Jonathan's Space Report No. 393 1999 Mar 29 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Human spaceflight ------------------- The EO-27 crew of Afanas'ev, Avdeev and Haignere are aboard the Mir complex. Progress cargo ship No. 241 is being prepared for launch at Baykonur and will become Progress M-41 after launch. Discovery is being prepared for the STS-96 mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Launch date now looks like May 24, as Boeing Delta has the range for May 20 for FUSE. The cargo bay manifest of Discovery for STS-96 is: Bay 1-2: Orbiter Docking System/External Airlock Bay 1 Port: Tool Stowage Assembly Bay 1 Stbd: Tool Stowage Assembly Bay 3-4: Tunnel Adapter S/N 001 Bay 5-7: Spacehab Tunnel Bay 5: Keel Yoke Device (KYD) and Integrated Cargo Carrier (ICC) Bay 8-12: Spacehab Logistics Double Module Bay 13 Port: Adapter Beam (ABA) with IVHM Bay 13 Stbd: Adapter Beam (ABA) with SVF/Starshine Sill: RMS Arm S/N 303 The Orbiter Docking System (ODS) and External Airlock (EAL), built by Boeing/Palmdale, will be used to dock to the PMA-2 docking port on the ISS. The EAL connects to the Tunnel Adapter (TA) which contains an airlock hatch for EVAs. The TA in turn connects to the Spacehab Tunnel, which I believe was built by Boeing/Huntington Beach (did I spell that right for once?) and is similar to the Spacelab Tunnel hardware. The Spacehab Tunnel in turn leads to the Spacehab Logistics Double Module. The Spacehab-DM structure was built by Alenia/Torino and is owned by Spacehab, Inc. It contains supplies and equipment for ISS. The Keel Yoke Device props up the Spacehab, Inc. ICC (Integrated Cargo Carrier) which sits above the Spacehab Tunnel. The ICC is a pallet which carries two cranes: NASA's OTD (Orbital Replacement Unit Transfer Device) and Russia's Strela. The cranes will be installed on ISS. It also carries the SHOSS (Spacehab Oceaneering Space Systems) Box. (Oceaneering Space Systems is a Houston company, I don't know what the box is for). The adapter beam in Bay 13 port carries the IVHM vehicle health monitoring system, which is being checked out for operational use. The Bay 13 Starboard adapter beam carries two experiments, SVF and Starshine. SVF (Shuttle Vibration Forces) measures vibrations during launch. Starshine, in the forward position on the beam, is a satellite which will be ejected into orbit as a visual target to be used by students for educational exercises. STS-96 commander is Cmdr. Kent Rominger, USN, pilot is Lt Col Rick Husband, USAF. Mission specialists are MS1 Dr. Tamara Jernigan (NASA), MS2 Dr. Ellen Ochoa (NASA), MS3 Dr. Daniel Barry, MD (NASA), MS4 Julie Payette (Canadian Space Agency), and MS5 Pol. Valeriy Tokarev, VVS (Russian Space Agency). Jernigan and Barry will make a spacewalk. Recent Launches --------------- The first Boeing Sea Launch mission was a success. The Zenit-3SL launch vehicle took off from the Sea Launch Odyssey mobile platform at 154.0W 0.0N on Mar 28. DemoSat carries launch vehicle instrumentation and is a dynamic model of an HS-702 satellite. Its mass is about 4500 kg. DemoSat was built by Boeing Commercial Space/Kent. The first two stages of the Zenit are built by Yuhznoe in the Ukraine. The third stage is a Blok DM-SL, built by Energiya/Kaliningrad and based on the Blok DM series used for Proton upper stages. Its first burn placed it in a 180 x 735 km x 1.2 deg parking orbit 13 min after launch, followed by a second burn 47 min after launch to deliver DemoSat to a 638 x 36064 km x 1.2 deg geostationary transfer orbit. Three hours later, a third DM-SL burn was due to lower the rocket stage's orbit so that it will reenter quickly (I haven't had confirmation on this burn yet). Asiasat 3S was launched on Mar 21 by International Launch Services on a Krunichev Proton-K with an Energiya Blok DM3 upper stage. Asiasat, based in Hong Kong, will operate the satellite as a replacement for Asiasat 3, which was placed in the wrong orbit by a Proton launch in 1997. Asiasat 3, renamed HGS-1, is currently in inclined geostationary drift orbit awaiting customers, after completing a remarkable pair of trips around the Moon last year. The new satellite, Asiasat 3S, is a copy of its precursor. It is a Hughes HS-601HP with C and Ku band transponders. Mass in transfer orbit is 3463 kg, down to 2500 kg at beginning of life. The Blok DM3 placed Asiasat 3S in a 9677 x 35967 km x 13.1 deg transfer orbit. Asiasat's Marquardt R4D apogee engine will be used to raise perigee to geostationary altitude. WIRE is now stable; although its primary mission was a failure, it will be used for systems tests. Pedantic correction on last week's pedantic note: Chinese scholars tell me that Chunghua would be Zhonghua in Pinyin, not Zhongguo, and refers to China and things Chinese in the abstract. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Feb 7 2104 Stardust Delta 7426 Canaveral SLC17A Probe 03A Feb 9 0354 Globalstar M023 ) Soyuz-U/Ikar Baykonur LC1 Comsat 04B Globalstar M036 ) Comsat 04A Globalstar M038 ) Comsat 04C Globalstar M040 ) Comsat 04D Feb 15 0512 Telstar 6 Proton-K/DM3 Baykonur LC81L Comsat 05A Feb 16 0145 JCSAT-6 Atlas 2AS Canaveral SLC36A Comsat 06A Feb 20 0418 Soyuz TM-29 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 07A Feb 23 1030 ARGOS ) Delta 7920 Vandenberg SLC2W Technol. 08A Orsted ) Space Sci 08B Sunsat ) Technol. 08C Feb 26 2244 Arabsat 3A ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 09A Skynet 4E ) Comsat 09B Feb 28 0400 Raduga-1 Proton-K/DM-2 Baykonur LC81P Comsat 10A Mar 5 0256 WIRE Pegasus XL Vandenberg Astronomy 11A Mar 15 0306 Globalstar M022 ) Soyuz-U/Ikar Baykonur LC1 Comsat 12A Globalstar M041 ) Comsat 12B Globalstar M046 ) Comsat 12C Globalstar M037 ) Comsat 12D Mar 21 0009 Asiasat 3S Proton-K/DM3 Baykonur LC81L Comsat 13A Mar 28 0130 DemoSat Zenit-3SL Odyssey, POR Test 14A Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia VAB Bay 2 STS-93 Jul 9 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1 STS-96 May 24 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-101 Oct 14? OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 2 STS-99 Sep 18 MLP1/RSRM-69/ET-99 VAB Bay 1 STS-93 MLP2/RSRM-70 VAB Bay 3 STS-96 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'