Jonathan's Space Report No. 214 1994 Oct 12 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks to Vladimir Agapov, Joel Runes, and Al Hegemann for info in this issue. Any errors, as usual, are mine. Shuttle ------- Endeavour landed at 1702:09 UT on 1994 Oct 11 on runway 22 at Edwards AFB. STS-68 mission duration was 11 days 5 hours 46 min 9 sec. Columbia left Ellington AFB, Texas on Oct 11 aboard the SCA 905 en route to Palmdale, CA via El Paso. It flew over Edwards AFB while Endeavour was on the runway. At the Rockwell International plant in Palmdale it will begin an Orbiter Maintenance Down Period. It is to return to flight in mid 1995. Mir --- Soyuz TM-20 docked with Mir at 0028 on 1994 Oct 6. The Soyuz TM is an 11F732 spacecraft, probably serial number 69. I believe that Soyuz TM-20 is docked with the forward Mir port and Soyuz TM-19 is docked at the rear Kvant port (can someone confirm this?) The current crew aboard Mir consists of Yuriy Malenchenko, Aleksandr Viktorenko, and Talgat Musabaev of the Russian Air Force cosmonaut corps, Elena Kondakova of NPO Energiya, Valeriy Polyakov of the Institute for Biological-Medical Problems, and Ulf Merbold of the European Space Agency. With the six Shuttle astronauts in orbit last week, there were 12 people in space, which equals the all time record. Recent Launches --------------- Intelsat 703 was launched on Oct 6 at 0635:02 UT by Atlas Centaur AC-111. The satellite is a 3-axis stabilized Space Systems/Loral FS-1300 with 26 C-band and 10 Ku-band transponders and will serve the Pacific Ocean region. The Martin Marietta Atlas IIAS Centaur delivered the satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit. Since the Atlas IIAS is a relatively new launch vehicle, I thought I'd record a detailed description of the launch profile, based on information provided by Al Hegemann. The MA-5A main engine and two of the four Castor IVA solid rocket boosters ignited at liftoff; the other two solids ignited at 0636:02. The first two solids were jettisoned at 0636:14 and the second two at 0636:57. The MA-5A propulsion system on the Atlas consists of two booster engines and a central sustainer engine. At 0637:47 the booster engines were shut down, and at 0637:50 the tail section of the Atlas IIA fell away leaving the main sustainer engine exposed. At 0638:31 the payload fairing around the Intelsat payload was discarded - AC-111 was now high enough that aerodynamic protection was not needed. The Atlas sustainer cut off at 0639:53 and the Atlas IIA stage separated onto its suborbital trajectory at 0639:55. Intelsat 703 was now attached to the AC-111 Centaur IIA. At 0640:17 the two RL-10-4A liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen engines on the Centaur ignited and burned until 0645:17. The combination was now in a parking orbit. After a coast period, AC-111 reignited at 0659:29. It shut off at 0701:12, and separated from Intelsat 703 at 0703:22. Intelsat 703 was now in a 283 x 38575 km x 25.9 deg orbit. The apogee was higher than initially expected and will let the satellite save fuel on reaching its final orbit. Over the next few days it fired its R4D liquid apogee engine to enter first a 7598 x 38540 km x 11.2 deg orbit (Oct 9) and then a 35670 x 38552 km x 0.2 deg orbit (Oct 11). This final orbit is a little higher than geostationary; on Oct 11 at 1815 UT the satellite was over 138 deg East and drifting 16 degrees per day. An Ariane 44L was launched on Oct 8. The rocket placed two communications satellites in orbit: Solidaridad 2, and Thaicom 2. Both satellites are built by Hughes. Solidaridad is a 3-axis stabilized HS601 satellite for the Mexican government communications agency, Telecomunicaciones de Mexico. Thaicom 2 is an HS376 spin-stabilized satellite for Shinawatra Satellite Public Co. of Bangkok. The initial orbit for Thaicom 2 was 277 x 36165 km x 3.9 deg. Thaicom 2 fired its Thiokol Star 30 solid apogee motor on Oct 10 and entered a 33964 x 36208 km x 0.00 deg orbit, drifting at 9 deg per day eastward over the Indian Ocean. By Oct 11, Solidaridad 2's ARC490N liquid engine had raised its orbit to 15922 x 36146 km x 0.8 deg Okean-O1 no. 7 was launched on Oct 11 into a 631 x 666 km x 82.5 deg orbit. The satellite, built by NPO Yuzhnoe, has a mass of 1950 kg. It carries instruments for studying the ocean surface, probably including side-looking radar. A more advanced Okean is under development for launch on the Zenit rocket. This Okean was launched on a Tsiklon launch vehicle with an S5M upper stage. Earlier Okean-O1 spacecraft were launched on 1986 Jul 29, 1987 Jul 16, 1988 Jul 5, 1990 Feb 28, and 1991 Jun 4. Magellan carried out the Termination Experiment on Oct 11, firing its thrusters at 1321 to descend into the atmosphere of Venus. It will burn up today or tomorrow. Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Sep 9 0029 Telstar 402 Ariane 42L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 58A Sep 9 2222 Discovery Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 59A Sep 13 2130 Spartan 201 - Discovery, LEO Astronomy 59B Sep 16 1516 SAFER/M. Lee - Discovery, LEO Sep 16 1740? SAFER/C. Meade - Discovery, LEO Sep 21 1753 Kosmos-2291 Proton-K/DM-2 Baykonur LC200 Comsat? 60A Sep 27 1400 Kosmos-2292 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Calibration 61A Sep 30 1116 Endeavour Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 62A Oct 3 2242 Soyuz TM-20 Soyuz-U2 Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 63A Oct 6 0635 Intelsat 703 Atlas Centaur Canaveral LC36B Comsat 64A Oct 8 0107 Solidaridad 2 ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 65A Thaicom 2 ) Comsat 65B Oct 11 1430 Okean-O1 No. 7 Tsiklon-3 Plesetsk LC32 Rem.sensing 66A Reentries --------- Sep 11 Kosmos-2284 Landed Sep 13 FSW-2 service module Reentered Sep 20 Discovery Landed at Edwards AFB Oct 4 Progress M-24 Deorbited Oct 11 Endeavour Landed at Edwards AFB Oct 12? Magellan Entered Venus atmosphere Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia Palmdale OMDP - OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-63 Feb OV-104 Atlantis LC39B STS-66 Nov 3 OV-105 Endeavour Edwards RW22 STS-68 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/ ML2/RSRM-43 VAB Bay 1 STS-67 ML3/RSRM-42/ET-67/OV-104 LC-39B STS-66 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'