Jonathan's Space Report No. 308 1996 Dec 30 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Mir --------------- The next Shuttle mission is STS-81/Atlantis, which will fly to Mir in January. Atlantis was rolled out to pad 39B on Dec 10. Crew of STS-81 is: Commander: Michael Baker; Pilot: Brent Jett; Mission Specialists: Jeff Wisoff, John Grunsfeld, Marsha Ivins, Jerry Linenger. Linenger will replace John Blaha aboard Mir. The cargo bay will contain the Spacehab Double Module on its second flight, as well as the Orbiter Docking System. Recent Launches --------------- The Bion No. 11 life sciences satellites, with two monkeys aboard, was launched from Plesetsk into a 217 x 378 km x 62.8 degree orbit on Dec 24. It carries newts, snails, Drosophila flies and other insects, bacteria, and two macaque monkeys, Lapik and Multik. The recoverable Bion spacecraft, built by TsSKB-Progress of Samara, is based on the Zenit/Vostok spaceship in use since 1960. Launch vehicle was a Soyuz-U. Here is a list of the Bion flights: Bion 1 (Kosmos-605) 1973 Oct 31 21.5d Bion 2 (Kosmos-690) 1974 Oct 22 20.5d Bion 3 (Kosmos-782) 1975 Nov 25 19.5d Bion 4 (Kosmos-936) 1977 Aug 3 18.6d Bion 5 (Kosmos-1129) 1979 Sep 25 18.5d Bion 6 (Kosmos-1514) 1983 Dec 14 5d Bion 7 (Kosmos-1667) 1985 Jul 10 7d Bion 8 (Kosmos-1887) 1987 Sep 29 13d Bion 9 (Kosmos-2044) 1989 Sep 15 14d Bion 10 (Kosmos-2229) 1992 Dec 29 12d Bion 11 1996 Dec 24 In orbit Errata: Inmarsat III F3 launch time and WSF deploy times have been corrected in the tables below; in both cases I demonstrated an inability to perform simple addition. Sigh. Geoff Perry informs me that Kosmos-2336 is replacing Kosmos-2173 in plane 4 of the Parus navigation satellite system. An object in a 153 x 949 km x 97.9 deg orbit has been observed from the USA 129 spy satellite launch (orbit by Ted Molczan based on observations by Anthony Beresford and Rob McNaught). This is probably the Titan 4 second stage. It is reportedly brighter than expected; possibly a large fairing adapter remains attached (the payload may originally have been designed for Shuttle launch and might require a long parallel adapter to mimic the payload bay - just a speculation). Next issue will contain the annual launch list. Meanwhile, here is a listing of the USA designations issued this year for US military satellites. Quotation marks indicate provisional names assigned by me to classified payloads. USA 117 GPS 33 1996-19A USA 118 "Adv VORTEX 2" 1996-26A USA 119 "ANOSS 4" 1996-29A USA 120 "ANOSS 4-1" 1996-29B USA 121 "ANOSS 4-2" 1996-29C USA 122 "ANOSS 4-3" 1996-29D USA 123 TIPS 1996-29E USA 124 TIPS 1996-29F USA 125 "SDS B-4" 1996-38A USA 126 GPS 40 1996-41A USA 127 UHF F/O F7 1996-42A USA 128 GPS 30 1996-56A USA 129 "Improved CRYSTAL 4?" 1996-72A Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Nov 4 1709 SAC-B/HETE Pegasus XL Wallops Science 61A Nov 7 1700 MGS Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17A Mars probe 62A Nov 13 2240 Arabsat 2B ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 63A Measat 2 ) Comsat 63B Nov 16 2048 Mars-96 Proton-K Baykonur LC200L Mars probe 64A Nov 19 1955 Columbia Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 65A Nov 19 2320 Progress M-33 Soyuz-U Baykonir LC1 Cargo ship 66A Nov 20 0411 ORFEUS OV-102,LEO Astronomy 65B Nov 21 2047 Hot Bird 2 Atlas IIA Canaveral LC36B Comsat 67A Nov 23 0138 WSF OV-102, LEO Materials 65C Dec 4 0658 Mars Pathfinder Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17B Mars probe 68A Dec 11 1200 Kosmos-2335 Tsiklon-2 Baykonur LC90 Recon 69A Dec 18 0157 Inmarsat III F3 Atlas IIA Canaveral LC36 Comsat 70A Dec 20 0644 Kosmos-2336 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Navsat 71A Dec 20 1804 USA 129 Titan 4 Vandenberg SLC4E Recon 72A Dec 24 1350 Bion No. 11 Soyuz-U Plesetsk LC43 Life sci 73A Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 1 STS-80 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-82 Feb 13 OV-104 Atlantis LC39B STS-81 Jan 12 OV-105 Endeavour Palmdale OMDP ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-58/ET-81 VAB Bay 3 STS-82 ML2/RSRM-54/ET-83/OV-104 LC39B STS-81 ML3/RSRM-59/ VAB Bay 1 STS-83 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 | | Back issues: ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'