But experts remain unconvinced by Russia’s explanation for the incidents—and worry that Roscosmos is hiding deeper problems. McClintock calls the agency’s explanation plausible but points out that it hasn’t been confirmed. And these are not Russia’s only malfunctions: In 2018, a Soyuz crew spacecraft sprang a tiny hole, which astronauts patched up. Two months later, a Soyuz rocket suffered a booster failure in an unrelated incident. The three leaks within a few years, says McClintock, “point to an overall decline of the Russian civil space program.”

Zak points out that micrometeoroid impacts in Earth orbit have been exceedingly rare. He thinks the odds of meteors damaging two spacecraft cooling systems—but nothing else on the ISS—in such a short period of time are “very close to zero.”

Roscosmos has also considered bringing down the Soyuz currently docked at the ISS earlier than planned and replacing it with yet another Soyuz, according to a Russian newspaper. This could be a sign of technical worries behind the scenes.

For nine years after the final space shuttle flight, NASA depended on Russia to carry astronauts to the ISS—Soyuz offered the only ride to space. But in 2020, NASA began using SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. Soon, Boeing will start providing rides too. NASA still relies on Russia for some cargo deliveries and a few astronaut flights, but that may soon change, McClintock says. “I think it’s likely—and it would be prudent—for NASA to be conducting a similar analysis to see if they can maintain resupply and astronaut transfers to the station without depending on the Russians,” he says.

NASA could already be moving in that direction; on March 2 the agency extended cargo contracts with SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, and Sierra Space. This development will add to Russia’s economic woes by reducing its already limited space revenue. Roscosmos has no commercial space program to support or fall back on.

For crewed launches, Russia has long depended on its Baikonur spaceport in neighboring Kazakhstan. But the nation has charged costly annual fees, and in March Kazakhstan seized Russian spaceport assets, reportedly due to Roscosmos’ debt. Russia has sought to reduce its dependence on Baikonur by building a new spaceport, the Vostochny Cosmodrome in eastern Russia near the Chinese border, but the project has been bogged down by construction problems, delays, and corruption scandals.

Beyond launch problems and coolant leaks, Russia’s civil space program faces another problem: the ISS. For the past quarter of a century, the station has provided a critical tie between the US and Russian space programs, but that’s winding down, along with plans to retire the giant structure altogether. NASA is investing in next-generation commercial space stations, with modules scheduled to arrive in orbit as early as 2030. Russia has no role in those commercial concepts, nor in China’s new Tiangong station.

Last July, Yuri Borisov, the head of Roscosmos, claimed that Russia would withdraw from the ISS—effectively ending the station’s lifetime—in 2028, when Russia would launch its own space station. And this February, the state-owned TASS news agency confirmed that Russia plans on supporting the ISS through 2028, timing that depends on the deployment of a “new Russian Orbital Station.”

Pavel Luzin, senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a think tank focused on China, Russia, and Eurasia, is skeptical; he’s not aware of new space station models, crewed spacecraft, or launch vehicles in the works. It would be optimistic for Russia to even launch a new station in the 2030s, he adds. “Russia is not the Soviet Union,” says Luzin, who is also a visiting scholar at the Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. “Russia will be able to make some large vehicles and Soyuz spacecraft. Russia will be able to launch some satellites. But it will not be an advanced space power. It will not be making steps beyond low Earth orbit.”

Yet through the support of an emerging space superpower, Russia still has plans for the moon. In 2021, Chinese and Russian officials announced that they would partner to set up a research station on the lunar south pole in the 2030s. Lots of work will precede that base, though. First, China has embarked on a series of robotic missions to collect data and scope out potential landing spots. The next of those, Chang’e 6, includes a lander and sample return mission and is planned for 2025. Russia’s first robotic mission for the program, Luna 25, has been delayed for years but could finally launch in July. That lander will prove a crucial test for Roscosmos, whose handful of missions beyond Earth orbit since the late 1980s have fared poorly. Those mostly Mars-focused probes either failed to leave Earth orbit or didn’t reach their destinations.

That track record, compared to the successes of China’s ramped-up space program, is a reason for skepticism about the Chinese-Russian collaboration, says Zak. “Why would China cooperate with Russia when the Russian space program is in a weaker state?” he says. “The mismatch in technical capabilities is so huge that I don’t see what China can get from this.” While China may have political reasons for collaborating with Russia, Zak says, its space program has little to gain from working with its Russian counterpart.

As its civil space program collapses, Russia has been heavily investing in its military one. The country has highly developed anti-satellite weapons, including a missile system tested in November 2021 that generated thousands of bits of debris in orbit. (So have previous tests by the US, China, and India, leading to an international call for a moratorium on them.) Russia has also used electronic weapons against space systems and has been testing laser weapons that could be used against satellites. Russia appears to have tested a potential weapon prototype in 2019 and 2020, with a “nesting doll”-like spacecraft, Cosmos 2543, which released a sub-satellite in orbit, says Victoria Samson, the Washington office director for the Secure World Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank.

Like McClintock, Samson says Russia’s back-to-back technical issues are a worrisome sign for its civil space program, and so is the likelihood that it may soon be without a space station. “There is a national prestige factor for countries with space programs,” she says. The Soviet Union may have put the first human into space—but now, 60 years later, Russia faces a near-future in which it is no longer able to do that. “That’s a slide,” says Samson.
https://www.wired.com/story/russias-space-program-is-in-big-trouble/
https://twitter.com/VSamson_DC/status/1637887110815293448

[Orionid]

22 marzec

Musa Chiramanowicz Manarow 22.03.1951
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/203.htm
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/cosmonauts/german/manarov_musa.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/m/manarov.html
https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/rusko/00203.htm
https://www.astronaut.ru/register/515.htm
https://www.april12.eu/russcosm/manarov203ru.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musa_Manarov
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musa_Manarow
     https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=1766.msg64473#msg64473
https://twitter.com/ASE_Astronauts/status/1638526234966609923
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1638437855822483456

Nicholas James MacDonald Patrick 22.03.1964
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/448.htm
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/astronauts/english/patrick_nicholas.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/p/patrick.html
https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/usa/00450.htm
https://www.astronaut.ru/register/514.htm
https://www.april12.eu/usaastron/patrick449ru.html  19.11.1964
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Patrick  19.11.1964
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Patrick
https://alchetron.com/Nicholas-Patrick 19.11.1964
https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/nicholas-james-mcdonald-patrick-ph-d/
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1638436597808119808

William Shatner 22.03.1931
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=3483.msg182688#msg182688


10.03.1948
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1638440372346171393

STS-3 Columbia/F-3 22.03.1982-30.03.1982
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg172748#msg172748


Antonow An-225 ustanowił 106 rekordów świata 22.031989
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=4047.msg143538#msg143538


22.03.1993
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1638442554256502786

RN Vega wyniosła satelitę teledetekcyjnego PRISMA (Precursore Iperspettrale della Missione Applicativa) 22.03.2018
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=3368.msg130312#msg130312


23 marzec

Albert Hanlin 'Al' Crews 23.03.1929
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=3483.msg182708#msg182708


Utworzenie WMO (The World Meteorological Organization) 23.03.1950
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182713#msg182713


Gemini III GT-3/Molly Brown 23.03.1965
https://twitter.com/NASAhistory/status/1638910986332831744
https://twitter.com/airandspace/status/1638922419300716544
https://twitter.com/airandspace/status/1639013903693914112

Thomas O. Paine został zaprzysiężony na zastępcę administratora NASA 23.03.1968
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=3483.msg182710#msg182710


23.03.1973
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1638800243935571969

RN Ariane-5ESV wyniosła europejski automatyczny statek transportowy ATV-3 Edoardo Amaldi 23.03.2012
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=904.msg182714#msg182714


https://twitter.com/ESA_History/status/1638960281320554497


24 marzec

Lodewijk van den Berg (24.03.1932-16.10.2022)
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=5131.msg179191#msg179191


Kenneth Stanley Reightler, Jr. 24.03.1951
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/255.htm
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/astronauts/english/reightler_kenneth.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/r/reightler.html
https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/usa/00255.htm
https://www.astronaut.ru/register/514.htm
http://www.april12.eu/usaastron/reightler255en.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_S._Reightler_Jr.
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1639161373505536000
https://twitter.com/ASE_Astronauts/status/1639371775221067776

Scott Jay 'Doc' Horowitz 24.03.1957
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/343.htm
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/astronauts/english/horowitz_scott.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/h/horowitz.html
https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/usa/00343.htm
https://www.astronaut.ru/register/514.htm
https://www.april12.eu/usaastron/horowitz343ru.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_J._Horowitz
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Horowitz
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1639162631591444480

STS-45 Atlantis 24.03.1992-02.04.1992
https://twitter.com/ESA_History/status/1639198367258476546
https://twitter.com/NASAhistory/status/1642472447109627904

RN Ariane-40 H10-3 (lot V107) wyniosła optycznego satelitę do obrazowania Ziemi SPOT 4 23.03.1998
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182740#msg182740


Rover Opportunity pokonał dystans  42,195 km 24.03.2015
https://twitter.com/NASAhistory/status/1639273373749370885

https://twitter.com/airandspace/status/1639073317180280832

[Orionid]

25 marzec

James Arthur 'Shaky' Lovell, Jr. 25.03.1928
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=5296.msg182748#msg182748


Liu Wang 25.03.1969
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/524.htm
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/international/english/liu_wang.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/l/liuwang.html
https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/ostatni/00524.htm
https://www.astronaut.ru/register/517.htm
https://www.april12.eu/chinaastron/liuwang524ru.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Wang
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Wang
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1639525019675140096

Dr Reimar Lüst (25.03.1923-31.03.2020)
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=3483.msg143223#msg143223


Christiaan Huygens odkrył księżyc Saturna Tytana 25.03.1655
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182757#msg182757


25.03.1973
https://twitter.com/NASAhistory/status/1639635964036517889

Rada ESA zatwierdziła utworzenie jednolitego Europejskiego Korpusu Astronautów 25.03.1998
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182753#msg182753



26 marzec

Jurij Pawłowicz Gidzenko 26.03.1962
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/329.htm
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/cosmonauts/english/gidzenko_yuri.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/g/gidzenko.html
https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/rusko/00329.htm
https://www.astronaut.ru/register/515.htm
https://www.april12.eu/russcosm/gidzenko329ru.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Gidzenko
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurij_Gidzenko
  https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=1769.msg64580#msg64580
https://twitter.com/ASE_Astronauts/status/1639990815651950593
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1639871049771765760

Chuck Yeager na samolocie Bell X-1 wzniósł się z najwyższą prędkością i wysokością ze wszystkich pilotowanych samolotów w tamtym czasie 26.03.1948
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=4310.msg154502#msg154502


26.03.1953
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1639876082647322624

Utworzenie komercyjnej spółki Arianespace 26.03.1980
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182758#msg182758


26.03.1997
https://twitter.com/airandspace/status/1640107632273899520


27 marzec

Gagarin i jego instruktor lotniczy Władimir Sieriogin zginęli w katastrofie samolotu treningowego MiG-15 UTI  27.03.1968
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=1756.msg162198#msg162198


Quentin Jerome Tarantino 27.03.1963
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_Tarantino
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_Tarantino
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1640235954215567361

Wystrzelona została RN Atlas SLV-3C Centaur., która wyniosła w kierunku Marsa sondę Mariner 7 27.03.1969
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=3750.msg134892#msg134892


28.03.1973
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1640598341821112320

[Orionid]

Electron z Onenui
  24.03. o 09:14 z Onenui wystrzelona została RN Electron/Curie, która wyniosła na orbitę satelity BlackSky-18 i BlackSky-19.
Pierwszy stopień rakiety opadł na spadochronie i został wyłowiony z oceanu celem ponownego użycia.
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/n230316.htm#09

Electron launches “The Beat Goes On”


https://twitter.com/Peter_J_Beck/status/1636560103389429761
Here are some stats for today's mission:
• 35th Electron rocket launch
• 8th Rocket Lab mission for BlackSky
• 7th flight from Rocket Lab's Launch Complex 1B at Mahia Peninsula
• 3rd Rocket Lab mission of 2023
• 44th orbital launch attempt worldwide in 2023
https://spaceflightnow.com/2023/03/24/electron-blacksky-18-19-mission-status-center/

https://twitter.com/nkknspace/status/1638912922566164481
https://twitter.com/BlackSky_Inc/status/1639446032474947585

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2023/03/the-beat-goes-on/
BlackSky 18 (BlackSky Global 19 ?) (56 kg) https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/blacksky-global.htm
BlackSky 19 (BlackSky Global 21 ?)

[Orionid]

28 marzec

Wubbo Johannes Ockels (28.03.1946-18.05.2014)
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=1396.msg170360#msg170360


Sian Hayley 'Leo' Proctor 28.03.1970
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/s.htm
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/tourists/english/proctor_sian.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sian_Proctor
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspiration4
https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/usa/00569.htm
https://www.astronaut.ru/crossroad/572.htm
https://www.april12.eu/usaastron/proctor569ru.html
https://twitter.com/ASE_Astronauts/status/1640821361617559565
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1640595825611907074

Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers odkrył planetoidę 2 Pallas 28.03.1802
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=115.msg182794#msg182794


Wystrzelona została do 4. testowego lotu suborbitalnego RN Saturn I (SA-4) 28.03.1963
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182790#msg182790


28.03.1973
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1640598341821112320

Wielka Brytania ratyfikowała konwencję ESA 28.03.1978
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182792#msg182792


Sojuz TMA-08M ISS-34S Karat 28.03.2013
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=1319.msg182783#msg182783



29 marzec

Aleksandr Stiepanowicz Wiktorienko 29.03.1947
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/201.htm
  https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=1776.msg162779#msg162779
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/cosmonauts/english/viktorenko_aleksandr.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/v/viktorenko.html
https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/rusko/00201.htm
https://www.astronaut.ru/register/515.htm
https://www.april12.eu/russcosm/viktorenko201ru.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Viktorenko
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Wiktorienko
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1640958213339185153
https://twitter.com/ASE_Astronauts/status/1641063296420704259

Michael James Foreman 29.03.1957
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/470.htm
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/astronauts/english/foreman_michael.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/f/foreman.html
https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/usa/00470.htm
https://www.astronaut.ru/register/514.htm
https://www.april12.eu/usaastron/foreman470ru.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Foreman_(astronaut)
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Foreman
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1640959471341150210
https://twitter.com/ASE_Astronauts/status/1641123648990855192

William Anthony Oefelein 29.03.1965
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/447.htm
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/astronauts/english/oefelein_william.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/o/oefelein.html
https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/usa/00447.htm
https://www.astronaut.ru/register/514.htm
https://www.april12.eu/usaastron/oefelein447ru.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Oefelein
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Oefelein
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1640960730047582209
https://twitter.com/ASE_Astronauts/status/1641198827553038341

JAMES (JIM) TILLMAN, 1932-29.03.2023
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=3483.msg183289#msg183289


Konwencja ustanawiająca ELDO  została przedłożona do akceptacji 29.03.1962
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182796#msg182796


29.03.1968
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1640961988095533058

29.03.1973
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1641107962671366144

Mariner 10 dokonał pierwszego przelotu w pobliżu Merkurego 29.03.1974
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=3758.msg182880#msg182880


Sonda MESSENGER przesłała pierwsze zdjęcie Merkurego z orbity 29.03.2011
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=92.msg182881#msg182881



30 marzec

Jelena Władimirowna Kondakowa 30.03.1957
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/317.htm
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/cosmonauts/german/kondakova_yelena.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/k/kondakova.html
https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/rusko/00317.htm
https://www.astronaut.ru/register/515.htm
https://www.april12.eu/russcosm/kondakova317ru.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yelena_Kondakova
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jelena_Kondakowa
    https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=1778.msg162780#msg162780
https://twitter.com/ASE_Astronauts/status/1641440712234536964
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1641320601359876097

31 marzec

Patrick Graham Forrester 31.03.1957
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/405.htm
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/astronauts/english/forrester_patrick.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/f/forrester.html
https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/usa/00405.htm
https://www.astronaut.ru/register/514.htm
https://www.april12.eu/usaastron/forrester405ru.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_G._Forrester
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Forrester
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1641682989141704704

31.03.1948
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1641685505413881856

Joe Walker ustanowił nowy rekord wysokości w X-15, osiągając wysokość 51 000 m 31.03.1961
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182887#msg182887


Wystrzelona została RN Mołnia-M (Blok-L), która wyniosła pierwszego sztucznego satelitę Księżyca Łunę 10 31.03.1966
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg182890#msg182890


Misja naukowa Pioneera 10 oficjalnie dobiegła końca 31.03.1997
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=933.msg182888#msg182888

[Orionid]

Co wyniesiono z Plesiecka?
  29.03. o 19:57 z Plesiecka wystrzelona została RN Sojuz-2.1w, która wyniosła na orbitę o parametrach: hp=329 km, ha=345 km, i=96,46° satelitę zwiadu orbitalnego EMKA 4. Po starcie otrzymał on nazwę Kosmos 2568.
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/n230316.htm#15

(1/2) Avizovaný ruský kosmický start dnes taktéž proběhl. Ve 21:57 SELČ odstartovala ze vzletové rampy 43/4 na kosmodromu Pleseck nosná raketa Sojuz 2.1v. O nákladu uvedl TASS pouze informaci, že jde o družici pro ruské ministerstvo obrany.

(2/2) Dle NOTAMs se start podobá tomu z října loňského roku, ale ne zcela. Při něm byly vyneseny na oběžnou dráhu dvě družice. Prohlášení ruského ministerstva obrany ale dnes hovoří pouze o jedné družici. Navíc také není jisté, zda byl použit hodní stupeň Volga. Uvidíme dle dráhy

Kod: [Zaznacz]

https://twitter.com/Kosmo_Michal/status/1641177383553355776

Według aktualnych danych 18SDS orbita ma wysokość perygeum 329,5 km, apogeum 344,5 i nachylenie 96,46°. Z pewnym prawdopodobieństwem może to być kolejny satelita z serii małych satelitów EMKA/Razbeg. Jego zadaniem jest więc obserwacja Ziemi w celach militarnych.

https://twitter.com/Kosmo_Michal/status/1641300589920370688

Soyuz-2.1v carrier rocket delivers military satellite to orbit — Russian Defense Ministry
30 MAR, 00:05

According to the ministry, the spacecraft’s onboard systems are operating routinely


Plesetsk Cosmodrome © Russian Defence Ministry/TASS

MOSCOW, March 30. /TASS/. A Soyuz-2.1v light carrier rocket, launched from the Plesetsk spaceport on Wednesday night, has delivered a military satellite to orbit, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

"The spacecraft was put into its designated orbit at the scheduled time and was taken under control. A stable telemetric connection was established with the spacecraft," the statement reads.

According to the ministry, the spacecraft’s onboard systems are operating routinely. The satellite was designated identification number Kosmos-2568.

The Soyuz-2.1v light rocket carrying the military satellite blasted off from the Plesetsk spaceport at 10:57 p.m. (19:57 GMT) on March 29. Pre-launch operations and the rocket’s launch went normally, the Defense Ministry said.
https://tass.com/russia/1596359

https://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/news/85763/
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2023/03/kosmos-2568/
Kosmos 2568 (EO-MKA #4 ?) https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/emka.htm

[Orionid]

Virginia Norwood, pioneered Earth imagery as ‘mother of Landsat,’ dies at 96
By Brian Murphy March 30, 2023 at 6:54 p.m. EDT

A male colleague once quit rather than work under Ms. Norwood’s leadership. When he asked to return, she turned him down.


Virginia Norwood, left, and Labor Secretary James Hodgson discuss Landsat designs in 1972. Norwood, who was integral to the design of the satellite technology, died March 26 at 96. (Harry J. Weiner/Department of Health, Education and Welfare)

Virginia Norwood, a pioneering aerospace engineer who used design innovations, emerging technologies and seasoned intuition in projects that scanned the lunar surface for safe Apollo landing sites and mapped the Earth from space with digital imagery never before seen, died March 26 at her home in Topanga, Calif. She was 96.

Ms. Norwood’s daughter, Naomi Norwood, confirmed the death but did not provide a cause.

Over a four-decade career that began with slide rules and moved into the age of computer modeling, Ms. Norwood became known as a resourceful problem solver who often hit upon simple but effective solutions. She was also usually the only woman on the team — with at least one male colleague in the 1950s at Hughes Aircraft quitting rather than work under her leadership.

He later returned to the company and asked to work with Ms. Norwood. She turned him down.

With an Army Signal Corps team in the late 1940s, her group was stuck over how to measure wind speed in the upper stratosphere above 100,000 feet, readings critical in developing long-range weather forecasting. Ms. Norwood came up with a device made of reflective disks — suspended on fishing-line swivels — that would spin on a weather balloon and could be tracked by radar. The idea was patented under her name.

In the 1960s, when Ms. Norwood was at Hughes, she faced a puzzle over a planned satellite that became known as Landsat 1: how to keep the Earth-scanning equipment from breaking under the stress of constant movement? She sought out Hughes’s “resident inventor,” S.D. “Webb” Howe, who decided the entire scanner wouldn’t move, just mirrors would.

Under Ms. Norwood’s direction, Howe designed a separate pivoting mirror that swayed back and forth at 13 times per second in the weightlessness of space. Each time it rocked, the mirror collected more data from the light spectrum, both visible and invisible, and fed it into the scanner.

Not everyone was on board. “They knew that there was a banging mirror,” Ms. Norwood told the MIT Technology Review. “They just felt that was too crude.”

But it worked. The launch of the satellite in July 1972 was a crowning achievement for Ms. Norwood. She became known as the “mother of Landsat” and credited with helping bring a completely new perspective and understanding of the planet and its interlocking features and ecosystems.

Ms. Norwood’s Multispectral Scanner — capturing visible colors and other wavelengths not picked up on normal equipment such as infrared — took the existing satellite imagery beyond just looking at the surface. Her scanner brought insights into aspects such as water quality, crop health, soil moisture and snowpack density.

For the first time, digital data was available that allowed preventive action: spotting tree blights in early stages or providing comprehensive information on watersheds for crop planning and flood protection. NASA later said it was the first digital data transmission from space.

For today’s researchers, the images from the early generations of Landsat satellites offer important baseline records to assess climate change, shoreline erosion, rainforest loss and other shifts.

“I’d go to meetings and people were just jumping up and down because they had discovered another use for the data,” Ms. Norwood recalled.


Ms. Norwood working with a slide rule in 1963. (Family photo)

She already had triumphs on the moon under her belt. The lunar probe Surveyor 1, which touched down in June 1966, was NASA’s first craft to make it safely to the moon’s surface. Surveyor 1 and the subsequent Surveyors during the 1960s were scouts seeking basic questions: What was the moon’s crust like, and where were the best potential spots to land a crewed mission?

“They didn’t want the man to fall down a crack in the moon,” Ms. Norwood recalled.

Her job, along with the microwave group she led at Hughes, was to develop transmitters and receivers on Surveyor to pick up NASA’s commands. Among the many complications, space was tight. Surveyor was compact, and the communications system had to be, too.

Ms. Norwood found the answer in the design of flowers: an antenna that opened up from a tight bud into a parabola-shaped dish. That became her second patent.

In 2020, a NASA interviewer asked Ms. Norwood if she was comfortable with the sobriquet “mother of Landsat.”

Ms. Norwood didn’t hesitate. “Yes. I like it, and it’s apt,” she said. “I created it. I birthed it, and I fought for it.”

Bound for MIT

Virginia Monroe Tower was born at Fort Totten, in the New York City borough of Queens, on Jan. 8, 1927. Her father was an Army officer, and her mother tended to the home but also studied mathematics and languages on her own.

The family moved regularly because of military postings in Oklahoma (where she was in a Girl Scout troop led by Gen. George S. Patton’s daughter, Ruth), Panama and Bermuda. The family then went to Pittsburgh when her father took a position teaching physics at Carnegie Institute of Technology, now part of Carnegie Mellon University. (Her father made her first slide rule when she in grade school.)

She enrolled in 1943 at MIT, one of about a dozen women in her class. She later called it navigating a “sea of men.” She graduated in 1947 with a degree in mathematical physics.

Soon after getting her diploma, she married her former calculus instructor at MIT, Lawrence Norwood.

Ms. Norwood said she was turned down by many employers for tech-related positions, presumably because of her gender. At Sikorsky Aircraft, she walked away after being asked to promise not to get pregnant if she took a job in food services. At one point, she worked at a department store in New Haven, Conn., hiding her having been an MIT graduate.

In 1948, she and her husband were offered a job at the Army’s Signal Corps laboratories in New Jersey. The couple moved to Southern California in 1953, where the weather was better to indulge in Ms. Norwood’s passion for sports cars. (Her last car, a blue six-speed Mazda Miata, was driven until Ms. Norwood couldn’t renew her license during the pandemic.)

In California, Ms. Norwood first worked for Sylvania Electronic Defense Labs and set up its antenna test range, and then joined Hughes. After she was put in charge of the microwave group in the company’s missile lab in 1957 — the first woman in the role — a male co-worker quit. He was rehired at Hughes, but Ms. Norwood rejected his request to return to her team.

Ms. Norwood also led the design of the transmitter and microwave receiver for the world’s first communications satellite, Syncom 2, used in the first two-way satellite call between government leaders when President John F. Kennedy in Washington chatted with Nigeria’s prime minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, in 1963.

Ms. Norwood retired in 1989. Among her awards was the O.M. Miller Cartographic Medal from the American Geographical Society in 2022 for her Landsat imaging system that “transformed expectations of how we can know the Earth.”

Her first marriage ended in divorce. She later married Maurice Schaeffer, who died in 2010. A son from her first marriage, David Norwood, died in 2012.

In addition to her daughter, survivors include another child from her first marriage, Peter Norwood; three stepchildren, David Schaeffer, Andrew Schaeffer and Claudia Schaeffer; seven grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Landsat goes on: now up to Landsat 9. There’s also a “Ladies of Landsat” group for women who have worked in the program over the decades since Ms. Norwood.

“I’ve spent my life where I was the only woman in a program,” Ms. Norwood told Science in 2021. “Now, there’s a whole group of them. That’s kind of nice.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2023/03/30/virginia-norwood-landsat-engineer-dies/

[Orionid]

30.03.2023 o 10:50 UTC RN CZ-2D została wystrzelona z wyrzutni LC-9 kosmodromu Taiyuan wraz z czterema satelitami teledetekcyjnymi Juntu-1

Kwartet z Taiyuan
  30.03. o 10:50 z Taiyuan wystrzelona została RN CZ-2D, która wyniosła na orbitę cztery satelity radarowe SAR konstelacji PIESAT-1: Hongtu-1 01A (Zhongyuan-1), Hongtu-1 01B (Hebi-1), Hongtu-1 01C (Hebi-2) i Hongtu-1 01D (Hebi-3).
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/n230316.htm#17
https://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/news/85766/
https://spacenews.com/chinas-sar-satellite-surge-continues-with-new-constellation-plan/

Long March-2D launches four PIESAT-1 satellites

(1/2) Dnes ve 12:50 SELČ odstartovala z kosmodromu Tchaj-jüan nosná raketa CZ-2D. Na SSO oběžnou dráhu s výškou necelých 600 km dopravila první čtyři družice nové hybridní konstelace Hongtu (Chung-tchu) pro pozorování Země.

(2/2) Hlavní družice Zhongyuan (Čung-jüan) je vybavena radarem schopným pracovat v aktivním i pasivním režimu v pásmu X. Tři družice Hebi (Che-pi) pak radarem pouze pasivním. Společně budou pracovat jako interferometr. Prostorové rozlišení může dosáhnout až 50 cm.

https://twitter.com/Kosmo_Michal/status/1641454137505370117

China launched at Long March 2D rocket from Taiyuan at 1050 UTC today, sending 4 Hongtu-1 (group 01) synthetic aperture radar satellites into sun-synchronous orbit. China's 13th orbital launch of 2023.

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/fYUo8yCnCKXEuqCS2nse1g

Kod: [Zaznacz]

https://twitter.com/AJ_FI/status/1641401302583320578https://twitter.com/wulei2020/status/1641292481362001920
https://twitter.com/wulei2020/status/1641438806116298756
https://twitter.com/wulei2020/status/1641407784557346817
https://twitter.com/wulei2020/status/1641446651717120001
https://twitter.com/wulei2020/status/1641449726074822658
https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1641430471581265924
https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1641437193695555584

China launches new remote-sensing satellites
Source: Xinhua Editor: huaxia2023-03-30 19:50:15

TAIYUAN, March 30 (Xinhua) -- China launched a Long March-2D carrier rocket on Thursday evening to place new remote-sensing satellites in space.

The satellites of the PIESAT-1 constellation were lifted at 6:50 p.m. (Beijing Time) on Thursday from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern China's Shanxi Province, and then entered the preset orbit.

They will mainly provide commercial remote-sensing data services.

This mission was the 469th flight of the Long March carrier rockets.

https://english.news.cn/20230330/ffa941a675454fda9ec2003b9625fece/c.html

China Focus: China launches wheel-like constellation of remote-sensing satellites
Source: XinhuaEditor: huaxia 2023-03-30 23:24:15

BEIJING, March 30 (Xinhua) -- China launched a Long March-2D carrier rocket into space on Thursday evening carrying a wheel-like formation of four remote sensing satellites, the first formation of its kind in the world.

The satellites of the PIESAT-1 constellation were launched at 6:50 p.m. (Beijing Time) from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern China's Shanxi Province, and then entered a preset orbit.

WHEEL FORMATION

The in-orbit constellation has formed a lineup like a vehicle wheel. It comprises a primary satellite running at the central "axle" and three supplementary satellites evenly placed in an elliptical "wheel hub" and orbiting the primary satellite. The supplementary trio is located just a few hundred meters from the primary satellite.

The constellation is capable of maintaining its stability and space safety, thanks to precise orbital control supported by inter-satellite links and phase synchronization links.

The four satellites are equipped with interferometric synthetic aperture radars (InSARs), which are effective tools to measure changes in land surface.

The InSARs capture two images at different times by reflecting radar signals off a target area on Earth, and then have them interfere with each other to produce maps called interferograms, which reveal the ground-surface displacement between the two time periods.

Unlike visible or infrared light, radar waves can penetrate most weather clouds and are equally effective in darkness.

DISASTER PREVENTION

Compared to traditional InSARs, a wheel formation can generate more interference baselines, thus increasing mapping efficiency.

The constellation, mainly used to provide commercial remote-sensing data services, is capable of conducting rapid high-efficiency global land surveys.

It can realize millimeter-level deformation monitoring to identify land subsidence, surface collapses and landslides, meaning it is an effective weapon for the early detection of major geological disasters.

The constellation has the full-time, all-weather ability to take high-quality, submeter-scale, broad-width images of our planet.

It was designed by the satellite maker Galaxy Space (Beijing) Network Technology, and it will be used by PIESAT, a satellite operation and application services provider in China.

The Long March-2D carrier rocket is a two-stage launch vehicle with a take-off thrust of 300 tonnes, and it is capable of lifting 1.3-tonne payloads to the solar synchronous circular orbit 700 km above Earth.

This mission was the 469th flight of the Long March carrier rockets. ■

https://english.news.cn/20230330/735cd960b4fe42fba9e5e352dbd248ed/c.html

Satellite family launched into orbit from Shanxi
By ZHAO LEI | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2023-03-30 22:19

A Long March 2D carrier rocket carrying four Earth-observation satellites blasts off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Shanxi province on Thursday afternoon. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
China launched four Earth-observation satellites from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Shanxi province on Thursday afternoon.

The group consists of one 320-kilogram pivot satellite and three 270-kg assistant satellites, and are the first space-based assets in the Hongtu 1 network. The satellites were sent into space by a Long March 2D carrier rocket that blasted off at 6:50 pm.

Developed by GalaxySpace, a Beijing-based private satellite maker, each of the satellites carries an interferometric synthetic aperture radar.

The spacecraft will form a wheel-shaped network, as the three assistant satellites move around the pivot satellite as all travel in orbit.

This will be the first time any satellites will form a wheel-shaped system, according to GalaxySpace.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/scitech

PIESAT 1
PIESAT 2
PIESAT 3
PIESAT 4

[Orionid]

https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg117026#msg117026
55 Years Ago: The Flight of Apollo 6
Apr 4, 2023

On April 4, 1968, the second Saturn V rocket thundered off its launch pad to begin the Apollo 6 mission, the second uncrewed test of the Moon rocket and Apollo spacecraft. Following two successful uncrewed test flights – Apollo 4, the first all-up flight of the Saturn V rocket and Apollo Command and Service Modules (CSM), and Apollo 5, the first orbital test of the Lunar Module (LM) – Apollo 6 gave a somewhat troubled performance. Excessive vibration during the first stage powered flight caused some minor damage and an onboard crew would have experienced discomfort. Two of the second stage engines shut down prematurely and the third stage did not reignite for its second burn, forcing an alternate mission. Recovery teams retrieved the capsule from the Pacific Ocean.


The Apollo 6 mission plan.

As planned, the Apollo 6 mission called for the first three stages of the Saturn V to place the CSM, still attached to the third stage, into a 115-mile-high circular Earth orbit. After two orbits to ensure the proper working of all vehicle systems, the third stage would reignite for more than five minutes to simulate a Translunar Injection (TLI) burn, sending the spacecraft into a highly elliptical Earth orbit with a high point of about 320,000 miles. Three minutes after the TLI burn, the combined third stage and spacecraft would turn itself around and the CSM would separate from the third stage that would continue into deep space. The Service Module (SM) engine now facing in the direction of travel would fire for about four minutes to slow the spacecraft down in a simulation of a direct-return abort. The maneuver would lower the high point of Apollo 6’s orbit to about 14,000 miles before the spacecraft descended back toward Earth. As it approached Earth, the SM engine would fire again for about three minutes to increase the spacecraft’s speed on reentry to about 25,000 miles per hour to simulate a return from the Moon. The mission would end with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean after a flight of just under 10 hours.


Left: The S-IC first stages of the Apollo 4, left, and Apollo 6 Saturn V rockets at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, in January 1966.
Right: The S-IC first stage for the Apollo 6 Saturn V in the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
in Florida in March 1967.

Assembly of the Apollo 6 Saturn V rocket began with the arrival of the S-IVB third stage in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Feb. 21, 1967, followed by the S-IC first stage on March 13 and its erection on Mobile Launcher 2 in High Bay 3 four days later. Because of a two-month delay in the delivery of the S-II second stage, stacking operations on March 29 used a spool-shaped spacer instead of the second stage in order to carry out initial fit and function tests. After the delayed arrival of the S-II stage on May 24, and subsequent inspection for cracks in the stage’s hydrogen tank, workers removed the spacer and replaced it with the flight stage on July 13. In parallel activities, workers in High Bay 1 continued to assemble the Apollo 4 rocket, marking the first time they processed two Saturn V rockets at the same time. Because Apollo 4 activities took priority, engineers often had to delay work on the Apollo 6 vehicle.


Assembly of the Apollo 6 Saturn V in the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Left: The S-II second stage spacer.
Right: The S-II second stage for Apollo 6 at right, as workers prepare to lift the Apollo 4 spacecraft onto its Saturn V in June 1967.

Left: Workers lower the S-II stage onto the S-IC first stage.
Right: Workers lower the Instrument Unit onto the S-IVB third stage.


Preflight processing of the Apollo 6 spacecraft in the Manned Spacecraft Operations Building (MSOB) at NASA’s
Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.
Left: Workers lower the Command Module onto the Service Module.
Right: Workers prepare the Lunar Module (LM) Test Article-2R (LTA-2R).

Left: Workers lower the Spacecraft LM Adapter to enclose the LTA-2R.
Right: Following transfer from the MSOB, in KSC’s Vehicle Assembly Building, workers prepare to lift the Apollo 6 spacecraft to stack it onto its Saturn V rocket.

The first component of the Apollo 6 spacecraft, the LM Test Article-2R (LTA-2R), arrived at KSC’s Manned Spacecraft Operations Building (MSOB) on Feb. 14, 1967. While no LM flew on Apollo 6, engineers placed the LTA-2R inside the Spacecraft LM Adapter (SLA) atop the rocket’s third stage, to roughly simulate the mass and dynamic properties of the LM. Engineers outfitted LTA-2R with sensors to record the vibration and acceleration environment during powered flight, with the test article remaining attached to the S-IVB third stage throughout the mission. The CSM arrived in the MSOB on Sept. 29 to undergo preflight testing, following which engineers placed the SLA over the LTA-2R and stacked the CSM on top. Workers trucked the assembled spacecraft to the VAB, mounted it atop the completed Saturn V on Dec. 10, and topped it with the Launch Escape System tower.


Left: The Apollo 6 Saturn V begins its rollout from the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 
Right: The Apollo 6 Saturn V on Launch Pad 39A.

The Saturn V passes the parked Mobile Service Structure on its way to Launch Pad 39A.

Rollout of the Apollo 6 Saturn V took place on Feb. 6, 1968, the three-mile trip from the VAB to Launch Pad 39A interrupted by a two-hour weather-related delay. At the pad, engineers began tests of the launch vehicle, with the Flight Readiness Test completed on March 8. Senior managers concluded the Flight Readiness Review three days later, and engineers completed the weeklong Countdown Demonstration Test on March 31.


Left: View of the Launch Control Center (LCC) during the Apollo 6 countdown.
Right: Director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Wernher von Braun, left, and NASA Deputy Administrator Thomas O. Paine in the LCC await the launch of Apollo 6.

Engineers in Firing Room 2 of KSC’s Launch Control Center (LCC) began the terminal countdown for Apollo 6 on April 3 and completed it without any unplanned holds. Newly sworn in NASA Deputy Administrator Thomas O. Paine along with directors of the major NASA field centers attended the final mission director’s review and watched the terminal countdown and launch from the LCC.


Left: Liftoff of Apollo 6 from Launch Pad 39A.
Right: Liftoff of Apollo 6 as seen from the launch umbilical tower.

Excessive vibrations during the first stage powered flight caused visible damage to the Spacecraft Lunar Module Adapter external panels.


Left: A recoverable camera mounted inside the second stage captures the separation of the Saturn V rocket’s first stage.
Right: The camera captures the jettison of the Interstage.

Technicians examine a camera pod following its recovery.

The second Saturn V lifted off from KSC’s Launch Pad 39A on April 4, 1968. The mission ran into trouble from the start. Two minutes into the flight, the first stage experienced about 30 seconds of vertical oscillations known as “pogo effect,” that not only caused about 27 square feet of the SLA’s outer panels to come loose but would have caused great discomfort for any onboard astronauts. During the second stage burn, two of the five engines shut down prematurely. The remaining three engines burned longer to compensate for the reduced thrust, as did the third stage to propel Apollo 6 into orbit, although not the planned 115-mile circular orbit but an elliptical one 108 by 222 miles. When the time came for the third stage to restart, it simply didn’t. But it did execute its turnaround maneuver as if it had completed the burn, to place the spacecraft in position for its retrograde burn.


Left: Still image from a film taken by an onboard camera showing the Apollo 6 Command Module (CM) control panel during the mission. 
Right: Still from a film taken through one of the Apollo 6 CM windows during reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

In the Mission Control Center at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), now NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Flight Director Clifford E. Charlesworth, left, confers with senior MSC managers Christopher C. Kraft, Robert R. Gilruth, and George M. Low.
 
In the Mission Control Center at the Manned Spacecraft Center, now NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the flight control team led by Flight Director Clifford E. Charlesworth decided to execute a preplanned alternate mission to separate the spacecraft from the third stage and use the SM engine to reach the nearly 14,000-mile altitude, the burn lasting 7 minutes 21 seconds. But this used so much fuel that the second planned SM burn to accelerate the spacecraft to lunar return velocity could not be carried out. Reentry occurred at 22,380 miles per hour, somewhat less than the planned velocity.


Left: The three main parachutes as recorded by an onboard movie camera.
Right: The Apollo 6 Command Module (CM) shortly after splashdown and during recovery operations by the U.S.S. Okinawa.

The Apollo 6 CM on display at the Fernbank Science Center in Atlanta. Image credit: courtesy Fernbank Science Center.

After reentry and the normal deployment of the parachutes, Apollo 6 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii after a troubled flight of 9 hours and 57 minutes. The altered mission led to the capsule splashing down 56 miles from the prime recovery ship the helicopter carrier U.S.S Okinawa (LPH-3). Recovery forces located the capsule 26 minutes after splashdown and helicopters dropped U.S. Navy swimmers to attach flotation collars around the capsule. Sailors retrieved the spacecraft onto the deck of the ship about six hours after splashdown. The Navy returned the CM to its manufacturer, the North American plant in Downey, California, for postflight inspection. The Apollo 6 CM is on display at the Fernbank Science Center in Atlanta. The spent S-IVB third stage, stranded in Earth orbit instead of sailing off into solar orbit, burned up on reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere on April 26, 1968.


A sampling of the hundreds of high-quality Earth photographs taken by Apollo 6.
Left: The Senegal River as it courses through Senegal and Mauritania.
Right: The Gulf of California with the mouth of the Colorado River.

Left: The Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Right: The Atlantic coast of Georgia.

The rocket problems notwithstanding, Apollo 6 returned some stunning photographic results. Both the first stage and the second stage carried recoverable camera pods. The S-IC first stage carried two cameras to film stage separation and two to film the behavior of liquid oxygen in the tank. Three of the four first stage cameras failed to eject, but teams from the U.S.S. Austin (LPD-4) recovered the fourth, one of the two separation cameras, in the Atlantic Ocean. Two camera pods in the second stage recorded some stunning footage of the first stage separation, imagery that has become iconic of Saturn V launches (and often incorrectly attributed to Apollo 11). Recovery forces from the Austin could only find one of the pods since the locator beacon on the other pod failed. During its two orbits of the Earth, the spacecraft's 70-millimeter window-mounted still camera obtained spectacular color stereo photographs. Scientists found them suitable for cartographic, topographic, and geographic studies of continental areas, coastal regions, and shallow waters. The camera photographed sections of the United States, the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, and the western Pacific Ocean, and had a haze-penetrating film and filter combination that provided better color balance and higher resolution than any photographs obtained during the Mercury and Gemini flights.

Apollo 6 garnered less than the usual press attention as major news events in the country overshadowed the mission. Only four days before the flight, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced to a stunned nation that he would not seek reelection in November 1968. About an hour after the Apollo 6 splashdown, an assassin’s bullet took the life of civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King in Memphis, Tennessee. Within NASA, the focus remained on accomplishing President John F. Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the decade. After detailed analysis of the Saturn V’s less than perfect performance by engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, senior managers decided they could solve the pogo issue and the engine malfunctions and that another unmanned test flight was not necessary – the next Saturn V would carry a crew! And as events unfolded, it was to be more than just the first crewed flight of the Moon rocket.

John Uri
NASA Johnson Space Center
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/55-years-ago-the-flight-of-apollo-6
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1643135056913879041