Jonathan's Space Report No. 252 1995 Aug 13 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle ------- Endeavour was rolled back out to launch pad 39A on Aug 8. Repairs to the SRBs begin this weekend. Recent Launches -------------- Delta no. 228, launched from Cape Canaveral on Aug 5, suffered the first significant partial failure of a Delta II vehicle (out of 42 launches). The Delta 7925 model took off from Pad 17B, but it appears that one of the Hercules GEM strapon solid boosters failed to separate, causing the first stage to deliver less velocity than planned to the vehicle. The second stage compensated by burning for 35 seconds longer than planned on its first burn, which placed the rocket in parking orbit. The second burn to raise apogee and lower inclination was successful, but the third burn of the second stage shut down early when fuel ran out. The satellite and third stage separated from the second stage, and the PAM-D third stage ignited, placing the satellite in an orbit with an apogee of only 30000 km instead of 35700 km. The last similar strapon separation failure was in 1974 during launch of the Westar 1 satellite. Delta has been a remarkably reliable vehicle; in the last 25 years it has failed to reach orbit only 3 times in 150 launches, with an additional handful of partial failures similar to Delta 228. The payload of Delta 228 is Korea Telecom's Mugunghwa satellite (informally known to the Western media as Koreasat 1). Mugunghwa is a Lockheed Martin Astro Space Series 3000 satellite, and has a Star 30 solid apogee motor which will be fired to raise the orbit; Mugunghwa will need to use some of its hydrazine stationkeeping propellant to complete the orbit circularization and make up for the stage 1 underperformance. Late on Aug 5, Mugunghwa was in a 1371 x 29388 km x 20.6 deg, 532.3 min orbit. The Delta second stage, which was unable to make its fourth planned burn to depletion after separation since the fuel was already depleted, is in a 938 x 1373 km x 26.7 deg, 108.5 min orbit. On Aug 10 Mugunghwa fired the Star 30 motor and entered a 1074.1 min, 26911 x 29817 km x 0.2 deg equatorial orbit. The Magion 4 satellite has been cataloged as 23646, 1995-39F. Space Command elements place it in a 760 x 191760 km x 63.3 deg orbit with a period of 5454.13 minutes. The IABS apogee stage from the DSCS III Atlas launch has not yet been cataloged by Space Command. A Molniya-3 satellite was launched on Aug 9 from Plesetsk. The Russian Molniya satellites are used for domestic communications from 12-hour period elliptical orbits inclined at 63 degrees. Panamsat's PAS 4 satellite raised its orbit to 1203 min, 26461 x 35729 km x 0.4 deg with burns of its liquid apogee motor on Aug 5 and Aug 6. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jul 5 0309 Kosmos-2315 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Navigation 32A Jul 7 1623 Helios 1A ) Ariane 40 Kourou ELA2 Recon 33A CERISE ) Sigint 33B UPM LBSAT 1 ) Technology 33C Jul 10 1238 USA 112 Titan 4 Centaur Canaveral LC41 Sigint 34A Jul 13 0530 Galileo Probe - Galileo, Solar orb. 89-84E Jul 13 1342 Discovery Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 35A Jul 13 1955 TDRS 7 IUS Discovery,LEO Comsat 35B Jul 20 0304 Progress M-28 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 36A Jul 24 1552 Kosmos-2316 ) Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur LC?? Navigation 37A Kosmos-2317 ) Navigation 37B Kosmos-2318 ) Navigation 37C Jul 31 2330 DSCS III F9 Atlas IIA Centaur Canaveral LC36A Comsat 38A Aug 2 2359 Prognoz-M2 ) Molniya-M Plesetsk LC43/3 Science 39A Magion 4 ) Science 39F Aug 3 2358 PAS 4 Ariane 4 Kourou ELA2 Comsat 40A Aug 5 1110 Mugunghwa Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17B Comsat 41A Aug 9 0121 Molniya-3 Molniya-M Plesetsk LC43 Comsat 42A Reentries --------- Jul 7 Atlantis Landed at KSC Jul 22 Discovery Landed at KSC Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-73 Sep 21 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1 OMDP OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 2 STS-74 Oct 26 OV-105 Endeavour LC39A STS-69 Aug ? ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-48/ET-72/OV-105 LC39A STS-69 ML2/RSRM-51 VAB Bay 1? STS-74 ML3/RSRM-50 VAB Bay 3 STS-73 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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/space/jsr/jsr.html | | ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'