Jonathan's Space Report No. 140 1993 Jan 21 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mission STS-54 -------------- Space Shuttle OV-105 Endeavour was launched at 1359:30 UTC on Jan 13 into a 300 km, 28 degree orbit. At 2012 UTC the TDRS-6 satellite was deployed; the two solid motors of IUS-13 ignited to place TDRS-6 in synchronous orbit. The other payload in the bay was DXS, the University of Wisconsin Diffuse X-ray Spectrometer. Initially, DXS did not shut down quickly enough when passing through the intense South Atlantic Anomaly radiation zone, causing damage to the instrument. After a gas flushing procedure the problem was solved and it is believed that good data were obtained. At 1050 UTC on Jan 17, the airlock was depressurized for the DTO 1210 spacewalk experiment. Astronauts Greg Harbaugh and Mario Runco carried out a 4h 27 min spacewalk to verify the accuracy of water training exercises. Deorbit came at 1238 UTC on Jan 19, with landing at 1338 on runway 33 at the Kennedy Space Center. Endeavour's next mission is STS-57 in April. The next Shuttle flight is Columbia's STS-55/Spacelab D-2 in February; the external tank has now been mated to the solid rocket boosters. Mir --- Launch of Soyuz TM-16 is scheduled for Jan 24. Crew are Gennadiy Manakov and Aleksandr Polishchuk. They will replace the current Mir crew of Anatoliy Solov'yov and Sergey Avdeev. Launches -------- Kosmos-2230 is a navigation satellite launched Jan 12 from Plesetsk. It is built by PO Polyot of Omsk. A Molniya comsat was launched Jan 13 from Plesetsk into 12 hour elliptical orbit. It is built by NPO-PM of Krasnoyarsk. Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 2 STS-55 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 3 STS-56 OV-104 Atlantis Palmdale OMDP OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-57 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/STS-56 VAB Bay 1 ML2/ ML3/STS-55/ET VAB Bay 3 .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : mcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'