Orbital Focus

Transporter 18

List of 71 orbiting payloads carried, some will release further satellites over the coming weeks/months
orbitalfocus.uk/2026#227

Catalogue Number and Designations for five of them so far

In recent weeks @SpaceTrackOrg has retrospectively added three Lijian 1 rocket bodies to the Catalogue together with re-entry dates, but orbit info from the time of launch is not available

orbitalfocus.uk/2026#080

orbitalfocus.uk/2026#134

orbitalfocus.uk/2026#170

Launch list fully up date including this morning's KSLV-II from South Korea
orbitalfocus.uk/2026#229

Yinli 1 sea launch Sep 15

One of the nine sats has, so far, behaved differently from the others

I suspect that singles it out as the EUHT Technology Test Satellite where the other eight are the Qianfan Ji Gui Group 26 sats
orbitalfocus.uk/2026#211

NO!

Dragon reaching the ISS in less than eight hours, rather than a number of days, is not 'yet another miracle from SpaceX'

It resulted from careful planning by ISS orbital dynamics teams

Russia & China have been taking the quick route to space station rendezvous for years

NRO L-97, Falcon Heavy Launch, Oct 2
Satellite Name and Catalogue Number confirmed
Estimated initial orbit revised significantly from original calc
orbitalfocus.uk/2026#228

USSF 385, Falcon 9 Launch, Sep 26
Space-Track has released semi-detailed orbit info
orbitalfocus.uk/2026#224

NRO L-97 launch earlier today from KSC
orbitalfocus.uk/2026#228

Nav warnings indicate orbit inclination ~60°

May be similar to USA 310 (46918/2020-083A)… launch time resulted in an orbit plane with RAAN similar to earlier sat

USA 310 for comparison
orbitalfocus.uk/2020#083

@SpaceTrackOrg has just listed re-entry of 39547/1993-036BUD, a fragment from the Cosmos 2251 disintegration, as having occurred on Oct 8

Prescience indeed…

More likely it was August 10

Confirmed that the USSF 259 launch carried 14 sats and their 'USA' numbers have been catalogued
orbitalfocus.uk/2026#214

Confirmed that the USSF 385 launch carried 23 sats and their probable 'USA' numbers are confirmed
orbitalfocus.uk/2026#224

Link 1 - re-entry time originally reported by Space-Track was wrong (see earlier post)

Press release by sat owner, Katalyst, confirms that it followed retro-fire but that it actually occurred on Sep 25

Space-Track Catalogue entry also shows Sep 25
orbitalfocus.uk/2026#152

Whilst dealing with re-cataloguing of 1998-067VO and all later ISS objects, Space-Track has taken the opportunity to fill in decay dates that were missing for many of those items

OrbitalFocus tables have been updated

In 2023 an ISS debris item with Designation 1998-067VO entered the Catalogue

O and I are not permitted because of similarity to numerals

It has just been re-designated 067VP and all subsequent ISS items have been shuffled upwards by one letter

Catalogue Numbers are unaffected

Looks like @SpaceTrackOrg AI has learned pseudo Russian language

Rocket stages from recent Electron launch have been named as "Elektron…"

StriX 11 launch, Sep 26

Electron kick stage did not perform the usual perigee reducing manoeuvre after releasing the sat
orbitalfocus.uk/2026#223

StriX 10 for comparison
orbitalfocus.uk/2026#217

Two launches yesterday

StriX 11 from New Zealand by Electron - @SpaceTrackOrg has it labelled as Strix 12 but there is nothing in Rocket Lab or Synspective launch announcements to support this
orbitalfocus.uk/2026#223

USSF 385 from Vandenberg by Falcon 9
orbitalfocus.uk/2026#224

Link 1, the failed rescue mission for NASA's Swift Observatory, re-entered Sep 24 at 14:38 UTC

Orbit was a little too high for a natural re-entry so it probably got a little retro-nudge from a thruster
orbitalfocus.uk/2026#152

Re-entry info
orbitalfocus.uk/Diaries/Launch…

Elektro-L №3

Has speeded up its passage towards 14°.5 west and is now likely to reach its new station by mid-October
orbitalfocus.uk/2019#095

Hi - I think you're confirming my suspicion that J is an inadvertent re-tag of H, through confusion in the catalogue system

For a while, I've suspected that AI has been playing a rôle because of little hiccups in the info coming through, and it's not yet good enough at the job

Lijian 1 launch of 9 sats to sun-synch orbit from Jiuquan earlier today
orbitalfocus.uk/2026#218

LTDN 18:00 puts them in continuous sunlight, suggesting that one or more sats need high level of electrical power

China's re-usable spaceplane

Sep 11, @SpaceTrackOrg added a new object (100681/2026-024J) to the catalogue without orbit info

Eight days have now passed without any forthcoming data, raising the question of whether it's a 'phantom', or maybe debris that re-entered very quickly