Recent NRO Launches Payload descriptions and some orbit details available L-192 orbitalfocus.uk/2025#074 L-174 orbitalfocus.uk/2025#077

Mission Update Chinese Space Station The small sat released on Apr 7 (63523, 2021-035E) made a thruster firing Apr 16 with no significant effect on orbit height Behaviour is similar to 62300/035D that was in orbit between 2024 Dec 7 and 2025 Apr 7 orbitalfocus.uk/2021#63523

Mission Update Chinese Space Station Released a small object on Apr 7 (63523, 2021-035E) orbitalfocus.uk/2021#035#035 May be similar to 62300/035D released 2024 Dec 7 - it re-entered the same day the new item appeared (Space-Track re-entry date of April 10 is incorrect)

Mission Update MEV 1 (44625, 2019-067B) Northrop Grumman completed contract to provide 5 yrs support to Intelsat 901 Moved to graveyard orbit Mar 31 to release Intelsat Will return to GEO to take over station keeping and pointing of another Intelsat orbitalfocus.uk/2019#44625

Mission Update Cosmos 2581 etc 2025-026C, one of the two parts of Cosmos 2583, made a very small thruster firing earlier today Effect on orbit height was insignificant 026A & 026B continue to orbit together within a couple of hundred metres of each other

Launch Advisory 4x second generation internet connectivity test satellites Apr 1, 04:00 UTC CZ 2D Jiuquan SC 450 km orbit, lower than the 1000 km of earlier (presumably gen 1) missions orbitalfocus.uk/2025#067

Mission Update Cosmos 2581 etc 026A & B still orbiting in tandem, with B a few metres ahead and doing the station keeping 026C & D are 3000+ km ahead with no orbit changes since separating from each other, not obvious if both are operational satellites orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026#026

Mission Update Shijian 25 China's satellite servicing vehicle has been sitting at 120° east since launch in January orbitalfocus.uk/2025#002 Potential client, Shijian 21, continues slow eastward drift, currently near 143° east orbitalfocus.uk/2021#094#002#094Could there be a problem?

Mission Update USA 498 Payload on the Falcon 9 launch on Mar 24 The amateur observing community is now tracking it in an orbit close to my initial estimate, see the comparison: orbitalfocus.uk/2025#060

Mission Update USA 498 NRO L-69 mission Space-Track has catalogued a single satellite Estimated orbit added to the Orbital Focus table based on timing of visual observations of the Falcon 9 from Europe and the location of the Falcon 9 re-entry zone orbitalfocus.uk/2025#060

Visual sightings from Europe at ~20:00 UTC of propellant venting after re-entry firing of Falcon 9 Confirms near 65° inclination and demise of F9 above southern Indian Ocean ~20:50 UTC Also suggests orbit height above 1000 km - possible NOSS mission orbitalfocus.uk/2025#060

Launch Advisory NRO sat Mar 24, 17:48 UTC Falcon 9 CCSFS Upper stage firing includes an inclination change First stage aimed at ~50° inclination but stage 2 re-entry zone indicates final orbit ~65° incl Launch time for Mar 25 is 14 min earlier, also consistent with ~65°

Mission Update Cosmos 2581 etc C2582 still harassing 2581 When 026F separated from C2583, their orbits were raised and lowered from the original by similar amounts, suggests similar masses and that a spring mechanism was involved (Newton's third law) orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026#026

Mission Update Cosmos 2581, etc Object, so far unidentified, was released from Cosmos 2583 on Mar 18 at about 20:15 UTC C2581 & 2582 continue to orbit together with 2582 making the station keeping effort Could this be a space weapon system? orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026

Mission Update TJS 15 Interesting events in GEO - apparently two payloads, both have changed orbit My take on it orbitalfocus.uk/2025#045 Shaping up to be similar to the TJS 3 mission orbitalfocus.uk/2018#110#045#110Intriguingly, TJS 3 departed its GEO station March 17

Launch Advisory 3x Rodnik store/dump comsats? Mar 16, 10:50 UTC Angara 1.2 Plesetsk Orbit details available orbitalfocus.uk/2025#054 Will be given 'Cosmos' numbers Orbit plane matches an earlier group of Rodnik sats, launched in 2015 orbitalfocus.uk/2015#050

Cosmos 2581 - 2583 C2581 and C2582 are still orbiting close to each other but not flying in formation C2583 has shown its first sign of life with a very small orbit tweak - maybe a thruster test, it continues to move further ahead of the other two orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026

Space-Track not doing very well today: 1 - Dragon Crew 10 has been given an ISS Designation - 1998-067XH instead of 2025-049A 2 - 2025-050B has been named as "ELECTRON KICK STAGE" (ie the third stage) where it is actually the second stage orbitalfocus.uk/2025#049

Mission Update Cosmos 2581, etc Cosmos 2581 & 2582 have near-enough matched orbits as of Mar 9, running in tandem with C2582 less than 20 km in the lead At the same time C2583 was about 230 km in front of C2581 with the gap increasing by ~100 km/day orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026

Mission Update USSF/Boeing X-37B orbiting as USA 349 on Mission OTV 7 Landed at Vandenberg SFB earlier today orbitalfocus.uk/2023#210

Mission Updates Roscosmos says third object on 2025-026 launch is Cosmos 2851 (thanks to Bart Hendrickx) orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026 Orbit of CSO 3 satellite from Mar 6 Ariane launch is classified secret, Ariane 6 upper stage was caused to re-enter orbitalfocus.uk/2025#044

Mission Update Shijian 25 - China's GEO satellite servicing mission Still sitting at 120° east where it arrived 7 weeks ago orbitalfocus.uk/2025#002 Shijian 21, its potential client, is currently at 146° east, drifting slowly eastwards at ~0.1°/day, orbitalfocus.uk/2021#094

Sats with orbital pairings 1 - USA 485 & 486, a couple of Starshields running along together orbitalfocus.uk/2025#014 2 - Cosmos 2581 & 2582, also co-orbiting orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026

Heads Up… Nav warnings for China & Indian Ocean pointed to launch from Jiuquan Mar 1 at ~09:59 UTC, possibly one of the commercial launchers rather than CZ Ground track points to 81° inclination, a new one for China Neither replacement warnings nor news of failure issued yet

Quote from CEO of AstroForge - owner of Odin asteroid mission, make of it what you will "Because we are so close on ephemeris, there is a non-zero chance that it [thruster firing] will actually put us on a course to the asteroid..." AstroForge feed https://www.astroforge.com/updates/odin-learnings

In the past, if Space-Track tagged a rocket stage initially as the 'A' object, the data stream would switch between objects because its system required 'A' to be a payload The restriction seems to have been lifted - see 2025-028, 033 & 041 orbitalfocus.uk/2025#028

Mission Update Cosmos 2581, etc They way in which the orbit of 2025-206C is evolving is more characteristic of a debris item (such as a payload adaptor for the two sats) Entries updated accordingly orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026#026 It could still be a low-density sat

Cosmos 2577 & 2578 orbitalfocus.uk/2024#166#166 They kept station (<300 km) throughout three months of orbit decay until C2578 started to maintain height at ~295 km C2577 did not manoeuvre - possible failure but not necessarily so - it re-entered naturally on Feb 26

Mission Update Cosmos 2581, etc C2581 & 2582 continue to orbit in tandem, less than 10 km from each other orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026#026 Decay rate of C2581 orbit has always been slightly the higher of the two 2025-026C orbit continues to decay at a greater rate than the other two

Mission Update Cosmos 2581, etc Following the C2581 & 2582 have now matched orbits precisely and have settled less than 10 km from each other orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026

Mission Update Cosmos 2581, etc Following the C2581/2582 rendezvous, I've beefed up my notes on the launch orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026#026 They include manoeuvres of the Volga between releasing the two sats - something I've not seen mentioned elsewhere

Mission Update Cosmos 2581, etc orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026#026 Cosmos 2582 lowered its orbit Feb 24, probably around 21:00 UTC Orbit currently co-planar with C2581 and they are orbiting a few hundred metres apart at most

Where on Earth did Space-Track get its name for 2025-036A from? The correct name, according to China's launch announcement, is Zhongxing 10R (alternatively Chinasat 10R) orbitalfocus.uk/2025#036

Mission Update Cosmos 2581, etc orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026#026 Possible minor manoeuvrings by one or both of C2581 & C2582 have slowed their closing speed Orbits currently co-planar Current separation is ~300km and predicted to pass very close sometime Feb 24-25

Mission Update Cosmos 2581, etc orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026#026 When Cosmos 2581 raised its orbit at around 09:00 UTC today it was about 575 km behind Cosmos 2582 By virtue of its lower orbit it will pass C2581 at less than 10 km on Feb 20 around 12:30 UTC Watch that space!

Mission Update Cosmos 2581, etc Cosmos 2581 raised its orbit by 2.2 km earlier today - follows the earlier orbit raising by Cosmos 2582 orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026#026 The orbit of third object (2025-026A) from the launch continues to decay without indication of any change

I find it bizarre that @bsky.app believes that it is of interest solely to phone users… Or does someone 'high up' have an iPad phobia? #fail #epicfail

Mission Update MEV-1 Explainer plus details of the current phase of the plan www.orbitalfocus.uk/Diaries/US/M...

The licensing.fcc… link sometimes goes erroneously to an index page - clicking 'refresh' usually fixes it

Mission Update MEV-1, Northrop-Grumman satellite servicing vehicle launched 2019 https://www.orbitalfocus.uk/Diaries/Launches/Launches.php?year=2019#44625 Here's an interesting document https://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=33652576

Mission Update Cosmos 2581, etc In the first sign of activity from any of the payloads, Cosmos 2582 raised its orbit by 2.5 km earlier today orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026

SpaceX deleted its '22 satellites' Tweet so it was presumably a typographical error.

It seems there were nine satellites aboard the launch vehicle, orbits available: orbitalfocus.uk/2025#030

Launch Report Group of Chinese internet comsats to LEO Feb 11, 09:30 UTC CZ 8A Wenchang Quantity of satellites not currently known but possibly 18 orbitalfocus.uk/2025#030 (Edited 12:04 via @skeetsapp.com#030

Launch Report Starlink Group 11-10 Feb 11, 02:09 UTC Falcon 9 Block 5 Vandenberg 23 sats on the manifest but SpaceX mentions only 22 in its announcement of their deployment Maybe a problem with one of them? orbitalfocus.uk/2025#029

Mission Update Cosmos 2581, etc No manoeuvres so far 2025-026A & B are in similar orbits with 026B falling slowly behind, orbit decay rates are the same - maybe due to similar design? 026C orbit is slightly higher, decaying more quickly than the others orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026

Mission Update Qianfan Ji Gui 02, 2024-185 Two of the eighteen sats have not yet started their climb towards operational orbit and their places in the constellation orbitalfocus.uk/2024#185

Mission Update Qianfan Ji Gui 01, 2024-140 16 of 18 sats have now reached operational height and slotted nicely into formation One is still climbing, one was dead on reaching orbit orbitalfocus.uk/2024#140

Cosmos 2581, etc Launch profile similar to Rocket Lab Electron: stage 2 in elliptical orbit, Volga stage - similar orbit to sats Volga, 62905/026D has re-entered A, B & C in similar orbits but can't rule out one of them being debris So… 2 sats or 3? orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026

Launch Advisory update Cosmos 2581, 2582, 2583 (& 2584?) 2025 Feb 5, 04:00 UTC Soyuz-2 1V Plesetsk orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026