Hello all; Bob Christy nicely estimated a better launch time. His guess is Feb. 07 at 00:26 UTC. Here his notes: http://www.zarya.info/GoForLaunch.php#NK Revised post: HIDROPACs points the launch window starting february 7th till february 24, with a daily launch window starting 22:30 UTC and finishing at 03:30 UTC of the next day. The launch is suposed that will be from Sohae Launch Station (39.659996, 124.705303). In theory, DPRK can launch from Musudan-ri too (40.855762°, 129.665907°), but this second option can be discarded as NOTAMs does not match with this launch site and because the rocket would overfly Japanese territory. Today some news agencies like Reuters, Xinhua News and CNN pointed that launch will occur between 7 and 14 of february: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35511647 Unha-3 is a three stage rocket, all of them uses hipergolic fuel and it can carry nearly 100 Kg to a sun-syncronous, 500Km circular orbit launched from Sohae. The first stage is based on the Nodong missile, that is based previously on the soviet Scud-D. The second stage is based on a R-27 missile. The third stage has been developed by North Korea. The previous launch occurred the 2012/12/12 at 0:51 UTC. The payload reached a 492x585, 97.404 degree orbit. The third stage and other two debris pieces were cataloged. The satellite (KMS 3-2) was in nearly 1:15 resonance, but drifting on RAAN. Back to next launch, the initial launch trajectory of the first and second stage will be like this screenshot generated using Google Earth: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32266013/unha-32016launch/2.JPG <https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32266013/unha-32016launch/1.JPG> The small green box is the 1st stage impact zone, the yellow one the impact of the payload fairing and the red one corresponds to the impact zone of the second stage. As in the previous launch, the third stage is expected to reach orbit with the payload. During the first seconds of third stage burn, the rocket is expected to make a dog-leg maneuver, to reach the desired 97.40 degree inclination, just like in the previous launch. In the image above, the dog-leg sohuld occur between first stage impact zone and fairing impact zone. Launch time: As mentioned before, Bob Christy pointed that most probable launch time can be starting February 07 at 00:26 UTC: Unha-3 estimation F7 00:26 491 X 585 km 1 70005U 16505A 16038.02569445 0.00000000 00000-0 00000+0 0 06 2 70005 97.4047 85.1777 0067405 176.5313 349.5073 15.08261084 04 Every day the rocket should lift-off about 28 seconds before for achieve this Descending Node. So, here is a guess for next days: Unha-3 estimation F8 00:25:32 491 X 585 km 1 70006U 16506A 16039.02537037 0.00000000 00000-0 00000+0 0 01 2 70006 97.4047 86.0467 0067405 176.5313 349.5073 15.08261084 01 Unha-3 estimation F9 00:25:04 491 X 585 km 1 70007U 16506A 16040.02504630 0.00000000 00000-0 00000+0 0 07 2 70007 97.4047 86.9158 0067405 176.5313 349.5073 15.08261084 08 Will be updating these till liftoff occurs. References: http://danielmarin.naukas.com/2012/12/12/primer-lanzamiento-espacial-de-corea-del-norte-unha-3/http://sattrackcam.blogspot.nl/2016/02/north-koreas-upcoming-satellite-launch.html Jon. -- Jon, COSPAR 6242, 42.9453, -2.82839, 623m, Bitoriano, Basque Country. _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-lReceived on Sat Feb 06 2016 - 06:15:45 UTC
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