Jonathan's Space Report No. 242 1995 Jun 4 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle ------- Launch of STS-70 has been delayed until after the Mir docking flight (STS-71). Woodpeckers pecked holes in the external tank's spray-on foam insulation. STS-70 will be rolled back to the VAB this week for repairs. Launch of the STS-71 mission is now scheduled for Jun 22. The mission commander is Robert 'Hoot' Gibson, chief of the Astronaut Office. The pilot is Charles Precourt, and the three mission specialists are Ellen Baker, Greg Harbaugh and Bonnie Dunbar. All have flown in space before. Atlantis will also carry into orbit the Mir EO-19 crew, commander Anatoliy Solov'yov and flight engineer Nikolai Budarin. Solov'yov, a Russian born in Latvia, has made three spaceflights, commanding Soyuz TM-5, TM-9 and TM-15, for a total of over a year in space. Budarin is a rookie. In response to readers' requests, here is the full list of space travellers who changed their names before flying: Vladimir Krysin (Dzhanibekov), Georgiy Kakalov (Ivanov), Shannon Wells (Lucid), Anna Tingle (Fisher), Millie Hughes (Hughes-Fulford), Ellen Shulman (Baker), Kathryn Cordell (Thornton), Nancy Decker (Sherlock, Currie), Chiaki Naito (Mukai). Mike Cassutt says that Rich Clifford's birth name is probably Uram, but I don't have confirmation of this. Mir --- It's been a busy couple of weeks at the Mir complex. On May 22, the Mir complex had the Kvant module docked at the rear (+X) port, and the Progress M-27 cargo ship docked at the front, -X (containing docking cone no. 1). There are four more ports at the front of Mir, +Y, -Y, +Z, -Z, which share a single docking cone (no 2) which is needed each time a docking is made. The Kvant-2 TsM-D module is docked at +Y, and the Kristall TsM-T module was attached at -Y with cone no 2. On May 17 the cosmonauts had transferred one of the solar arrays from Kristall to the Kvant (TsM-e) module at the other end of the station using the Strela crane. Dezhurov and Strekalov carried out EVA-3 on May 22, completing the attachment of one the Kristall solar array to the Kvant module and rolling up the other one on Kristall so it doesn't get in the way. On May 23 the Progress M-27 cargo ship undocked from the -X port and was deorbited. Then on May 26 Kristall was rotated from the -Y to the -X port. On May 28 the cosmonauts carried out a 21 min EVA to move cone no. 2 from the -Y to the -Z ports, allowing Kristall to be moved to -Z on May 30. Next, the Spektr module, which was launched on May 20, docked with the station at -X at around 0056 on Jun 1. Dezhurov and Strekalov went outside again for 23 minutes to move cone 2 again, back to the -Y port. Spektr was due to be rotated into the -Y slot on June 3. The plan is for the transfer of Kristall from -Z to -X on June 7. All will then be ready for the docking of Atlantis with Kristall, which has to be at the -X position so that Atlantis doesn't bump into the solar panels from the other modules. After the STS-71 flight, Kristall goes back to -Z. Later in the year, STS-74 will deliver the SM (Stikovochnoy Modul' or docking module) to be docked to the Kristall shuttle port; this extension will let Atlantis dock safely with Kristall in the -Z position, avoiding repeated reconfigurations. At the end of the year, the final TsM-I (Priroda) module will dock at -X and be rotated to the remaining port, +Z. The following year, if Atlantis is docked at the same time as both a Soyuz and a Progress there will be a total of seven modules plus three spaceships docked together at once - not a bad space station. Recent Launches -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Kosmos-2311 spy satellite completed its 70 day mission on May 31. Kosmos-2312, an Oko early warning satellite, was launched on May 24. The satellite and Blok-L upper stage were placed in a 213 x 518 km x 62.8 deg parking orbit; the Blok-L fired to place Kosmos-2312 in a 12 hr, 602 x 39274 km x 62.9 deg orbit. The Oko satellites are built by NPO Lavochkin. Lockheed Martin chalked up two Atlas launch successes in 8 days with the launch of the GOES J weather satellite and the UHF Followon F5 comsat. First up was GOES J (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite J), which became GOES 9 on orbit. The satellite, built by Space Systems/Loral, is the second in the GOES Next series and will be used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). GOES 9 was launched by Atlas Centaur AC-77, an Atlas I class launch vehicle at 0552 on May 23. The Centaur first burn was at 0557, and the second burn at 0616. At 0621 the Centaur separated, leaving GOES 9 in a 206 x 42319 km x 27.5 deg transfer orbit. On May 27, perigee was raised to 10928 km and inclination lowered to 8 deg, and on May 29 perigee was raised again to 35622 km. On May 31 the spacecraft was in a 35614 x 42419 km x 0.29 deg orbit, at 91 deg West drifting 1.5 deg west per hour. The UHF Followon F5 comsat, also known as EHF F5, was launched on May 31. The satellite is an HS-601 class, built by Hughes. It will be used by the US Navy for communications. The Atlas II Centaur launch vehicle, AC-116, took off from pad 36A at 1527 UT on May 31. The Centaur ignited at 1532 as the Atlas fell away, and entered parking orbit at 1538:52. The engine restarted at 1550 UT to place the HS-601 satellite in geostationary transfer orbit. The orbit was 293 x 27133 km x 27.0 deg; the low apogee was deliberate, and will be increased by firings of the HS-601's onboard liquid propellant engine. Note the difference between this and the GOES 9 transfer orbit, whose apogee is higher than synchronous altitude; the replacement of solid apogee motors with the more flexible liquid ones during the 1980s has led to a wide variety of strategies for delivering payloads to geostationary orbit. Geostationary satellite movements --------------------------------- GOES 5 is on station at 67.1W. Intelsat 506 is on station at 31.5W TDRS 3 drifted past 96E on May 23 AMSC 1 is now on station, at 101.0W Intelsat 706 went on station at 55.9W around June 1. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Apr 3 1348 Orbcomm 1 ) Pegasus/L1011 VAFB/PAWA Comsat 17A Orbcomm 2 ) Comsat 17B Microlab 1 ) Science 17C Apr 5 1116 'Ofeq-3 Shaviyt Palamchim Technol. 18A Apr 7 2347 AMSC-1 Atlas IIA Canaveral LC36A Comsat 19A Apr 9 1934 Progress M-27 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 20A Apr 19 1912 GFZ-1 - Mir Geodesy 8617JE Apr 21 0144 ERS-2 Ariane 40 Kourou ELA2 Rem Sensing 21A May 14 1345 USA 110 Titan 4 Centaur Canaveral LC40 Sigint? 22A May 17 0634 Intelsat 706 Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Comsat 23A May 20 0333 Spektr Proton Baykonur LC81 Mir module 24A May 23 0552 GOES 9 Atlas Centaur Canaveral LC36B Weather 25A May 24 2010? Kosmos-2312 Molniya-M Plesetsk Early Warn 26A May 31 1527 UHF F/O F5 Atlas Centaur Canaveral LC36A Comsat 27A Reentries --------- Apr 3 Kosmos-2137 Reentered Apr 4 Kosmos-2290 Deorbited over Pacific May 23 Progress M-27 Deorbited May 31 Kosmos-2311 Landed? Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-73 Sep 21 OV-103 Discovery LC39B STS-70 Jul? OV-104 Atlantis LC39A STS-71 Jun 22? OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-69 Aug? ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-48/ET-72 VAB Bay 1? STS-69 ML2/RSRM-44/ET-71/OV-103 LC39B STS-70 ML3/RSRM-45/ET-70/OV-104 LC39A 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.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'