Jonathan's Space Report: 10th anniversary year No. 386 1999 Jan 24 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Station ------------------------ The next Shuttle launch is STS-93, which will deploy the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Launch of Chandra has again been delayed, since faulty circuit boards found on the Kompsat satellite are also used in Chandra's command and telemetry unit. They'll have to replace at least some of the boards. The delay could be either one month or several months depending on how many units are affected; we'll know in a week or so. Columbia will be transferred to the Vehicle Assembly Building in early February; Chandra flies from TRW's Redondo Beach plant in California to Florida at the beginning of February, with the replacement boards to be installed at the Cape. The Mir space station remains in orbit with Gennady Padalka and Sergey Avdeev aboard. The transport ship Soyuz TM-28 and cargo ship Progress M-40 are docked to the station. The International Space Station remains dormant in orbit awaiting the STS-96 mission sometime this summer. Recent Launches --------------- The only orbital launch so far this month has been the Mars Polar Lander. The Cassini probe to Saturn entered safemode Jan 11 due to an attitude determination problem, but returned safely to checking out its instruments on Jan 16. Meanwhile, NEAR successfully made an engine burn to put it back on course for rendezvous with Eros in 2000. Mars Polar Lander has also made its first course correction in solar orbit. The NRO's ATeX advanced tether experiment reportedly failed on Jan 16. The ATeX lower end mass was meant to remain attached to the STEX parent spacecraft, but with only 21m of tether deployed, it appears the tether was so far off vertical that automatic safety systems jettisoned the base to protect the remainder of the STEX satellite. Thus,the upper and lower ATeX endmasses are in orbit as one object connected by a 21m tether, and designated USA 141 (1998-55C). The main STEX satellite is in orbit as a separate object, 1998-55A. Readers may be amused by Howard Altman's recent article in the Philadelphia City Paper, poking fun at JSR. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Dec 4 0835 Endeavour ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 69A Unity ) Station 69F PMA-1 ) PMA-2 ) Dec 6 0043 Satmex 5 Ariane 42L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 70A Dec 6 0057 SWAS Pegasus XL Vandenberg Astronomy 71A Dec 10 1157 Nadezhda ) Kosmos-3M Plesetsk Navsat 72A Astrid-2 ) Science 72B Dec 11 1845 Mars Climate Orb. Delta 7425 Canaveral SLC17A Mars probe 73A Dec 14 0431 SAC-A Endeavour,LEO Science 69B Dec 15 0209 Mightysat Endeavour,LEO Technol. 69C Dec 19 1130 Iridium 88?) CZ-2C/SD Taiyuan Comsat 74A Iridium 89?) Comsat 74B Dec 22 0108 PAS 6B Ariane 42L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 75A Dec 24 2003 Kosmos-2361 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk Navsat 76A Dec 30 1835 Kosmos-2362 ) Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur Navsat 77A Kosmos-2363 ) Navsat 77B Kosmos-2364 ) Navsat 77C Jan 3 2021 Mars Polar Lander) Delta 7425 Canaveral SLC17B Mars probe 01A MPL Cruise Stage ) DS2 Microprobe 1 ) DS2 Microprobe 2 ) Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-93 Unknown OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1 STS-96 May 1999 OV-104 Atlantis VAB Bay 2 STS-101 Aug 1999 OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 2 STS-99 Sep 1999 MLP1/RSRM-69/ET-99 VAB Bay 1 STS-93 MLP2/ MLP3/ .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'