Jonathan's Space Report No. 339 1997 Nov 5 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Editorial --------- Apologies for the gap in service; I've been travelling. Of course, I leave the office for two weeks and more stuff goes on than usually happens in two months - so this issue is a big one. Note: I've recently 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 --------------- Columbia is now on pad 39B ready for launch on mission STS-87, scheduled for Nov 19. Mir crew Solov'yov and Vinogradov carried out a 6h38min internal spacewalk on Oct 20, during which they worked inside the depressurized Mir base block transfer compartment and the damaged Spektr module to connect new cables to the Spektr module, restoring the capability to point the Spektr solar arrays. NASA astronaut David Wolf remained inside the station. During an EVA on Nov 3 the Mir crew removed an old solar panel from Kvant. The solar panel was retracted on command, removed from the Kvant module, and stowed on the exterior of the core module. It will be replaced by a US/Russian cooperative solar array currently stored folded up on the Docking Module. The outer Kvant-2 hatch did not seal correctly after the EVA, but the inner hatch is well sealed. The Sputnik-40 1/3-scale model of PS-1 ("Sputnik" ) was also hand-launched during the EVA into a 383 x 391 km x 51.6 deg orbit. The model is also referred to as PS-2, but this is a bad idea since PS-2 was the correct name of the second Soviet satellite, which carried the dog Laika. Sputnik-40 (the French spelling Spoutnik-40 may also be considered correct) was cataloged by US Space Command as object 24958, previously reserved for the Intelsat 803 Ariane rocket which has apparently still not been tracked. The model was built by high school students in the republic of Kabardin-Balakarsk in the Russian Federation, in the Caucasus near Chechnya. The radio transmitter payload was built by students on Reunion, a French territory in the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar. If anyone knows the exact time the Sputnik model was released, please let me know. Recent Launches --------------- The NASA/ESA Cassini/Huygens Saturn probe was launched on Oct 15. Launch vehicle was Titan 4B Centaur, serial B-33. The Titan took off at 0843 UTC, and separated from the Centaur at 0852 UTC. The first Centaur burn placed the Centaur/Cassini combination in a 168 x 446 km x 28.7 deg parking orbit at 0854 UTC. Centaur restarted at about 0913 UTC and shut down again at 0919 UTC, now on an escape trajectory from the Earth. It separated from Cassini at 0926 UTC and vented its remaining propellants to move its path away from the space probe. I don't have any solar orbital elements for Cassini yet. Cassini was built by JPL, with a Propulsion Module System built by Lockheed Martin/Denver. The ESA Huygens probe, which will land on Titan, was built by Aerospatiale and CASA. Mars Global Surveyor has raised its perigee to 170 km while controllers study unexpected movements in its loose solar panel. Meanwhile, JPL announced the end of the Mars Pathfinder mission; last signal detected from the Sagan Memorial Station was on Oct 6. Apstar 2R was launched on Oct 16. It is an SS/Loral FS-1300 comsat for Asia Pacific Telecom and will provide telecom services for China. Launch vehicle was a Chinese Chang Zheng (Long March) 3B, the third to be launched. Apstar 2R is now on station at 76 deg E. The third NRO Lacrosse radar imaging satellite was launched on Oct 24 into a 425 x 672 km x 57.0 deg orbit; the on board engine will circularize the orbit later. It replaces the first Lacrosse in a 57 degree orbit. Launch vehicle was a Titan 4A, serial A-18 (formerly K-18). The payload is publicly identified as USA 133; it reportedly carries a large radar to carry out reconnaissance missions even in the presence of cloud cover. The satellite is probably built by Lockheed Martin Astronautics/Denver. DSCS III B-13 is an X-band (8/7 GHz) comsat for the US Department of Defense, built by Lockheed Martin/Valley Forge (formerly GE Space; this satellite, however, was the first DSCS to complete its testing at Lockheed Martin/Sunnyvale). Lockheed Martin/Denver's Atlas Centaur AC-131 placed the satellite in transfer orbit, and the IABS-6 upper stage (using twin Marquardt R-4D liquid apogee engines) circularized it at geostationary altitude. Launch of AC-131 was on Oct 25. The AC-131 Centaur stage has an attached secondary payload, the USAF Academy's Falcon Gold experiment to test out the usability of GPS navigation at geostationary altitude. DSCS III satellites: Satellite Launch date Launch vehicle A-1 1982 Oct 30 Titan 34D-1/IUS B-4 1985 Oct 3 STS-51J/IUS B-5 1985 Oct 3 STS-51J/IUS A-2 1989 Sep 4 Titan 34D/Transtage B-14 1992 Feb 11 Atlas II/IABS B-12 1992 Jul 2 Atlas II/IABS B-9 1993 Jul 19 Atlas II/IABS B-10 1993 Nov 28 Atlas II/IABS B-7 1995 Jul 31 Atlas IIA/IABS B-13 1997 Oct 25 Atlas IIA/IABS The STEP M4 satellite, built by TRW/Chantilly and launched for the US Air Force Space Test Program as flight P95-1, failed to communicate with the ground after launch on Oct 22 and a spacecraft emergency was declared. So far controllers have not been able to contact the satellite. It appears that the solar panels failed to deploy. The launch itself was another success for Orbital's Pegasus XL. The 400 kg research satellite carries the Orbiting Ozone and Aerosol Measurement experiment, the Electromagnetic Propagation Experiment, and the Digital Ion Drift Meter. The STEP program record has been rather mixed, with the last three missions failing (and STEP M2 operating from a lower than planned orbit): P90-5 STEP M0 1994 Mar 13 Taurus 539 x 559 km x 105.0 deg P91-2 STEP M2 1994 May 19 Pegasus/HAPS 603 x 821 km x 82.0 deg P90-1 STEP M1 1994 Jun 27 Pegasus XL Failed to orbit P92-2 STEP M3 1995 Jun 22 Pegasus XL Failed to orbit P95-1 STEP M4 1997 Oct 22 Pegasus XL 433 x 501 km x 45.0 deg The MIRACL laser was used on Oct 17 to illuminate the MSTI-3 satellite in an antisatellite experiment. The experiment was not intended to damage the satellite, just to measure the illumination level; however, a telemetry problem prevented MSTI-3's data from being returned. MSTI-3 is a USAF (originally SDIO) satellite carrying experimental infrared sensors. The European Space Agency launched the Ariane 502 vehicle on Oct 30. This was a crucial launch for the future of ESA and Arianespace, following the failure of Ariane 501. The vehicle placed its payloads in orbit, but the EPC core stage shut down early and had a roll control problem, making the orbit significantly lower than planned, at 534 x 26631 km x 7.8 deg. The EAP solid boosters and the EPS final stage appear to have operated correctly. The main payload was MAQSAT-H, built by Kayser-Threde of Munich as a dummy comsat with accelerometers to measure the launch environment. The TEAMSAT experiment package, attached to MAQSAT-H, was developed by ESTEC and carries several technology experiments. TEAMSAT has ejected a subsatellite, the YES (Young Engineers Satellite) which is a small satellites with several experiments, (but a 20 km tether experiment will not be carried out due to space debris concerns). MAQSAT-B, also built by Kayser-Threde, is a smaller dummy satellite stored below the SPELTRA dual launch adapter and which remains attached to the EPS stage. A dummy ballast mass replaced the AMSAT amateur radio satellite which was pulled off the mission because of a predicted rougher ride than originally specified; this ballast probably is also attached to MAQSAT-B. Brazil's first satellite launch attempt failed on Nov 2. The VLS rocket was destroyed 65 seconds after launch. VLS (Veiculo Laucadror de Satelites) has an S43TM core stage with four similar S43 strapons; an S40TM second stage; and an S44 third stage. The S43 stage which appears to have failed was previously flown on the Sonda 4 sounding rocket and the VLS-R1 test vehicle. This was the first orbital launch attempt from the Centro Tecnico Aeroespacial at Alcantara, Maranhao state, Brasil (02 deg 17' S, 44 deg 23' W), carried out under the auspices of the Brazilian space agency INPE (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espacias). The payload was SCD-2A, Satelite de Coleta de Dados (Data Collection Satellite), a 150 kg satellite which was a refurbished prototype for SCD-1, launched by Pegasus in 1993. The SCD satellites relay environmental data from remote stations in the Amazon basin to a ground station at Cuiaba. The satellite is an octagonal cylinder, 1.0 m in diameter and 0.72 m high. The Foton No. 11 microgravity spacecraft carried the first Kayser-Threde Mirka reentry vehicle. It contains experiments to study reentry technology and heat shield materials. Both the Foton descent module and Mirka were successfully recovered in Kazakstan on Oct 23. Launch of the GPS SVN38 navigation satellite is scheduled for Nov 6. Vacation Report ---------------- The Centre Spatial de Toulouse (CST) of CNES (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales) has been France's main space development and satellite control center since the mid 1970s. Very roughly, CNES/Evry maps to NASA-Marshall, CNES/Kourou to NASA-KSC, CNES/Paris to NASA HQ, and CNES/Toulouse to NASA-Goddard (and to a lesser extent JSC, with some hopes to be JPL as well). The operations control center at CST takes care of the Telecom and TDF comsats and the Spot remote sensing satellites, and also provides its services to commercial comsat clients for early orbit operations and checkout, with multiple independent control rooms available for dual-satellite launches. There's also a separate control center for the COSPAS/SARSAT search and rescue system, which relays emergency messages to the relevant rescue agencies. The digital SAR package on NOAA's weather satellites is made by the folks at Toulouse. CST is currently developing the Proteus minisatellite, which will be first used for the international Jason altimetry project. Other divisions at CST are responsible for Spot and Helios, for microgravity missions and piloted flights, microsatellites and balloons. Thanks to my friends at CNES for their remarkable hospitality. Cite de l'Espace I also visited the Cite de L'Espace, Toulouse's space tourist attraction. It's sort of accessible by public transport, but for some incomprehensible reason the bus line stops one km short of it. The main attraction is a lifesize Ariane 5; you can walk underneath the main engine and there is a small exhibition on Ariane propulsion systems inside the dummy launch tower. An Ariane 1 in pieces illustrates the different tanks and interstages making up a rocket. On display are full size models of Sputnik, ERS 2, Soyuz, Starlette, Mage 2, Telecom 1, Meteosat and Soho. There's a nice display on COSPAS/SARSAT and a model of the Columbus lab that you can walk in, and some fairly good displays on satellite components, plus some nice meteorites. A lot of the material on display is from products of Matra Marconi Space/Toulouse, which is not too surprising. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. 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 Mirka ) Oct 15 0843 Cassini ) Titan Centaur Canaveral LC40 Saturn probe 61A Huygens ) Titan probe Oct 16 1913 Apstar 2R CZ-3B Xichang Comsat 62A Oct 22 1315 STEP M4 Pegasus XL Wallops I? Technology 63A Oct 24 0232 Lacrosse 3? Titan 4A Vandenberg SLC4E Recon 64A Oct 25 0046 DSCS III B-13 ) Atlas IIA Canaveral LC36A Comsat 65A Falcon Gold ) Technology 65B Oct 30 1343 Maqsat H ) Ariane 5 Kourou ELA3 Technology 66A Maqsat B ) 66B Nov 2 1225 SCD-2A VLS Alcantara Rem.sens. FTO Nov 3 0405 Sputnik-40 Mir,LEO Demo 58C Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia LC39B STS-87 Nov 19 OV-103 Discovery OPF 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/OV-102 VAB Bay 3 STS-87 MLP2/ MLP3/RSRM64 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.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'