Jonathan's Space Report No 275 1996 Feb 12 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Editorial --------- I've finally moved into the 1990s and am putting the automatic email distribution of JSR onto a Majordomo list rather than maintaining the list by hand. To subscribe to JSR by email, send email to majordomo@head-cfa.harvard.edu, with any subject you like and with the body of the message containing subscribe jsr To get off the list, try unsubscribe jsr There are currently about 800 subscribers in 22 countries. Shuttle ------- The next Shuttle mission is STS-75/Columbia, due on Feb 22. Mir --- Yuriy Gidzenko and Thomas Reiter carried out a 3 hour 2 min spacewalk on Feb 8, starting around 1307 UTC from the Kvant-2 airlock. The walk was reportedly shorter than planned due to a pressurization problem in the suit of EO-20 mission commander Gidzenko. The astronauts recovered some samples which had been exposed to space on the exterior of the Spektr module (the ESEF or European Space Exposure Facility) to study the effects of radiation, vacuum and debris impacts. Launch of the EO-21 crew, Yuriy Ivanovich Onufrienko and Yuriy Vladimirovich Usachyov (callsign Skif-1 and Skif-2) will take place on Feb 21. Recent Launches -------------- Ariane V83 was launched on Feb 5 from Arianespace's South American launch site, the Centre Spatiale Guyanais. It placed in orbit the N-STAR b satellite, built by Space Systems/Loral for the Japanese telecommunications company NTT. N-STAR b uses the FS-1300 bus. N-STAR b entered a 127 x 37111 km x 6.9 deg transfer orbit, raised by Feb 6 to 6723 x 35780 km x 3.6 deg, and again by Feb 8 to 29236 x 35766 km x 0.5 deg. Japan's National Space Development Agency (NASDA) and Institute of Space and Astronautical Sciences (ISAS) have test-flown the new J-1 launch vehicle in its two-stage version. The first stage is the NASDA H-II SRB (solid rocket strapon for the H-II), and the second stage is the M23 second stage from the ISAS Mu-3S-II launch vehicle. A three stage orbital version of J-1 will also use the M3B third stage from Mu-3S-II. J-1 (1F) was launched from Tanegashima's Osaki Range H-1/J-1 launch pad, previously used for the N and H-I launch vehicles, at 2300 UTC on Feb 11. The M23 stage of the J-1, with the HYFLEX payload attached, was expected to reach an apogee of 110 km on its suborbital flight. At 2304 UTC the HYFLEX payload separated from the M23 stage onto a descending suborbital trajectory. HYFLEX is a lifting body developed by NASDA and the NAL (National Aerospace Lab) to develop shuttle technology. It has ceramic heat shield tiles and a gaseous nitrogen reaction control system. After reentry (max Mach number of 15), it splashed down by parachute 300 km NE of the Ogasawara Islands in the Pacific (NASDA has a downrange station at Ogasawara). A flotation bag attachment device failed and HYFLEX sank in the ocean. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jan 11 0941 Endeavour Shuttle Kennedy LC39 Spaceship 01A Jan 12 2310 Panamsat 3R ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 02A Measat 1 ) Comsat 02B Jan 14 1111 Koreasat 2 Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17B Comsat 03A Jan 14 1132 OAST-Flyer OV105, LEO Science 01B Jan 16 1534? Kosmos-2327 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk Navsat 04A Jan 25 1000? Gorizont Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur Comsat 05A Feb 1 0115 Palapa C-1 Atlas IIAS Canaveral LC36B Comsat 06A Feb 5 0719 N-STAR b Ariane 44P Kourou ELA2 Comsat 07A Payloads no longer in orbit -------------------------- Dec 7 Galileo Probe Entered Jovian atmosphere Dec 11 Kosmos-398 Reentered over Pacific Dec 18 Kosmos-2305 Deorbited Jan 20 Endeavour Landed at KSC Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia LC39B STS-75 Feb 22 OV-103 Discovery Palmdale OMDP OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 1 STS-76 Mar 21 OV-105 Endeavour KSC RW15 STS-77 May 16 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/ ML2/RSRM-46/ET-77 VAB Bay 3 STS-76 ML3/RSRM-53/ET-76/OV-102 LC39B STS-75 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'