Jonathan's Space Report 

No. 149		1993 Apr 10
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STS-56
-----------------

The first attempt to launch STS-56 on Apr 6 at 0632 UTC ended in an RSLS
hold at T-11s, prior to main engine ignition. This turned out to be due
to software problems. Discovery finally took off at 0529 UTC on Apr 8
and entered a 290 x 299 km x 57 degree orbit. Payload is the Atlas-2
Spacelab pallet for Earth resources monitoring and the Spartan 201 solar
observatory.

Mir
----

The Progress M-16 cargo craft was undocked and deorbited on Mar 27.
It was replaced by Progress M-17, launched on Mar 31.

Astronaut Notes
----------------

Robert Rushworth, who flew in space on a 10 minute suborbital mission
of the X-15-3 in Jun 1963, died this month at the age of 68.


Launches
--------

Errata: 1993-13A is a Raduga government comsat, not a Gorizont civil
comsat. 1993-14A has not received an official name.

The Russian launch rate has picked up again following a hiatus. This was
a particularly long gap between launches; similar but shorter gaps in
years past have occurred after major launch vehicle failures and during
repainting of the Plesetsk cosmodrome.

Kosmos-2238, launched Mar 30, is an EORSAT (Electronic Intelligence
Ocean Reconnaissace Satellite), which tracks naval vessels by their
radio emissions. It replaced Kosmos-2122 which was deorbited a few
days earlier. Its R-36 launch vehicle is a converted ICBM which
was phased out during the original SALT 1 treaty; the R-36 is known
as the SS-9 in the West.

Date		Name		Launch Vehicle	Site		Mission	   INTL.
									   DES.

Mar 25 0240?	Raduga 		Proton		Baykonur	Comsat	   13A
Mar 25 1330?	Start-1?	Start		Plesetsk	Comsat	   14A
Mar 25 2138	UFO F1		Atlas I		Canaveral LC36	Comsat	   15A
Mar 26 0225?	Kosmos-2237	Zenit		Baykonur	SIGINT	   16A
Mar 30 0309	Navstar GPS 31)	Delta		Canaveral LC17	Navsat	   17A
		SEDS 1	      )
Mar 30 1200	Kosmos-2238	R-36		Baykonur	SIGINT	   18A
Mar 31 0334	Progress M-17	Soyuz		Baykonur	Cargo	   19A
Apr  1 1900?	Kosmos-2239	Kosmos R-14	Plesetsk	Navsat	   20A
Apr  2 1410?	Kosmos-2240	Soyuz		Plesetsk	Recon?	   21A
Apr  6 1910?	Kosmos-2241	Molniya		Plesetsk	Early Warn 22A
Apr  8 0529	Discovery	Shuttle		Kennedy	LC39	Spaceship  23A

Reentries
---------

Mar 11		Kosmos-1116	Reentered
Mar 14		NSA B7 		Reentered (1967-43B)
Mar 16		DUVE		Reentered
Mar 25		Kosmos-2231	Landed in Kazakhstan?
Mar 27		Progress M-16	Deorbited
Mar 28		Kosmos-2122	Deorbited
Mar 30		SEDS 1		Deorbited by tether

Current Shuttle Processing Status
____________________________________________

Orbiters               Location   Mission 
                                          
OV-102 Columbia        LC39A         STS-55
OV-103 Discovery       LEO           STS-56
OV-104 Atlantis        Palmdale      OMDP
OV-105 Endeavour       VAB Bay 1     STS-57
                                          
ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks                       
                                          
ML1/                   LC39B 
ML2/STS-57/ET/OV-105   VAB Bay 1
ML3/STS-55/ET/OV-102   LC39A


Thanks to Ed O'Grady for information on recent Russian launches.

 .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
 |  Jonathan McDowell                 |  phone : (617) 495-7176                |
 |  Harvard-Smithsonian Center for    |                                        |
 |   Astrophysics                     |                                        |
 |  60 Garden St, MS4                 |                                        |
 |  Cambridge MA 02138                |  inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu        |
 |  USA                               |                                        |
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