Jonathan's Space Report No. 233 1995 Mar 11 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle -------- Shuttle mission STS-67 was launched on Mar 2 at 0638:14 UT. The Astro-2 telescopes, HUT, WUPPE, and UIT appear to be operating well, as is the IPS Instrument Pointing System. On Mar 11 it was in a 91.6 min, 341 x 360 km x 28.5 deg orbit. STS-67 is the 68th Shuttle flight and the eighth flight of OV-105 Endeavour. Astro 2 is the fifth EDO (Extended Duration Orbiter) flight and the eighteenth Spacelab mission (or maybe only the 16th, did SRL-1 and SRL-2 count officially as Spacelab?). Astro 2 uses the pressurized avionics container known as the Spacelab Igloo to support the payload bay experiments; the Igloo previously flew on Spacelab 2, Astro 1 and the three Atlas flights. Crew of STS-67 are Commander Steve Oswald, Pilot William Gregory, Payload Commander Tamara Jernigan, Mission Specialists Wendy Lawrence and John Grunsfeld, and Payload Specialists Ron Parise (Computer Sciences Corp) and Sam Durrance (Johns Hopkins University). Based on information obtained by Joel Runes, it appears the ODERACS satellites deployed from STS-63 were deployed in the following order (for those who *really* like to nitpick): ODERACS II-A, 10-cm sphere ODERACS II-D, 13 cm wire ODERACS II-C, 5-cm sphere ODERACS II-F, 4 cm wire ODERACS II-B, 15-cm sphere ODERACS II-E, 13 cm wire Preparations for the STS-71 mission continue; the external tank will be mated to the solid boosters next week, and the Orbiter Docking System and Spacelab module are ready to be installed in the cargo bay of Atlantis. Mir --- Progress M-26 docked with the Kvant port on Mir at 1821 UT on Feb 17. It will remain at the station until shortly before the arrival of Soyuz TM-21 in mid-March. Soyuz TM-21 carries the EO-18 crew. The commander is the Russian Air Force cosmonaut Vladmir Dezhurov, on his first flight. Flight engineer is experienced RKK Energiya cosmonaut Gennadiy Strekalov, who flew on Soyuz T-3, which docked with the Salyut-6 space station; Soyuz T-8, which failed to dock with Salyut-7; Soyuz T-11, which did reach Salyut-7; and Soyuz TM-10 in 1990, which saw him spending 130 days on Mir with Gennady Manakov. Strekalov was also on the Soyuz launch of Sep 1983, when the launch escape system rocketed him and Vladimir Titov (who flew on Discovery last month) clear of the launch vehicle, which exploded on the pad. The third member of the EO-18 crew is Dr. Norman Thagard, a NASA astronaut whose four previous missions were STS-7 (Challenger); STS 51-B/Spacelab 3 (Challenger); STS-30R/Magellan (Atlantis); and STS-42/Spacelab IML-1 (Discovery). Launch of the Soyuz is scheduled for Mar 14. Note ---- Thanks to Maxim Tarasenko and Asif Siddiqi for comments on the annual launch list; I'll make a revised version available in a few weeks by ftp. Recent Launches -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Three Uragan class navigation satellites built by AKO Polyot were launched on Mar 7 to become part of the Glonass system. According to the Russian Space Forces, the satellites are Glonass numbers 765, 766 and 777. The satellites are in 12-hour, 19000 km high orbits. Launch was by a Proton-K with a Blok-DM2 upper stage. Kosmos-2306 was launched on Mar 2 into a 94.5 min, 469 x 516 km x 65.8 deg orbit. It appears to be a calibration satellite of the Kosmos-816 type, which releases a series of small objects at intervals, to act as calibration targets for the radars of the Space Forces or the Air Defense. Four such objects were released on Mar 6. The previous mission of this type to reach orbit was Kosmos-2075, which was launched in 1990 and reentered in 1992. Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Feb 3 0522 Discovery ) Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 04A Spacehab SH03) Feb 4 0457 ODERACS II A ) Discovery, LEO Calibration 04C ODERACS II D ) Calibration 04F ODERACS II C ) Calibration 04E ODERACS II B ) Calibration 04D ODERACS II F ) Calibration 04H ODERACS II E ) Calibration 04G Feb 7 1226 Spartan 204 Discovery, LEO Astronomy 04B Feb 15 1648 Progress M-26 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 05A Feb 16 1740 Foton No. 10 Soyuz-U Plesetsk LC43 Materials 06A Mar 2 0638 Endeavour ) Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 07A Astro 2 ) Mar 2 1230? Kosmos-2306 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk 08A Mar 7 0923? Kosmos-2307 ?) Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur Navigation 09A Kosmos-2308 ?) Navigation 09B Kosmos-2309 ?) Navigation 09C Reentries --------- Jan 15 EXPRESS Reentered Feb 11 Discovery Landed at KSC Feb 12 BREMSAT Reentered Feb 16 Progress M-25 Deorbited Feb 23 Molniya-1 (58) Reentered Feb 24 ODERACS F Reentered Feb 27 ODERACS II E Reentered Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia Palmdale OMDP - OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-70 Jun 22 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-71 Jun OV-105 Endeavour LEO STS-67 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/ STS-70 ML2/ STS-67 ML3/RSRM-45 VAB Bay 1 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.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'