Jonathan's Space Report No. 266 1995 Dec 3 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle ------- The next Shuttle mission is STS-72, scheduled for January. Endeavour was moved to the Vehicle Assembly Building on Nov 30. Interestingly, Space Command has not allocated a catalog number for the putative 1995-61B, the Stikovochnoy Modul' (Russian Docking Module) launched by Atlantis. This is a tricky issue - they continue to issue separate orbital elements for rest of the various different modules docked to Mir. But the SM never flew independently, it was always connected either to Atlantis or to Kristall. So should it get a designation or not? Mir --- Launch of the Progress M-30 cargo ferry is expected on December 15. Recent Launches -------------- Asiasat 2 was successfully launched by a Chang Zheng 2E rocket from the Chinese spaceport at Xichang on Nov 28. The satellite will provide communications services for the Hong Kong based company Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co Ltd. It is a Lockheed Martin Astro Space Series 7000 comsat with 9 Ku-band and 24 C-band transponders. The CZ-2E second stage entered a 187 x 292 km x 28.0 deg parking orbit, and separated from the Asiasat and its kick motor. The Chinese EPKM (FG-46) kick motor, never flown before, fired to place Asiasat in a standard 220 x 35039 km x 25.6 deg transfer orbit. Previous CZ-2E launches used American-built Thiokol perigee motors. The liquid apogee motor (anyone know what type?) will be fired later to station Asiasat 2 at 100 deg E. The SOHO satellite was launched at 0808 UTC on Dec 2 by Atlas Centaur AC-121. SOHO, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, is a European Space Agency science spacecraft developed in collaboration with NASA. The Lockheed Martin Atlas IIAS took off from Pad 36 at Cape Canaveral; the Centaur second stage made an initial burn to enter low parking orbit of 175 x 183 km x 28.8 deg and then a second burn at 0935 UTC to insert SOHO onto an interplanetary trajectory towards the Earth-Sun L1 Lagrange point, 1.5 million km from Earth in the direction of the Sun. The Centaur separated from SOHO at 1009 UTC; around 1045 UTC diffuse emission (reported as a possible new comet!) was seen by observers in the Northeastern US which may be associated with Centaur venting. The Centaur was inserted in an orbit with an apogee of 1.15 million km, and is likely to end up in solar orbit after a couple of revolutions because of perturbations. (Thanks to Joel Runes for some details in this report). SOHO carries telescopes, spectrometers and coronagraphs to study the atmosphere of the Sun, and particle detectors to study the composition and state of the solar wind. Unlike earlier solar observatories, however, SOHO also carries instruments to precisely measure oscillations of the Sun, which can be used to study the interior structure of the Sun - a technique called helioseismology. The 1850 kg spacecraft was built by Matra Marconi Space. ISO lowered its apogee on Nov 24 and is now in a 1437.16 min, 1036 x 70578 km x 5.2 deg orbit. The perigee burn was at 1310 UTC on Nov 19 and the apogee burn was at 0245 on Nov 24. The cryostat cover was ejected at 1027 UTC on Nov 27 and the first light image (of the galaxy M51) was taken on Nov 28. The LWS spectrometer has now detected its first spectral lines. The Meteosat 3 and Meteosat 4 weather satellites have now both been removed from geostationary orbit. Meteosat 4's orbit was raised starting at 2030 UTC on Nov 6. Meteosat 3's orbit was raised in a series of burns from Nov 21 at 2115 UTC to Nov 22 at 2135 UTC. (Thanks to C. Groen-Nielsen, ESA). Thanks to several readers for confirming that Galaxy 3 has been retired. The Galileo Probe and Galileo Orbiter are approaching the planet Jupiter - arrival day is Dec 7. The Orbiter entered the Jovian magnetosphere on Nov 26. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Oct 6 0323 Kosmos-2321 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Navsat 52A Oct 8 1851 Progress M-29 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 53A Oct 11 1626 Luch-1 Proton-K/DM2M Baykonur Data Relay 54A Oct 19 0038 Astra 1E Ariane 42L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 55A Oct 20 1353 Columbia ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 56A Spacelab USML-2) Oct 22 0800 UHF F6 Atlas II Canaveral LC36 Comsat 57A Oct 23 2203 Meteor Conestoga 1620 Wallops LA0 Micrograv FTO Oct 31 2019 Kosmos-2322 Zenit-2 Baykonur LC45L Sigint 58A Nov 4 1422 Radarsat ) Delta 7920 Vandenberg SLC2 Rem sensing 59A SURFSAT ) 59B Nov 6 0515 Milstar DFS 2 Titan 4 Centaur Canaveral LC40 Comsat 60A Nov 12 1230 Atlantis ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 61A Docking Module ) Nov 17 0120 ISO Ariane 44P Kourou ELA2 Astronomy 62A Nov 17 1430? Gals-2 Proton-K/DM2M Baykonur Comsat 63A Nov 28 1130 Asiasat 2 Chang Zheng 2E Xichang Comsat 64A Dec 2 0808 SOHO Atlas IIAS Canaveral LC36 Astronomy Reentries --------- Oct 26 Resurs-F2 Landed in Russia Nov 5 Columbia Landed at KSC Nov 18 Molniya-1 (80-92A) Reentered Nov 20 Atlantis Landed at KSC Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 2 STS-75 Feb 22 OV-103 Discovery Palmdale OMDP OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 1 STS-76 Mar 21 OV-105 Endeavour VAB STS-72 Jan 11 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-52/ET-75 VAB STS-72 ML2/ ML3/ .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS6 | | | 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.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'