Jonathan's Space Report No. 373 1998 Sep 27 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Mir --------------- Gennadiy Padalka and Sergey Avdeev have completed one month in space, continuing their mission on the Mir orbital station. On Sep 15 they put on spacesuits, depressurized the PKhO compartment of the Mir core module and entered Spektr at 2000 UTC. They reconnected some cables for the solar panel steering mechanism and closed the hatch at 2030 UTC. The PKhO was then repressurized. Discovery has been connected to the external tank and boosters in High Bay 1 of the Vehicle Assembly Building. It was rolled out to pad 39B on Sep 21. Recent Launches --------------- * Ariane launches PAS 7 Arianespace successfully launched an Ariane 44LP rocket on Sep 16, placing the PAS 7 satellite in orbit. PAS-7 was built by Space Systems/Loral and is a FS-1300 class satellite with 14 C-band and 30 Ku-band transponders. It is owned by Panamsat, whose Galaxy 10 satellite was destroyed in an Aug 27 launch failure. The Ariane 44LP has two solid PAP boosters and two liquid PAL boosters attached to the Ariane 4 first stage. The H-10-3 liquid hydrogen fuelled third stage completed its burn 18 min after launch. The PAS 7 satellite separated 21 min after launch into a supersynchronous 140 x 54755 x 7.0 deg transfer orbit - I believe this is the first time that an Ariane launch has used the supersynchronous technique. On Sep 18, PAS 7 was in a 10082 x 54599 km x 2.2 deg orbit after initial burns of its Marquardt R-4D liquid apogee motor. PAS series satellites: Type Launch v. Launch date 1998 position PAS 1 GE Series 3000 Ariane 4 1988 Jun 15 Atlantic 44.9W PAS 2 Hughes HS-601 Ariane 4 1994 Jul 8 Pacific 169.0E PAS 3 Hughes HS-601 Ariane 4 1994 Dec 1 Launch failure PAS 4 Hughes HS-601 Ariane 4 1995 Aug 3 Indian 68.5E PAS 3R Hughes HS-601 Ariane 4 1996 Jan 12 Indian 91.5E PAS 6 Loral FS-1300 Ariane 4 1996 Aug 8 Atlantic 43.2W PAS 5 Hughes HS-601HP Proton 1997 Aug 28 Atlantic 58.0W PAS 7 Loral FS-1300 Ariane 4 1998 Sep 16 Indian 68.5E (planned) * Orbital Sciences launches Orbcomms Eight more Orbcomm satellites were launched on Sep 23. The Orbital Sciences L-1011 Stargazer aircraft took off from Wallops Flight Facility at 1610 UTC and flew to the drop point at around 37.0N 72.0W. 12 km over the Atlantic Ocean (this guesstimate location is based on info courtesy of Keith Stein). The Pegasus XL was dropped at 1706 UTC and the winged first stage ignited its Alliant solid motor 5 seconds later. The three solid Pegasus XL stages fired successfully to place the payload stack in a 254 x 446 km x 45.0 km orbit. The Primex Aerospace HAPS-Lite hydrazine upper stage then made a burn to increase apogee to around 800 km, and the stack coasted for about 44 minutes until a second HAPS burn circularized the orbit. The eight Orbcomm satellites were then deployed over a 15 minute period into an 810 km near-circular orbit. Finally, the HAPS stage made a final burn to deplete its fuel, lowering its perigee by 100 km. The mission profile was similar to previous Orbcomm launches, except that the Pegasus third stage apogee is significantly lower, with a correspondingly larger HAPS burn. * Globalstar failure In my description of the Zenit launch failure I said that Yuzhnoe officials provided incorrect information about the progress of the mission to Globalstar. A more recent Globalstar statement implies that both Yuzhnoe's and Globalstar's people simply misinterpreted the noisy data available to them. This is by no means the first time that a launch success has been announced and later retracted - it happened several times in the early days of the space program, and more recently the Landsat 6 satellite was even cataloged by Space Command for a while before it was discovered to be in a submarine orbit. North Korea, meanwhile, has not yet acknowledged that its satellite never reached orbit. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. 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 ) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM9 ) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM10) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM11) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM12) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM13) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM16) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM17) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM18) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM20) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM21) Comsat F05 Sep 16 0631 PAS 7 Ariane 44LP Kourou Comsat 52A Sep 23 0506 Orbcomm FM21 ) Pegasus XL/HAPS Wallops I Comsat 53A Orbcomm FM22 ) Comsat 53B Orbcomm FM23 ) Comsat 53C Orbcomm FM24 ) Comsat 53D Orbcomm FM25 ) Comsat 53E Orbcomm FM26 ) Comsat 53F Orbcomm FM27 ) Comsat 53G Orbcomm FM28 ) Comsat 53H Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-93 Jan ? OV-103 Discovery LC39B STS-95 Oct 29 OV-104 Atlantis Palmdale OMDP OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-88 Dec 3? MLP2/RSRM-68/ET-98/OV-103 LC39B 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'