Jonathan's Space Report No. 315 1997 Mar 7 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Mir --------------- The Mir crew of Korzun, Kaleri, Ewald, Tsibliev, Lazutkin and Linenger continued their mission on the complex in late February. On Feb 23 at 1935 UTC a fire broke out in a lithium perchlorate cartridge in the Kvant module used to generate extra oxygen on Mir, filling the complex with smoke. Korzun and Kaleri used extinguishers to fight the fire which was extinguished after 90 seconds; the heavy smoke persisted for about five minutes and the crew wore gas masks for two and a half hours. Now the crew are having difficulty generating sufficient oxygen for the life support system. (Details from Chris van den Berg and NASA). Korzun, Kaleri and Ewald undocked from Mir in the Soyuz TM-24 spaceship at 0324 UTC on Mar 2 and landed at 0644 UTC near Arkaylk in Kazakstan. The Progress M-33 cargo ship, which has been orbiting separately from Mir since Feb 6, failed to redock with Mir on Mar 4. It will be deorbited. Launch of Progress M-34 is scheduled for early April. Recent Launches --------------- The first Titan 4B was launched successfully from Cape Canaveral on Feb 23. The vehicle, K-24, is the first to use Alliant SRMU solid rocket motors replacing the UTC solid motors which have propelled Titan 3 and 4 vehicles since 1965. K-24 carried a Boeing Inertial Upper Stage (serial number not known yet). The two stage IUS solid upper stage was due to place the payload in geostationary orbit. The K-24 payload was Defense Support Program DSP F-18, a TRW-built early warning satellite with an infrared telescope for detecting missile launches. The International Telecommunications Satellite Organization's first Intelsat 8 satellite, Intelsat 801, was launched on Mar 1. The satellite was launched by Arianespace's Ariane 44P rocket on mission V94. The Intelsat 8 satellites are built by Lockheed Martin/East Windsor and use the Series 7000 spacecraft bus. The Series 7000 uses either the Royal Ordnance Leros 1 or the TRW 454N LAE for apogee propulsion, I don't know what's on the Intelsat 8, though. The first launch from Russia's far eastern Svobodniy cosmodrome (51.2 N 128.0 E) was a success. A Start-1 rocket placed the Zeya satellite in sun-synchronous orbit. The Zeya (also known as Mozhaets) satellite was designed by the students of the Mozhaiskiy military space engineering academy and built at NPO-PM. The launch vehicle is the four-stage Start-1, using a mobile launch platform at Svobodniy. It will be used for navigation and geodesy. The MSX satellite's solid hydrogen cooled IR telescope completed operations on Feb 26. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jan 12 0928 Atlantis Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 01A Jan 17 1628 GPS 42 Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17A Navsat FTO Jan 30 2204 GE 2 ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 02A Nahuel 1A) Comsat 02B Feb 10 1409 Soyuz TM-25 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 03A Feb 11 0855 Discovery STS-82 Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 04A Feb 12 0450 Haruka M-V Kagoshima Astronomy 05A Feb 14 0347 Kosmos-2337 Tsiklon-3 Plesetsk LC32/1 Comsat 06A Kosmos-2338 Comsat 06B Kosmos-2339 Comsat 06C Gonets-D1 No. 4 Comsat 06D Gonets-D1 No. 5 Comsat 06E Gonets-D1 No. 6 Comsat 06F Feb 17 0142 JCSAT 4 Atlas IIAS Canaveral LC36B Comsat 07A Feb 23 2020 DSP F18 Titan 4B Canaveral LC40 Early Warn 08A Mar 1 0107 Intelsat 801 Ariane 44P Kourou ELA2 Comsat 09A Mar 4 0200 Zeya Start-1 Svobodniy LC5 Comsat 10A Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 1 STS-83 Apr 3 OV-103 Discovery RW15 KSC STS-82 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-84 May 15 OV-105 Endeavour Palmdale OMDP ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/ ML2/RSRM-60 VAB Bay 3 STS-84 ML3/RSRM-59/ET-84 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.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'