Jonathan's Space Report

No. 114		1992 May 12
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Orbiter OV-105 Endeavour was launched on May 7 at 2340 UT from LC39B at
Kennedy Space Center. Solid rocket booster (RSRM22/ BI50) separation at
2342, main engine cutoff at 2348, external tank ET-43 separation at
2349, and the OMS-2 orbit circularization burn went smoothly. Several
more burns raised Endeavour's orbit toward its target parameters.  On
May 8, Endeavour was in a 278 x 336 km orbit at an inclination of 28.3
deg, on its way to the target circular 350 km orbit. The Intelsat VI F-3
satellite lowered its orbit to the same parameters in the first
dual-active rendezvous.

Endeavour was stationkeeping by around 2030 UTC May 10. Astronauts
Pierre Thout and Rick Hieb began their first EVA by depressurizing the
airlock at 2025 UTC May 10; Thout attached the Portable Foot Restraint
to the robot arm (the RMS) and, holding the Capture Bar (a rod with
clamps on each end) was moved by the RMS toward Intelsat. Unfortunately
on his first attempt to grapple the Intelsat (2157 UTC) he knocked it and the
tumbling motion that ensued was only made worse by a further attempt at
2214. Endeavour backed off and the EVA astronauts went back inside,
repressurizing the airlock at  0016 UTC May 11. Intelsat controllers
restabilized the satellite as Endeavour remained some km away.

The second rendevous occurred at 2200 UTC on May 11. Thuot and Hieb
depressurised the airlock around 2102 UTC, beginning a 5h 26m EVA.
Thout contacted the Intelsat five times with the capture bar
(at 2318, 0028, 0032, 0042, and 0100) but the capture bar latches
failed to grapple the satellite. Endeavour moved away again at 0145 UTC
May 12, and the EVA ended around 0228 UTC.

At this writing Rendezvous-3/EVA-3 is scheduled for May 13 and the ASEM
assembly EVA is scheduled for May 14. EVA-3 will be the first EVA since
May 1973 in which three astronauts will have worked in a depressurized
environment, and the first ever in which all three have been outside
their spacecraft (during  Apollo EVAs, the whole cabin was open to space
during the EVA but at least one spacesuited astronaut remained inside
the command module). The May 13 EVA will involve Thout, Hieb, and Tom Akers;
the May 14 EVA will be Akers and Kathy Thornton.

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Radar calibration satellite Kosmos-1985, launched in 1988,
reentered on May 4.
____________________________________________
|Current STS status:                       |
|Orbiters               Location   Mission |
|                                          |
|OV-102 Columbia        OPF Bay 3  STS-50  |
|OV-103 Discovery       OPF Bay 2  Mod     |
|OV-104 Atlantis        OPF Bay 1  STS-46  |
|OV-105 Endeavour       LC39B      LEO     |
|                                          |
|ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks                       |
|                                          |
|ML1/STS-46             VAB Bay 1          |
|ML2/                   VAB Bay 2          |
|ML3/STS-50/ET          VAB Bay 3          |
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 |  Jonathan McDowell                 |  phone : (617) 495-7176                |
 |  Harvard-Smithsonian Center for    |                                        |
 |   Astrophysics                     |                                        |
 |  60 Garden St, MS4                 |                                        |
 |  Cambridge MA 02138                |  inter : mcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu      |
 |  USA                               |                                        |
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