Jonathan's Space Report No. 338 1997 Oct 14 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I will be on travel for the last half of October, so the next issue (338) will probably not be out till early November. I've updated some of the info on my space home page http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/space.html including the geostationary satellite log. Shuttle and Mir --------------- The Mir crew have removed a clamp that was inadvertently left in attaching Progress M-35 to Kvant, preventing its undocking. Progress M-35 then successfully undocked at 1203 UTC on Oct 7 (info from Chris van den Berg). PM-35 deorbited at 1641 UTC and fell in the Pacific at 1723 UTC (info from Vladimir Agapov). In response to last week's query, Bart Hendrickx tells me that Soyuz-21 also had problems undocking, back in 1976. Progress M-36 docked with the Kvant module on Mir at 1707 UTC on Oct 8 using the Kurs automatic system. Atlantis is being prepared for return to Palmdale for an Orbiter Maintenance Down Period (OMDP) refurbishment. The next launch is Columbia on mission STS-87. Bob Cabana is stepping down as Chief of the Astronaut Office and will command the first Station assembly flight. His replacement is Ken Cockrell. Cabana was CAO for 3 years, following Gibson (2 years), Brandenstein (5 1/2 years), Young (13 years) and Shepard (10 years). Several other astronauts also served as acting chief at various times. Recent Launches --------------- IRS-1D as of Oct 8 was in a 550 x 820 km orbit, which ISRO announced as the minimum altitude for useful operations. By Oct 14 it was in a 736 x 825 km x 98.6 deg orbit. The Foton No. 11 spacecraft was launched on Oct 9. Foton is a recoverable microgravity science satellite based on the Zenit (Vostok) bus, built by TsSKB-Progress of Samara, which also produces the Soyuz-U launch vehicle used to place Foton in orbit. On Oct 12, Foton was in a 218 x 371 km x 62.8 deg orbit. GE 3 is now on station at 87.0W. Intelsat 803 is at 27.5W; Echostar 3 is in a 35722 x 38633 km x 0.3 deg drift orbit. The NASA/ESA Cassini/Huygens Saturn probe was scheduled for launch on Oct 15 at the time of writing. Launch vehicle is Titan 4B Centaur, serial B-33. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Sep 1 1400 Iridium MFS ) CZ-2C Taiyuan Inert 48A Iridium MFS ) Inert 48B Sep 2 2221 Hot Bird 3 ) Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Comsat 49A Meteosat 7 ) Weather 49B Sep 4 1203 GE-3 Atlas IIAS Canaveral LC36A Comsat 50A Sep 14 0136 Iridium SV027 ) Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur Comsat 51D Iridium SV028 ) Comsat 51E Iridium SV029 ) Comsat 51A Iridium SV030 ) Comsat 51F Iridium SV031 ) Comsat 51G Iridium SV032 ) Comsat 51B Iridium SV033 ) Comsat 51C Sep 23 1644 Kosmos-2346 ) Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Navsat 52A FAISAT-2V ) Comsat 52B Sep 23 2358 Intelsat 803 Ariane 42L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 53A Sep 24 2132 Molniya-1T Molniya-M Plesetsk LC43 Comsat 54A Sep 26 0234 Atlantis Shuttle Kennedy LC39 Spaceship 55A Sep 27 0123 Iridium SV019 ) Delta 7920 Vandenberg SLC2W Comsat 56A Iridium SV034 ) 56E Iridium SV035 ) 56D Iridium SV036 ) 56C Iridium SV037 ) 56B Sep 29 0447 IRS-1D PSLV Sriharikota Rem sens. 57A Oct 5 1508 Progress M-36 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 58A Oct 5 2101 Echostar III Atlas IIAS Canaveral LC36 Comsat 59A Oct 9 1800? Foton No. 11 Soyuz-U Plesetsk Micrograv 60A Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 2 STS-87 Nov 19 OV-103 Discovery VAB Bay 2 STS-91 May 28 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 OMDP OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-89 Jan 15 MLP/SRB/ET/OV stacks MLP1/RSRM63/ET-89 VAB Bay 3 STS-87 MLP2/ MLP3/RSRM64 MMM VAB Bay 1 STS-89 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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/~jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html | | Back issues: ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'