Jonathan's Space Report No. 186 1994 Mar 4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shuttle ------- Space Shuttle Columbia was launched at 1153 UTC on Mar 4 and reached a 80 x 285 km transfer orbit about 8 minutes later, with the OMS-2 circularization burn expected around the time I write this. The cargo bay contains the EDO extended duration orbiter pallet (on its third mission) and three MPESS cross-bay pallets, two for the US Materials Payload-2 and one for the OAST-2 technology payload. Five GAS Beam Adapter (GABA) plates are installed on the cargo bay walls, carrying the Dexterous End Effector magnetic 'hand' for the RMS arm, three GAS cans for the LDCE materials exposure experiment, and two GAS cans for the SSBUV ozone monitoring experiment. It's unusual for Columbia to carry the RMS arm, this is only the third time in nine post-Challenger flights it has done so; the one on board is probably arm 301, originally belonging to Discovery. Launches -------- The first of two Koronas solar physics satellites was launched from the Russian spaceport of Plesetsk on Mar 2. The Koronas program is managed by the Russian RKA space agency (probably by the IKI science institute), but the AUOS-SM satellite bus and its 11K68 Tsiklon launch vehicle were built by the Ukranian company NPO Yuzhnoe. The program had been threatened with delay because of problems between Russia and the Ukraine, and was originally scheduled for launch in late 1992. The Koronas-I payload was developed by the IZMIRAN institute (Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism in Moscow) and includes the Terek spectroheliometer, the RES-K solar x-ray spectrograph, the Helikon solar gamma ray detector, the SUVR-SP-C ultraviolet radiometer, the DIFOS optical photometer, and other instruments. Koronas-F, developed by FIAN, the Lebedev Physical Institute, carries a similar set of instruments. Koronas is in a 487 x 527 km x 82.5 deg orbit. Date Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Feb 3 1210 Discovery Shuttle Kennedy LC39 Spaceship 06A Feb 3 2220 Ryusei ) H-II Tanegashima Technology 07A Myojo ) Technology 07B Feb 5 0846 Raduga-1 Proton/DM2 Baykonur LC81 Comsat 08A Feb 7 2147 Milstar DFS 1 Titan 4 Centaur Canaveral LC40 Comsat 09A Feb 8 0830 Shi Jian 4 ) Chang Zheng 3A Xichang Scientific 10A DFH-3 mockup ) Feb 9 1454 ODERACS A ) GAS can Discovery, LEO Calibration 06B ODERACS B ) 06C ODERACS C ) 06D ODERACS D ) 06E ODERACS E ) 06F ODERACS F ) 06G Feb 9 1932 BREMSAT GAS can Discovery, LEO Scientific 06H Feb 12 0854 Kosmos-2268 ) Tsiklon Plesetsk LC32 Comsat 11A Kosmos-2269 ) Kosmos-2270 ) Kosmos-2271 ) Kosmos-2272 ) Kosmos-2273 ) Feb 18 Raduga? Proton/DM2 Baykonur LC81? Comsat 12A Feb 19 2345 Galaxy IR Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17 Comsat 13A Mar 2 Koronas-I? Tsiklon Plesetsk LC32? Solar phys 14A Mar 4 1353 Columbia Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 15A Reentries --------- Feb 4 Ryusei Impacted Pacific Ocean Feb 11 Discovery Landed at KSC .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------' ,