Jonathan's Space Report No. 229 1995 Feb 3 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle -------- STS-63 was launched at 0522:04 on Feb 3 from Kennedy Space Center. Discovery was easily visible to the naked eye from here in the Boston area in the seconds preceding main engine cutoff (MECO) at 0530. It entered a 310 x 341 km x 51.6 deg, 91.1 min orbit. Discovery's crew are Jim Wetherbee, Eileen Collins, Bernard Harris, Mike Foale, Janice Voss, and the Russian Space Agency's Vladimir Titov. On board Mir are Valeriy Polyakov, Aleksandr Viktorenko, and Elena Kondakova. This is the second time there have been three women in space (STS-40 was the first), and the second time that a Russian has flown on a US spaceship. It is Discovery's 20th flight into space. Rendezvous with Mir, due on Monday afternoon, will be the second by US and Russian space vehicles. Deployment of the ODERACS 2 satellites is due early on Feb 4. Endeavour was rolled over to the VAB on Feb 3 for stacking with the ET and SRBs. It will fly in March on the Astro 2 mission. New Launches ------------ The UHF Follow-On F4 satellite (also known as EHF F4) was launched on Jan 29. The Hughes HS-601 class satellite was launched on a Martin Marietta Atlas II, flight AC-112. The satellite is a 3.2 x 3.4 x 3.4 m box which deploys to a height of 7.0 m and a solar wingspan of 18.3 m on orbit. AC-112 reached a 287 x 27626 km x 26.9 deg orbit, with UHF F/O F4 later climbing to 313 x 36042 km x 26.7 deg, 638.3 min. and (by Feb 2) 24473 x 36387 km x 5.38 deg, 1171.4 min. It will eventually reach geostationary orbit. This UHF satellite is the first to also carry an EHF communications payload; it had a mass of about 3000 kg at orbit insertion and will be around 1200 kg on orbit. The UHF satellites are delivered by Hughes for use by the US Navy once they reach their operational orbit. Reports indicate that 6 people were killed and 27 injured by debris from the explosion of the CZ-2E launch vehicle at Xichang, China on Jan 25. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. 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 Jan 29 0125 UHF F/O F4 Atlas II Canaveral LC36 Comsat 03A Feb 3 0522 Discovery ) Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 04A Spacehab SH03) Spartan 204 ) Reentries --------- Dec 5 Molniya-3 (85-04A) Reentered Dec 9 Kosmos-2238 Reentered Jan 15 EXPRESS Reentered Review - "Novosti Kosmonavtiki" and "Russian Space News" ------ Erratum - the $78 sub for NK is for six months, not a year. Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia Palmdale OMDP - OV-103 Discovery LEO STS-63 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-71 Jun OV-105 Endeavour VAB Bay 1 STS-67 Mar 2 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/ LC39B STS-63 ML2/RSRM-43/ET-69 VAB Bay 1 STS-67 ML3/ Refurb STS-71 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'