Jonathan's Space Report No. 421 2000 Feb 29 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Stations -------------------- Endeavour was launched at 1743:40 UTC on Feb 11 on mission STS-99. The RSRM-71 solid rocket boosters separated at 1745 UTC, and the OMS engines were fired in an OMS Assist maneuver from 1746 to 1747 UTC. Main engine cutoff was at 1752 UTC followed by separation of the External Tank, ET-92. The Orbiter and ET were then in a low perigee orbit. At 1819 UTC a 2 minute OMS-2 firing placed Endeavour in circular orbit, while the ET coasted to reentry over the Pacific. The 61-meter SRTM mast was deployed successfully at 2327 UTC on Feb 12. A failed thruster on the end of the mast concerned managers but did not affect the mission significantly. After some problems stowing the mast on Feb 21, Endeavour prepared for return on Feb 22. Deorbit burn was at 2225 UTC and OV-105 landed on runway 33 at KSC at 2322 UTC. Endeavour was towed to Orbiter Processing Facility Bay 2 and will be prepared for the STS-97 mission. STS-99 mapped the land surface of the Earth between latitudes 60N and 54S for NIMA (US National Imagery and Mapping Agency), NASA, DLR (the German space agency) and ASI (the Italian space agency). Some of the NIMA data will remain secret for use by the US Dept. of Defense. Erratum: I'm informed that the Progress OKD actually stands for Otsek komponentov dozapravki, which makes more sense - I was working from a bad xerox, I guess. Compton ------- One of NASA's Great Observatories, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, may end its mission prematurely. GRO's BATSE experiment is more sensitive than any other current or funded gamma ray burst detector and the astronomical community was hoping for up to another decade of operations, but NASA management are worried that a single gyro failure (following one which failed in November) might eventually mean the 15-tonne satellite would reenter out of control. NASA-Goddard engineers developed a plan to deorbit it safely even if another gyro is lost, but some fear that Goddard management may recommend that GRO be brought down anyway, as soon as this June. This would be a big blow to the gamma ray astronomy community. Recent Launches --------------- The ASTRO-E X-ray astronomy satellite was launched on Feb 10. However, the first stage of the M-V launch vehicle (serial M-V-4) went off course. An anomalous vibration was detected 25 seconds after launch. At 41 seconds ceramic heat shields in the first stage nozzle apparently broke and fell off, and thrust vector control on the nozzle was lost. Stage 1 separated at 1 min 15 s; stage 2 separated at 3 min 38 s. The third stage burn completed at 5 min 21s. Last signals from M-V-4 were received at 20 min after launch; the payload probably separated from the third stage at 23 min. Although the upper stages were able to fire and make some correction to the trajectory, ASTRO-E ended up with a perigee of only 80 km and an apogee of 410 km. It may have reentered on the first orbit at around 0230-0300UTC somewhere between East Africa and Tibet or western China (depending on the altitude at injection); Space Command don't seemed to have cataloged any objects from the launch. I estimated possible TLE sets for the launch; very rough and in particular the argument of perigee is unknown. (Non-TLE aficionados should just ignore this...) 80 km injection altitude: 1F01226U 00F01 00041.06620000 2.39843756 +00000-0 +00000-0 0 10 2F01226 31.3000 203.0000 0250000 90.0000 0.0000 16.10400000 0 250 km injection altitude: 1F01226U 00F01 00041.06620000 2.41406256 +00000-0 +00000-0 0 10 2F01226 31.3000 203.0000 0250000 0.0000 90.0000 16.10400000 0 The four Globalstar satellites launched on Feb 8 complete the Globalstar constellation. On Feb 11 the satellites were in a 912 x 932 km x 52.0 deg orbit. In Russia, the search is still going on for the Fregat stage. The separate IRDT demonstrator was found and survived reentry well. The shield deployed to 2.5m diameter on reentry, but failed to extend to its 4m drag chute mode during final descent. Fregat's shield was actually 14m in diameter at full extent. The Proton returned to flight on Feb 12 with the launch of the Garuda 1 communications satellite for the ACES consortium which involves PSN of Indonesia, PLDT of the Phillipines, Lockheed Martin, and the Thai company Jasmine. The satellite is a Lockheed Martin A2100AXX and has two large 12-m diameter L-band antennas for cellphone relay. The Proton placed Garuda and the Blok DM3 on a suborbital trajectory. The first DM burn put the stack in a 200 km orbit; burn 2 was to geostationary transfer orbit and burn 3 raised the orbit to 6233 x 35946 km x 16 deg. The NEAR space probe entered orbit around (433) Eros on Feb 14. Orbit insertion was at 1534 UTC into an approx. 323 x 370 km orbit (relative to the center of Eros) with a period of about 27 days. NEAR is controlled from APL in Maryland. The JAK and STENSAT picosats were ejected from OPAL on Feb 11. Thelma and Louise were ejected on Feb 12. Unfortunately no data was received from the picosats. Superbird 4 was launched on Feb 18. The Hughes HS-601HP satellite will provide services for Space Communications Corp of Japan. Mass is 1657 kg dry; it carries 23 Ku-band and 6 Ka-band transponders, a Marquardt R4D apogee engine and a XIPS ion propulsion stationkeeping system. It was launched by an Arianespace Ariane 44LP rocket with two liquid and two solid strapon boosters. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jan 21 0103 DSCS III B-8 Atlas IIA Canaveral SLC36A Comsat 01A Jan 25 0104 Galaxy 10R Ariane 42L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 02A Jan 25 1645 Zhongxing-22 CZ-3A Xichang LC2 Comsat 03A Jan 27 0303 JAWSAT ) Minotaur Vandenberg CLF Tech. 04A OCS ) Calib. 04B OPAL ) Tech. 04C FalconSat I) Tech. 04D ASUSAT ) Img/Com 04E Feb 1 0647 Progress M1-1 Soyuz Baykonur LC1 Cargo 05A Feb 3 0926 Kosmos-2369 Zenit-2 Baykonur LC45 Sigint 06A Feb 3 2330 Hispasat 1C Atlas IIAS Canaveral SLC36B Comsat 07A Feb 7 0334 MEMS 1 ) - OPAL, LEO Tech. 04H MEMS 2 ) Tech. 04H Feb 8 2124 Globalstar 60) Delta 7420 Canaveral SLC17B Comsat 08A Globalstar 62) Comsat 08B Globalstar 63) Comsat 08C Globalstar 64) Comsat 08D Feb 8 2320 IRDT ) Soyuz/Fregat Baykonur LC31 Tech 09 Dummy satellite) Tech 09A Fregat ) Tech 09B Feb 10 0130 ASTRO E M-V Kagoshima Mu Astron. F01 Feb 11 0510 JAK OPAL, LEO Comsat 04L Feb 11 0510 STENSAT OPAL, LEO Comsat 04M Feb 11 1743 Endeavour ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 10A SRL-3 ) Feb 12 0910 Garuda 1 Proton/DM3 Baykonur LC81L Comsat 11A Feb 12 1343 Thelma ) OPAL, LEO Science 04J Louise ) Science 04K Feb 18 0104 Superbird 4 Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Comsat 12A Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia Palmdale OMDP OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1 STS-92 2000 Sep? ISS 3A OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-101 2000 Apr 23 ISS 2A.2a OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 2 STS-97 2000 Nov? ISS 4A .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'