Jonathan's Space Report No. 295 1996 Aug 13 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Time to catch up after my vacation... Shuttle and Mir --------------- The new cargo ship, Progress vehicle No. 232 (Progress M-32) was successfully launched on Jul 31 by a Soyuz-U rocket. This was the first successful launch of a Soyuz-U after two failures. Progress M-32 docked with the Mir complex at the forward (-X) docking port at 2203 UTC on Aug 2. The old cargo ship, Progress M-31, undocked from the same port on Aug 1 at 1645 UTC and was deorbited over the south Pacific later that day. Meanwhile, EO-22 crew commander Gennady Manakov has been taken ill and removed from the Soyuz TM-24 crew due for launch this month (the exact date is in question because of possible launch vehicle problems). The new crew is reportedly: Komandir (Commander)- Valeriy Korzun, RKA cosmonaut (first flight) Bortinzhener (Flight Engineer)- Aleksandr Kaleri, RKA cosmonaut (flew on Soyuz TM-14 in 1992). Kosmonavt-issledovatel' (Researcher Cosmonaut) - Claudie Andre-Deshays, CNES (French Space Agency, first flight). Currently aboard the station are the EO-21 crew of Yuriy Onufrienko, Yuriy Usachyov and NASA astronaut Shannon Lucid. Note: A reader asked about the use of UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). It's the precisely defined equivalent of the colloquial GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), and is distinguished from other GMT type timescales like TAI (atomic time), TT (Terrestrial dynamical time), etc. which are different by under a minute. Since I don't often give times to the closest second, you can just read `GMT' if you like. The new external tank for STS-79, ET-81, has been connected to the solid boosters; Atlantis was towed back from the Orbiter Processing Facility to the Vehicle Assembly Building today (Aug 13) and will be added to the new stack later today. The old stack will eventually be disassembled for refurbishment. Recent Launches --------------- Another successful Ariane launch - Arianespace flight V90 placed two European domestic comsats in orbit on Aug 8. Italsat F2 is a domestic Ka-band comsat built by Alenia Spazio for the Italian Space Agency, and is operated (and owned?) by Telecom Italia. The second satellite, Telecom 2D, is a Matra Marconi Space Eurostar 2000 satellite, owned jointly by France Telecom and the French Defense Ministry. V90 used an Ariane 44L rocket, with 4 PAL strapon rockets, an L220 first stage, an L33 second stage, and an H-10-3 third stage. The H-10-3 entered geostationary transfer orbit, and then released Italsat F2 which was mounted on a compartment called SMS (a nested bilingual acronym! SMS = Stretched Mini SPELDA, SPELDA = Structure Portuese Enceinte de Lancement Double Ariane, if I remember correctly. Way to go, ESA!). The SMS cover was ejected followed by release of the Telecom 2D which was stored underneath it. The two satellites entered a 260 x 36877 km x 5.3 deg transfer orbit. Both have US-built R-4D liquid apogee engines to raise their orbits to geostationary. Italsat F2 made its first burn on Aug 10, raising perigee to 9200 km and lowering inclination to 2.4 deg. Telecom 2D was still in its original orbit on Aug 11. Note that Ariane flight V88 never happened; the press kit for the June launch was V87, and for the July launch was V89. I assume that the Ariane V501 flight has been retrospectively designated V88 (or V87) - can anyone confirm? The Atlas AC-125 launch was from pad 36A. The Progress M-23 launch was probably from pad 1. NASA's DC-XA reusable suborbital rocket was destroyed after a test flight on Jul 31 when it toppled over after touchdown. The Martians ------------ The McKay et al paper on alleged possible Martian fossil biota in meteorite ALH84001 is available on the Web at . I am intruiged but skeptical. Historical Note --------------- Inspection of launch photographs indicates that the launch of 1963 Jan 16 from Vandenberg was a Thor Agena B and not a Thor Agena D as most records indicate. Can anyone confirm? Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jul 2 0748 TOMS Pegasus XL Vandenberg Rem.sens. 37A Jul 3 0031 USA 125 Titan 404 Canaveral LC40 Comsat? 38A Jul 3 1047 Apstar 1A Chang Zheng 3 Xichang Comsat 39A Jul 9 2224 Arabsat 2A ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 40A Turksat 1C ) Comsat 40B Jul 16 0050 Navstar SVN 40 Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17B Navsat 41A Jul 25 1242 UHF F7 Atlas 2 Canaveral LC36A Comsat 42A Jul 31 2006 Progress M-23 Soyuz-U Baykonur Cargo 43A Aug 8 2249 Italsat F2 ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 44A Telecom 2D ) Comsat 44B Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 1 STS-80 Nov 11 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-82 Feb 13 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-79 Sep 12 OV-105 Endeavour Palmdale OMDP ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-56/ET-81 VAB Bay 3 STS-79 (new) ML2/RSRM-54/ET-80 VAB Bay 1 STS-79 (old) 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.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'