Jonathan's Space Report No. 152 1993 May 5 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ STS-55 ----------------- Columbia/Spacelab D-2 continues on orbit on mission STS-55. Landing is due for May 6. Orbit of Columbia is 297 x 303 km x 28.5 deg. Meanwhile Endeavour has been moved to the pad for mission STS-57, due in June. Mir --- Gennady Manakov and Aleksandr Polischuk made a 5h 25m spacewalk on Apr 19 to begin work on moving the Kristall module's solar panels to the Kvant module. On this EVA they installed equipment on the outside of the Kvant module which will be used on later walks to attach the panels. These later walks have now been postponed due to damage to a crane which occurred on this EVA. Launches -------- The Los Alamos/Aero-Astro Corp Alexis x-ray astronomy satellite was launched by a three stage Orbital Sciences Corp Pegasus booster from NASA's NB-52 on Apr 26. The B-52 took off from Edwards AFB at 1244 UTC and dropped the Pegasus over the Pacific along the Western Test Range near Vandenberg at 1356 UTC. During the coast between second and third stage burns, damage to the satellite was detected. At least one of the solar panels appears to have become detached. Although the payload was inserted into an 800 km, 70 degree orbit, controllers could not establish communication with it and it appears that the mission is lost. Orbital Sciences claim that the damage to the satellite was not caused by any Pegasus component. Alexis was to have monitored the sky in three narrow energy bands between 0.06 and 0.1 keV; it also carried the Blackbeard experiment to study ionospheric effects on radio transmissions. Alexis is part of the USAF Space Test Program and is also known as P89-1. Kosmos-2243 is a high resolution reconnaissance satellite in a 180 x 220 km x 70.4 deg orbit. Kosmos-2244 is an electronic intelligence satellite which tracks ships by detecting their radio transmissions. It is working together with Kosmos-2238, launched on Mar 30. Data from the two satellites is compared to determine the location of the target. They operate in a 400 x 420 km orbit inclined 65 deg. Date Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. 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 Apr 11 0611 Spartan-201 Discovery,LEO Astronomy 23B Apr 16 0800? Kosmos-2242 Tsiklon Plesetsk SIGINT 24A Apr 21 0030? Molniya-3 Molniya Plesetsk Comsat 25A Apr 25 1244 Alexis Pegasus Edwards/NB52 Astronomy 26A Apr 26 1450 Columbia Shuttle Kennedy LC39 Spaceship 27A Apr 27 1230? Kosmos-2243 Soyuz Baykonur Recon 28A Apr 28 0335? Kosmos-2244 R-36 Baykonur Ocean Rec. 29A Reentries --------- Apr 1 Mak-2 Reentered Apr 17 Discovery Landed at KSC Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission OV-102 Columbia LEO STS-55 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 3 STS-51 OV-104 Atlantis Palmdale OMDP OV-105 Endeavour LC39B STS-57 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/ ML2/STS-57/ET/OV-105 LC39B ML3/ .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'