Jonathan's Space Report No. 284 1996 Apr 18 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Mir --------------- STS-76 Mission Specialist-4, Dr. Shannon Lucid, remains aboard the Mir complex. Despite the implication in some NASA reports during STS-76 that her title on the crew is Cosmonaut-researcher, (which most `guest cosmonauts' have had, and which is equivalent to Payload Specialist) more recent Mir EO-21 status reports indicate she has the (Mission Specialist equivalent) title of Flight Engineer-2 (Bortizhener-2), which ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter also held on his long duration mission. Space Shuttle Endeavour (OV-105) was moved from the Orbiter Processing Facility to the Vehicle Assembly Building on Apr 8, and was mated to the external tank for STS-77. The stack was rolled out to pad 39B on Apr 16. (Pad 39A is undergoing refurbishment and has not been used recently). Mission STS-77 will carry the Airlock Tunnel Adapter, the Spacehab Flight Unit 1 module (on mission SH-04), and three cross-bay MPESS structures. One will carry the Spartan 207 satellite, another carries the TEAMS payload, and the third is the GBA-9 GAS Bridge. Spartan 207 carries the IAE (Inflatable Antenna Experiment) payload. TEAMS is a Hitchhiker-M payload carrying a zero-g refuelling experiment, a GPS navigation experiment, and the PAMS Passive Aerodynamically-Stabilized Magnetically-Damped Satellite. GBA-9 carries eleven Getaway Special (GAS) canisters: G-056 Caltech G-063 Lockheed Martin/Penn State G-142 DARA, German space agency G-144 DARA G-163 European Space Agency G-200 Utah State University G-490 British Sugar G-564 Canadian Space Agency G-565 Canadian Space Agency G-703 NASA-Lewis G-741 NASA-Lewis G-056 is the GAMCIT gamma ray burst detector built by Caltech's SEDS student organization. Recent Launches --------------- The launch of Astra 1F on Apr 8 demonstrated a new profile for RKK Energiya's Blok-DM2 upper stage. The Krunichev three-stage Proton-K launch vehicle entered a standard parking orbit of 213 x 219 km x 51.6 deg. The Blok-DM2/Astra 1F combination separated and the Blok-DM2 ignited to enter an elliptical orbit of 11970 x 35936 km x 6.95 deg. This probably involved two burns of the Blok-DM2, and we may soon see the SOZ ullage motor units cataloged in a 200 x 36000 km x 47 degree transfer orbit. Usually the second burn of the DM2 takes the payload all the way to geosynchronous orbit, since the Russian geosats do not have apogee motors of their own, but the heavy Astra 1F instead used its own liquid apogee engine to complete the ascent, first lowering inclination and raising perigee to 27160 x 35994 km x 0.9 deg, and then by Apr 11 to 30135 x 36147 km. By Apr 15, Astra 1F was in a 35757 x 35791 km x 0.1 deg orbit over 27.0 deg E, drifting 0.1 deg per day. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Mar 9 0133 REX-II Pegasus XL L1011/Vandenberg Technol. 14A Mar 14 0711 Intelsat 707 Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Comsat 15A Mar 14 1740 Kosmos-2331 Soyuz-U Plesetsk LC43/4 Recon 16A Mar 21 0453 IRS-P3 PSLV Sriharikota Rem.sensing 17A Mar 22 0813 Atlantis Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 18A Mar 28 0021 GPS 33 Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17A Navigation 19A Apr 3 2301 Inmarsat III F1 Atlas IIA Canaveral LC36 Comsat 20A Apr 8 2309 Astra 1F Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur Comsat 21A Payloads no longer in orbit -------------------------- Mar 9 Columbia Landed at KSC Mar 12 FSW-1 capsule Reentered over Atlantic Mar 13 ODERACS IIA Reentered Mar 19 TSS-1 Reentered over Middle East? (or Atlantic?) Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 2 STS-78 Jun 27 OV-103 Discovery Palmdale OMDP OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 1 STS-79 Jul 31 OV-105 Endeavour LC39B STS-77 May 16 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-47/ET-78/OV-105 LC39B STS-77 ML2/ STS-79 ML3/RSRM-55 VAB Bay 3 STS-78 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'