Jonathan's Space Report No. 191 1994 Apr 7 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Not much news this week, but a few amplifications of earlier stories. A drought of launches continues, but STS-59 is due tomorrow. Shuttle ------- Launch of Endeavour and the Space Radar Lab 1 is due for April 8. The press kit on Spacelink for STS-59 is wrong about the layout of the payload bay - there is no GAS Bridge. The cargo bay contains the following: MPESS Mission Peculiar Experiment Support Structure, carrying the MAPS (Measurement of Air Pollution From Satellites) experiment SL-PLT Spacelab pallet ) Carrying SRL-1, Space Radar Lab ATS (2) Antenna Trunnion Structures ) with SIR-C and X-SAR radars GABA Gas Beam Adapter, carrying CONCAP-IV GAS can payload on bay 4-Port. GABA Gas Beam Adapter, carrying G-203 GAS can on bay 4-Starboard. GABA Gas Beam Adapter, carrying G-458 GAS can and GBP-1 ballast payload on bay 13-Port. GABA Gas Beam Adapter, carrying G-300 GAS can on bay 13-Starboard. RMS Remote Manipulator System RMS-303, on its 7th flight. PSA Provisions Stowage Assembly (emergency EVA tools) Thanks to all those who spotted the deliberate mistake :-), Mission Specialist Richard Clifford flew on STS-53, so is not a rookie as I claimed. The Astro-2 mission has been delayed from Dec 1994 to Jan 1995 and switched to a different orbiter, as Columbia is to be sent for its next maintainance period several months early. Mir --- The flight of the EO-15 crew continues aboard Mir. Soyuz TM-18 originally docked with the TsM-E (Kvant) module on Jan 10, but on Jan 21 it redocked with the PkhO section docking port on the main Mir module (source: Novosti Kosmonavtiki). Progress M-21, and now Progress M-22, therefore used the TsM-E port. The current station configuration is therefore: "Mir" base block DOS 17KS-12701 "Kvant" TsM-E 37Ke-010 docked at Mir AO rear port "Kvant-2" TsM-D 77KSD-17101 docked at Mir PkhO side port "Kristall" TsM-T 77KST-17201 docked at Mir PkhO side port "Soyuz TM-18" 7K-STM 11F732-67? docked at Mir PkhO front port "Progress M-22" 7K-TGM 11F615A55-222 docked at TsM-E rear port (7K is the official internal program name for the Soyuz program; TsM means specialized module, DOS is an abbreviation for long-term orbital station). Space Probes ------------ Magellan lowered its orbit around Venus with orbit trim maneuvers on Mar 10 to lower periapsis, resulting in a 184 x 530 km orbit. More burns were made on Apr 4 and Apr 5, and further trims are due Apr 11 and Apr 12. The target orbit is 220 x 390 km. Clementine 1 made orbit trim burns on Mar 25 and Mar 26 to change the latitude of its perilune from 30 deg S to 30 deg N, improving mapping coverage of the northern hemisphere. Clementine will depart lunar orbit in May. Recent Launches --------------- Date Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Feb 18 0756 Raduga Proton/DM2 Baykonur LC81 Comsat 12A Feb 19 2345 Galaxy IR Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17 Comsat 13A Mar 2 0324 Koronas-I Tsiklon Plesetsk LC32 Solar phys 14A Mar 4 1353 Columbia Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 15A Mar 10 0340 Navstar GPS 36) Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17 Navsat 16A SEDS 2 ) 16B Mar 13 2232 P90-5 ) Taurus Vandenberg Technology 17A DARPASAT ) Technology? 17B Mar 17 1630 Kosmos-2274 Soyuz-U Plesetsk LC43 Recon 18A Mar 22 0454 Progress M-22 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 19A Reentries --------- Mar 15 SEDS 2 Reentered Mar 18 Columbia Landed at KSC Mar 23 Progress M-21 Deorbited Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 2 STS-65 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 3 STS-64 OV-104 Atlantis Palmdale OMDP OV-105 Endeavour LC39A STS-59 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/ ML2/RSRM-37/ET-63/OV-105 LC39A STS-59 ML3/RSRM-38?/ VAB Bay 1 STS-65 .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------' ,