Jonathan's Space Report No. 278 1996 Mar 4 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Editorial: Thanks to Dave Ransom and Maxim Tarasenko for feeding me with info while I was on vacation, and to Lee Bronstein and Dave Koster for their hospitality on the West Coast. More snow here tomorrow, sigh.. :-) Shuttle ------- Columbia was launched at 2018:00 UTC on Feb 22 on mission STS-75. During ascent, the crew reported a low thrust indication on one main engine but the ground was able to confirm that propulsion was operating OK. After the OMS 2 burn, the ship entered a 298 x 303 km x 28.5 deg orbit. The tethered satellite TSS-1 was deployed on Feb 25, with first motion at 2045 UTC. At 2145 UTC the tether was at over 270m, and by around 0100 UTC on Feb 26 the TSS satellite was at almost 22 km. At 0130 UTC on Feb 26 the tether broke at the deployer end, and the TSS satellite plus tether rapidly separated from Columbia. It entered a higher 316 x 413 km x 28.5 deg orbit (Columbia's orbit at the time was 291 x 299 km) thus demonstrating inadvertently the use of tethers for changing orbits without using rocket fuel. At around 1740 UTC the astronauts began retracting the remaining tether and stowing the deployer boom. By Mar 4 Columbia's orbit had decayed to 282 x 293 km as the astronauts continued experiments with the USMP-3 materials processing payload. Mir --- Soyuz TM-23 docked with Mir at 1420:35 on Feb 23. The new crew of Yuriy Onufrienko and Yuriy Usachyov are working aboard the station. The Mir complex is in a 390 x 398 km x 51.6 deg orbit. On Feb 22 at 0726 UTC the Progress M-30 cargo ship undocked, and it was deorbited over the Pacific at 1428 UTC. On Feb 29 the previous crew of Gidzenko, Avdeev and Reiter undocked from Mir in Soyuz TM-22, and at 1042 UTC they landed in Kazakhstan after 179d 1h 42min in space. Recent Launches --------------- NASA's Polar satellite, to study the magnetosphere, was launched from Vandenberg by McDonnell Douglas Delta 7925-10 into a 185 x 50494 km x 86.0 deg orbit on Feb 24. It is built by Lockheed Martin Astro Space and is similar to the Wind satellite launched in 1994. Wind and Polar are part of the Global Geospace Science project. Polar will raise its perigee over the next week. It carries two booms and six long wire antennae. In the `equatorial' plane of the satellite are a pair of antennae spanning 130 meters and, at right angles, another pair of antennae spanning 100 meters. Along the spin axis of the satellite are another pair of antennae with a span of 14 meters. These antennae are used to study electric and magnetic fields for the PWI (Polar Plasma Wave Investigation) and EFI (Electric Field Instrument) experiments. Two larger but shorter (6-m long) booms carry more PWI instruments and the MFE (Magnetic Field Experiment). Other instruments on the spacecraft body include the TIMAS (Toroidal Imaging Mass-Angle Spectrograph) to study fluxes of ions as a function of direction, the TIDE (Thermal Ion Dynamics Experiment) and PSI (Plasma Source Instrument) which study connections between the polar ionosphere and the magnetotail, the VIS (Visible Imaging System) and UVI (Ultraviolet Imager) which measure auroral emissions. PIXIE (Polar Ionospheric X-ray Imaging Experiment) studies X-rays produced by energetic electrons in the upper atmosphere. CAMMICE (Charge and Mass Magnetospheric Ion Composition Experiment) studies the isotopic composition of energetic ions. The CEPPAD (Comprehensive Energetic Particle Pitch Angle Distribution) studies high energy protons and electrons. The XTE satellite launched last December has been renamed RXTE - the Bruno B. Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, or loosely the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer. The All Sky Monitor experiment has been turned on again, although one of the counters is still having problems. Trip Report - What I Did On My Vacation ----------- Stop one: UTC in San Jose. The Titan solid motor plant is nestled in the hills over Silicon Valley. United Technologies Corp's Chemical Systems Division makes the solid boosters for Titan, but Alliant/Hercules has the contract for the new boosters, so work on the project is winding down now. The UTC/CSD Titan boosters have powered Titan 3C, 3D, 3E, 34D and 4 since 1965 and provided the only experience base on large solid motors prior to the Shuttle. UTC also built the first stage of Scout, the solid motors used in Boeing's IUS upper stage, and the Orbus solid motors used most famously in the Intelsat rescue mission STS-49 in 1992. I was lucky to see several Titan segments up fairly close, and the test stand where complete solid motors were fired wrong end up. Stop two: the JPL Archives. Lots of the details of the early Explorer program were classified at the time, but are now available. After the Russian success of Sputnik over Vanguard, the JPL/Huntsville team initiated Project Deal. The idea was that when you lose a round while playing poker, you say 'Deal!' to begin another round hoping to win the rematch. Filed under Deal in the archives are the engineering drawings for payload RTV-7/Deal I, dated Dec 1957 and Jan 1958. This is actually the payload which was named Explorer I after launch - America's first satellite. Does anyone know who came up with the Explorer name and when it was first used? Project Deal III was the Beacon satellite which would have been Explorer VI if it had reached orbit. I haven't found Deal II but suspect it is Explorer II and III, with Explorer IV and V not having a Deal name. The plans for Deal III, already in embryo prior to the Explorer I launch, include the first description I have seen of an idea described by them as the 'kick in the apogee' - the origin of the apogee kick motor used to raise perigee after orbit insertion. Stop three: Vandenberg Air Force Base. Space Launch Complex 10 is a fascinating site, currently in the care of Jay Pritchard who is knowledgeable and enthusiastic. He has a Thor IRBM horizontal on its launch transporter inside the complex, which is covered by a roll-off shelter. The launch control center still has working consoles; it was last used in 1980 but some of the equipment is still turned on. Among other artifacts in Pritchard's embryonic museum are Minuteman stages and a complete Agena D sealed in its transporter. SLC-10 was used for weather satellite launches, RAF Thor missile tests, and training crews for the Program 437 antisatellite weapon based on Johnston Island in the Pacific. Space Launch Complex 6, on the former Point Arguello Naval Missile Facility in South Vandenberg, is a gargantuan complex built for Space Shuttle launches. Staring down from the gantry used to launch the tiny (in comparison) Lockheed Launch Vehicle, one can see light shining from the outside into the greenish water at the bottom of the flame trench far below, an eerily beautiful sight. Small pieces of burned solid propellant from the LLV-1 launch can be picked up from the concrete apron around the pad. In contrast to the hi-tech SLC-6, the jetty at which Shuttle SRBs would be towed back from the ocean is overlooked by a quaint Coastguard house, a white two-story mansion with red windowframes that looks like it should be on Nantucket rather than be part of the Western Space and Missile Center. While at Vandenberg, I also visited the base historian Jeff Geiger and the Lompoc public library (the back issues of the local newspaper contain satellite launch times unavailable elsewhere), and the results of those enquires should lead to some more historical articles in Quest and JBIS. Stop four: .. well, the rest was fun but not relevant to this newsletter. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jan 11 0941 Endeavour Shuttle Kennedy LC39B 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 1533 Kosmos-2327 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Navsat 04A Jan 25 0956 Gorizont Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur LC200 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 Feb 14 1901 Intelsat 708 Chang Zheng 3B Xichang Comsat FTO Feb 17 2043 NEAR Delta 7925-8 Canaveral LC17B Space probe 08A Feb 19 0058 Gonets-D1 ) 09A? Gonets-D1 ) 09B? Gonets-D1 ) Tsiklon-3 Plesetsk LC32 Comsats 09C? Kosmos-2328) 09D? Kosmos-2329) 09E? Kosmos-2330) 09F? Feb 19 0832 Raduga Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur LC81 Comsat 10A Feb 21 1234 Soyuz TM-23 Soyuz-U2 Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 11A Feb 22 2018 Columbia Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 12A Feb 24 1124 Polar Delta Vandenberg SLC2W Science 13A Feb 26 0130 TSS-1 OV-102,LEO Science 12B Payloads no longer in orbit -------------------------- Jan 20 Endeavour Landed at KSC Feb 22 Progress M-30 Deorbited over Pacific Feb 29 Soyuz TM-22 Landed in Kazakhstan Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia LEO STS-75 Feb 22 OV-103 Discovery Palmdale OMDP OV-104 Atlantis LC39B STS-76 Mar 21 OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 3 STS-77 May 16 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-54/ VAB Bay 1 STS-77 ML2/RSRM-46/ET-77/OV-104 LC39B STS-76 ML3/RSRM-53/ET-76/OV-102 LEO 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.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'