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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 12h

JAXA's J-SSOD-33 cubesat deployer was flown to ISS aboard Cygnus NG-23. On Oct 10 the JRMS arm extracted it from the Kibo module airlock and it ejected its three payloads: Kyushu Tech's YOTSUBA-KULOVER (at 0940 UTC), Chiba Tech's BOTAN and the e-kagaku Association's IWATU (both at 0950 UTC).

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 1d

By the way, EOSAT was bought by Space Imaging Inc in 1996; Space Imaging became Geoeye in 2006 and was bought by Digital Globe in 2012, which was then acquired by Maxar and became Maxar Intelligence in 2023 and Vantor in 2025.

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 1d

The Landsat 4 remote sensing satellite was launched by NASA in 1982 and later operated by the commercial company EOSAT for NOAA and USGS until it was retired in 2001. It reentered over the China-Vietnam border area on Oct 8.

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 2d

I use the crew order adopted by the launch agency; in this case, "Seat Number".

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 2d

Aboard Blue Origin New Shepard
NS-36 were Aaron C. Newman (US, space traveler no. 758), Dr William H. Lewis JD (US, 759), Dr Clint Kelly PhD (US, 631), Vitalii Ostrovsky (Ukraine, 760), Danna Karagussova (Kazakhstan, 761) and Jeffrey Elgin (US, 762).

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 2d

Updated stats based on Blue Origin release: NS-36 took off at 1340:36 UTC and landed at 1350:48 UTC for a flight time of 10m12s, and reached an apogee of 106.81 km above mean sea level

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 2d

New Shepard NS-36 safe landing after a 10m 14s flight

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 2d

LAUNCH at about 1341 UTC Oct 8 of Blue Origin's New Shepard NS-36 from West Texas on a suborbital flight with six passengers.

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 2d

Or missile warning satellite, or communications satellite.... really no way for us to tell right now

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 2d

LAUNCH at 0354 UTC Oct 8 of Starlink Group 11-17 from Vandenberg

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 3d

95.1 degrees E longitude - the inclined orbit oscillates east and west around that longitude

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 3d

China's inclined-synchronous Shiyan 29 satellite, launched on Sep 5 and drifting since then, has now synchronized its orbit at 95.1E.

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 3d

LAUNCH at 0646 UTC Oct 7 of Starlink Group 10-59 from Canaveral

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 6d

Exactly, Different money, so the bosses are annoyed when
Harvard gets credit that should be Smithsonian's..... [whether I count as 'credit' or 'blame' is a different q :-)]

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 6d

No, the institute is jointly operated, but each human at the institute is either Harvard or Smithsonian but (with the exception of the director) not both.

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 6d

How many seconds was it visible for?
When did you see it, to the nearest minute if possible?

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 6d

@ajdellinger.com Slight correction: "retired Harvard astrophysicst" --> "soon-to-retire Smithsonian astrophysicist". I work for Smithsonian Observatory, which is AT Harvard but not technically OF Harvard. And... I was hoping to be gone by now, but it's taking longer than hoped for various reasons

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 7d

LAUNCH at 1406 UTC Oct 3 of Starlink Group 11-39 from Vandenberg

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 8d

That was in the same memo with the repeal of the entire Constitution

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 8d

Cool! Wish I was there...

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 9d

The objects are still tracked, but we don't know who to complain to if they go too close to someone else, and we also can't be sure they aren't secret Russian nuclear weapons or something. So registering is an international security issue.

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 9d

It's more that they are so secretive. They want to be one of the largest megaconstellations but they fail to register their satellites
with either Space-Track or the UN and we've heard nothing about whether any of the sats they have launched (9 to date) have worked, what their mass is,etc.

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 9d

I guess the relevant Rwandan politicians were cheaper to bribe than US ones?

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 9d

The five secret commercial satellites launched by Electron on Aug 23 have finally been identified in Space-Track as Calistus A to Calistus E, with the launching state identified as Rwanda. This flag-of-convenience basically confirms the satellites belong to E-Space. None have yet manuevered.

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 9d

Space-Track cataloging confirms that the Sep 22 Starshield launch had eight NRO sats, USA 558 to USA 565, in 464 x 470 km x 70.0 deg deployment orbits.

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