Jonathan's Space Report No. 372 1998 Sep 13 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Mir --------------- Gennadiy Padalka and Sergey Avdeev have completed one month in space, continuing their mission on the Mir orbital station. They are scheduled to make an internal spacewalk into the depressurized Spektr module on Sep 15 to repair a solar panel steering motor. Orbiter OV-103 Discovery will be rolled to the Vehicle Assembly Building's High Bay 1 on Sep 14 and connected to external tank ET-98 and solid rocket booster pair RSRM-68, which have been assembled on Mobile Launch Platform 2. Rollout of the assembled Space Shuttle vehicle to pad 39B is scheduled for Sep 21. Discovery will fly mission STS-95, with the Spartan solar observatory and the Spacehab research module. Meanwhile, launch of the first Space Station element, the Zarya FGB module, is still scheduled for November, although Keith Cowing's NASA Watch web site, http://www.reston.com/nasa/watch.html, rumours that a further major launch delay is being considered. Apparently the Service Module delivery date may slip to around July 1999, and RKA does not have the funds to build enough Soyuz and Progress supply ships. No up to date information is available from official sources, and since both US and Russian administrations have other priorities right now, any decision is unlikely until at least October. John Holliman ------------- John Holliman, CNN's space correspondent, was killed in a car accident on Sep 12. Recent Launches --------------- * Kwangmyongsong 1: the mystery continues The mystery of the North Korean launch continues. It now seems unlikely that the satellite reached orbit. A Russian press report said that Russian sources confirmed the satellite, but just repeated the North Korean figures, so cannot be considered as an independent source. Comments from US sources imply that a third stage burn was observed, but that nothing was later spotted on radar, suggesting that the satellite ended up falling into the Pacific instead of reaching orbit. I am cataloging it as a failed orbital launch attempt for now. The KCNA (North Korean news agency) informs me that the name of the satellite is "Kwangmyongsong No 1", meaning "Bright Light Star". They also confirm that there was a typo in the initial press release - the impact site of the first stage was at 132deg 40'E, a much more reasonable value, although still a few hundred km from the figure quoted in Aviation Week as coming from the Japanese. A Korean colleague informs me that Nodong (the previous N Korean missile) means 'Labour', as in 'Korean Labour Party'. and Taepo means `cannon'. *Zenit fails again The Zenit launch vehicle, built by Yuzhnoe of Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, continued its mixed record with a failure in its first major commercial launch. Counting the North Korean launch, this makes four launch failures in a single month - not a good time for the space launch industry. Twelve Globalstar communications satellites were lost when the Zenit guidance system malfunctioned 4.5 minutes after launch and the second stage and payloads impacted Siberia. The twelve satellites were stacked in three tiers of four each inside the Zenit fairing. The second stage engines shut down and the second stage and payloads impacted somewhere in Siberia. The failure happened at T+272s, just before fairing separation, and caused the stage 2 main engines to shut down. In an incredibly stupid move, the Yuzhnoe launch commentator was reading from a prepared script instead of actually delivering live information, initially leading Globalstar officials to believe the launch had succeeded. The Globalstar comsats are built by Alenia (Torino) and SS/Loral (Palo Alto) for Globalstar Corp. Eight Globalstars are already in orbit. Future Zenit launches for Globalstar are to be cancelled, with Soyuz-U/Ikar and Delta 7420 taking up the slack. Total constellation size will now be 44 satellites (36 prime plus eight spares). Here is a summary of the Globalstar satellites so far: Sat Launched Sat Launched Sat Launched Sat Launched FM1 1998 Feb 14 FM6 1998 Apr 24 FM11 1998 Sep 9 FM16 1998 Sep 9 FM2 1998 Feb 14 FM7 1998 Sep 9 FM12 1998 Sep 9 FM17 1998 Sep 9 FM3 1998 Feb 14 FM8 1998 Apr 24 FM13 1998 Sep 9 FM18 1998 Sep 9 FM4 1998 Feb 14 FM9 1998 Sep 9 FM14 1998 Apr 24 FM19 Not launched FM5 1998 Sep 9 FM10 1998 Sep 9 FM15 1998 Apr 24 FM20 1998 Sep 9 FM21 1998 Sep 9 * Iridium launch Boeing's Delta II made a successful flight on Sep 8, placing five Iridium communications satellites in parking orbit after launch from Vandenberg AFB. The problems with the new Delta III were determined not to affect the Delta II. This variant was a two-stage Delta 7920-10C, which placed SV77,79-82 in a 520 km parking orbit. The Iridium satellites will use their own on-board propulsion to raise their orbits. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Aug 2 1624 Orbcomm FM13 ) Pegasus XL Wallops Comsat 46A Orbcomm FM14 ) Comsat 46B Orbcomm FM15 ) Comsat 46C Orbcomm FM16 ) Comsat 46D Orbcomm FM17 ) Comsat 46E Orbcomm FM18 ) Comsat 46F Orbcomm FM19 ) Comsat 46G Orbcomm FM20 ) Comsat 46H Aug 12 1130 MERCURY Titan 4A Canaveral SLC41 Sigint F02 Aug 13 0943 Soyuz TM-28 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 47A Aug 19 2301 Iridium SV03) CZ-2C/SD Taiyuan Comsat 48A Iridium SV76) Comsat 48B Aug 25 2307 ST-1 Ariane 44P Kourou Comsat 49A Aug 27 0117 Galaxy X Delta III Canaveral SLC17B Comsat F03 Aug 30 0031 Astra 2A Proton Baykonur Comsat 50A Aug 31 0307 Kwangmyongsong 1 Taepo Dong Musudan Test F04 Sep 8 2113 Iridium SV77) Delta 7920 Vandenberg SLC2 Comsat 51E Iridium SV79) Comsat 51D Iridium SV80) Comsat 51C Iridium SV81) Comsat 51B Iridium SV82) Comsat 51A Sep 9 2029 Globalstar FM5 ) Zenit-2 Baykonur Comsat F05 Globalstar FM7 ) Globalstar FM9 ) Globalstar FM10) Globalstar FM11) Globalstar FM12) Globalstar FM13) Globalstar FM16) Globalstar FM17) Globalstar FM18) Globalstar FM20) Globalstar FM21) Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-93 Jan 21 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-95 Oct 29 OV-104 Atlantis Palmdale OMDP OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-88 Dec 3? MLP2/RSRM-68/ET-98 VAB Bay 1 STS-95 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS6 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@cfa.harvard.edu | | USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html | | Back issues: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: mail majordomo@head-cfa.harvard.edu, (un)subscribe jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'