Jonathan's Space Report No. 228 1995 Jan 27 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle -------- STS-63 remains scheduled for Feb 2. The press kit is now out and gives more details on the planned payloads (thanks also to S. Pickard of Spacehab for info) - The Spacelab Tunnel Adapter will connect the Orbiter middeck to the Spacehab module and contains the airlock hatch to be used for EVA. Spacehab FU-1 will make its second flight on the Spacehab SH-03 mission. Flight Unit 1 first flew in June 1993 (SH-01), while the SH-02 mission in Feb 1994 used FU-2. The Spacehab module is a pressurized laboratory containing experiment racks and lockers. FU-1 has a new window in the roof to help in the Mir rendezvous operation. The Spartan Flight Support Structure (SFSS) is an MPESS class cross-bay truss structure on which Spartan 204 is mounted. The Spartan satellites are small free flyers deployed by the RMS robot arm for a couple of days and then retrieved. SPTN-204 carries NRL's FUVIS Far Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph which will be used to study the Shuttle environment and make astronomical observations. This is the first Spartan mission to be sponsored by the USAF Space Test Program rather than NASA. A second MPESS will carry a Hitchhiker-M class payload, CGP-ODERACS II. The payload comprises several experiments: the Cryo System Experiment (CSE), the GLO-2 Shuttle glow experiment, the IMAX cargo bay camera, and the ODERACS II canister which will release six subsatellites: a 2-in diameter steel sphere, a 4-in diameter Al sphere, a 6-in dia. Al sphere, a 1.7 in length dipole wire, and two 5.2-in long dipole wires. (For readers living in 20th century countries, 1 in = 25.4 mm). The TCS (Trajectory Control Sensor, DTO-700-5) rendezvous experiment, which has flown repeatedly, will be mounted on the payload bay wall. Mission specialists Foale and Harris will make an EVA to test modified EMU spacesuits and conduct a mass handling exercise in which SPTN-204 will be manually unberthed, moved around, and reberthed. I believe this EVA is probably the experiment referred to in the manifest as EDFT-1 (maybe it stands for EMU Development Flight Test?). The highlight of the mission should be Detailed Test Objective DTO 835, the Mir Approach Demonstration. Errata ------ Rick Cooper of Martin Marietta reports that Intelsat 704's initial perigee was 200 km, not 306 km; for readers of my Sky and Telescope column Mission Update, note the major goof this month about Galileo: its orbit insertion engine is a liquid propellant system, not a Star 48 solid motor. Don't know how that one crept into my brain... I seem to have made up several sentences of pure fantasy. Oh well, thanks to Drew Lepage for catching it. Pressure of work has delayed the annual launch summary, but don't worry, I'll get to it soon. New Launches ------------ More details on EXPRESS: The TVC (thrust vector control) on the second stage malfunctioned 103 seconds after launch, and the fourth stage and payload eventually entered a 110 x 250 km x 33 deg orbit (source: Av Week), instead of the intended 270 x 380 km one. The reentry capsule and the service module, still attached to each other, reentered over the Pacific between 1600 and 1630, on its second orbit of the Earth. US Space Command have not allocated it a satellite number, and have allocated the next international designation (1995-02) to the later Tsikada launch, although the international agreement (in force since the early 1960s) is that anything which completes one orbit should get an international designation whether the US tracks it or not. It is possible that an out-of-sequence international designation will be allocated later, as was done on several occasions, e.g. for the secret Soviet launch 1966-88A which was launched between 1966-83A and 1966-84A. Yoshiro Yamada reports that ISAS says the EXPRESS launch vehicle's fourth stage was a modified KM-M solid motor The KM-M was first used for the MUSES/Hiten launch. The reentry vehicle carried two CATEX materials processing ovens, and three German (CETEX, PYREX and RAFLEX) and one Japanese (RTEX) heat shield material reentry experiments. A Tsikada navigation satellite was launched by Kosmos-3M from Plesetsk at 0354 UTC on Jan 24 into a 965 x 1020 km x 82.9 deg orbit. The Tsikada series of navigation satellites uses similar technology to the US Navy's Transit system. This Tsikada satellite was equipped with a special adapter and carried two microsatellites into orbit, ASTRID and FAISAT. ASTRID is the Swedish Space Corporation's latest space physics satellite, using the new Freja-C bus, a 0.4 m cube with 4 solar panel wings. The payload, which will emphasize studies of energetic neutral particles in the Earth's magnetosphere, includes PIPPI, the neutral particle imager; MIO, the miniature UV imaging system (with optical, UV continuum and Lyman alpha monitors) and EMIL, an electron spectrometer. The 26 kg satellite separated from the Tsikada adapter at 0458 UTC. FAISAT is a 114 kg store and forward communications satellite modified by Final Analysis, Inc., an American company from an existing satellite bus whose mission was cancelled (probably a DARPA satellite). It separated from the adapter at 0919 UTC. A Chinese Long March (Chang Zheng) 2E launch vehicle was destroyed one minute after takeoff on Jan 25. The payload, Asia Pacific Telecom (APT) Satellite Co's Apstar 2 communications satellite, was lost. It was a Hughes HS-601 comsat; Apstar 1, launched in Jul 1994 by CZ-3, was an HS-376 model. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Dec 1 2255 Panamsat K2 Ariane 42P Kourou ELA2 Comsat FTO Dec 14 1421 Molniya-1T Molniya-M Plesetsk LC43 Comsat 81A Dec 16 1200 Luch Proton-K/DM-2 Baykonur LC81 Comsat 82A Dec 20 0511 Kosmos-2298 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Comsat 83A Dec 22 2219 DSP F17 Titan 4/IUS Canaveral LC40 Early Warn 84A Dec 26 0301 Radio-ROSTO Rokot Baykonur LC175 Comsat 85A Dec 26 2227 Kosmos-2299 ) Tsiklon-3 Plesetsk LC32 Comsat 86A Kosmos-2300 ) Comsat 86B Kosmos-2301 ) Comsat 86C Kosmos-2302 ) Comsat 86D Kosmos-2303 ) Comsat 86E Kosmos-2304 ) Comsat 86F Dec 28 1131 Raduga Proton-K/DM-2 Baykonur LC81 Comsat 87A Dec 29 1130 Kosmos-2305 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC31 Recon 88A Dec 30 1002 NOAA-14 Atlas E Vandenberg SLC3 Weather 89A Jan 10 0618 Intelsat 704 Atlas IIAS Canaveral LC36 Comsat 01A Jan 15 1345 EXPRESS Mu-3S-II Kagoshima Materials - Jan 24 0354 Tsikada ) Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Navsat 02A ASTRID ) Science 02B FAISAT ) Comsat 02C Jan 25 1926? Apstar 2 Chang Zheng 2E Xichang Comsat FTO Reentries --------- Dec 5 Molniya-3 (85-04A) Reentered Dec 9 Kosmos-2238 Reentered Jan 15 EXPRESS Reentered Review - "Novosti Kosmonavtiki" and "Russian Space News" ------ From time to time I review interesting books and periodicals in this newsletter. For readers of Russian, the biweekly magazine Novosti Kosmonavtiki is unquestionably the best source available on the Russian space program. The magazine covers the Mir program, cosmonaut training, the Russian satellite and launch vehicle programs, and both history and future plans, as well as providing Russian coverage of US and other nations' space programs. The coverage is technical (in the sense that this newsletter is), lots of facts and figures, designations and serial numbers, but also comprehensive - e.g. voice transcripts of crucial mission phases, direct interviews with the orbiting cosmonauts by the editors - and serious journalism, not just parroting the Russian Space Agency's - uh, I guess "party line" would be the wrong word nowadays, but you know what I mean. For those who don't read Russian, Charles Radley's Tranquest Corp. provides Russian Space News, a partial translation into English of Novosti Kosmonavtiki. Only those articles dealing with the Russian program are translated, since that's the information not available in other English language publications. The translation is not that great, but it does get the essential info across, and the latest issue seems better than the first few attempts. Articles in 1994 issue no 22, which just arrived on my desk in both versions, contain the following Russian space news articles: - 12 densely packed pages covering Mir activities from Oct 22 to Nov 4, including all the details you could want on Soyuz TM-19's undocking and landing; - the complete planned Mir flight program for 1995; - extensive details of the Elektro, K-2293, Resurs, Okean and other satellites, including info on the previously unknown Vektor, Yug and Romb calibration satellites hidden in the Kosmos program; - report on the failure investigation of the May 1994 Tsiklon launch, - Biographies of the Soyuz TM-20 crew. I understand that the subscription rates for individuals in the US are $? for the Russian language version (Novosti Kosmonavtiki, Videokosmos, 12/3 Akademika Koroleva, Moscow 127427, Russia) and $75 (currently, but may go up substantially) for the English version (Tranquest Corporation, PO Box 30208, Cleveland Ohio 44130 USA). Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia Palmdale OMDP - OV-103 Discovery LC39B STS-63 Feb 2 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-71 Jun OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-67 Mar 2 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-42/ET-68/OV-103 LC39B STS-63 ML2/RSRM-43 VAB Bay 1 STS-67 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 | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/QEDT/jcm/jsr.html | ! ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'