Jonathan's Space Report No. 433 2000 Aug 25, Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Historical note: SAMOS and Program 206 --------------------------------------- The CIA's CORONA spy satellite program has been discussed extensively since it was declassified in 1995. Two other early 1960s US Air Force spy satellite programs, SAMOS (largely unsuccessful) and Program 206 or KH-7 (highly successful), have not been talked about as much. Although the programs as a whole are still classified, for some years now there's been a lot of individual pieces of declassified information available which allows their story to be told. However, little of it has been widely published. Since there are rumours that declassification of at least some more of the 1960s programs will happen soon, I thought it would be a good time to review what's already known about SAMOS and KH-7 from the spaceflight history point of view; I deliberately avoid speculating about detailed intelligence capabilities of the systems, although 35-40 years later few people consider them to be highly sensitive. My new review of the SAMOS (Program 101, 101A, 101B, 201) and KH-7 (Program 206) missions can be found on the web at http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/book/programs/nro/usafnro.html Shuttle and Stations -------------------- Atlantis was rolled out to pad 39B on Aug 14. It will fly mission STS-106 to the International Space Station. Payload configuration on STS-106 is similar to that on Atlantis' previous STS-101 flight, including the docking system, tunnel adapter, long tunnel, Spacehab Double Module, and the Spacehab Integrated Cargo Carrier. I'm not sure yet if any sidewall payloads are in the cargo bay. The Progress M1-3 cargo ship remains docked to the ISS, which currently consists of the PMA-2, Unity, PMA-1, Zarya, and Zvezda modules. Fuel was automatically transferred from M1-3 to Zvezda within a few days of the Aug 8 docking. The Progress M1-2 cargo ship remains docked to the Mir orbital complex, which also continues orbiting unattended by a crew. Current Launches ---------------- The third Boeing Delta III launch was completed successfully on Aug 23 and the dummy DM-F3 satellite was placed in orbit. Launch from Cape Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 17B was at 1105 UTC on Aug 23. The second stage ignited at 1109 UTC at an altitude of 158 km and shut off with depletion at 1118 UTC in an approximately 157 x 1363 km x 29.5 deg parking orbit. The RL-10 fired again at 1126 UTC and at 1129 UTC shut off to place the vehicle in geostationary transfer orbit. The DM-F3 payload separated at 1141 UTC. Space Command initially cataloged the payload in a marginal 51 x 19841 km x 28.0 deg orbit but a second element set shows it at a more reasonable 190 x 20655 km x 27.6 deg. The intended orbit was a much higher 183 x 25778 km x 27.5 deg according to the press kit. This would correspond to a 0.15 km/s underspeed, but a Boeing press release on Aug 24 said that because of the fuel temperature and atmospheric conditions on the day of launch, the actual expected apogee was 23400 km with an error of 3000 km, so the mission was just within target limits. Since the flight was to fuel depletion instead of targeting a specific orbit, the final orbit achieved does depend on atmospheric density, although it's a bit surprising to me that the press kit didn't include any expected range on the orbit given the huge uncertainties in this case - this led to rumours of a failure circulating on the day after launch. The DM-F3 dummy payload is a mass model of the Orion 3 HS-601 satellite launched on the second Delta 3. The 4348 kg satellite is a 2.0m diameter, 1.7m high cylinder with two circular end plates, painted with black and white patterns; it will be used by US Air Force researchers as a calibration target. The satellite was built by Boeing/Huntington Beach. The Delta model 8930 first stage is derived from Thor, and the lower section LOX tank retains Thor's 2.44-meter diameter. The upper, kerosene, tank has been enlarged to 4.0m diameter giving the stage an unusual hammerhead shape. The stage retains Delta II's Boeing Rocketdyne RS-27A main engine. Like the Delta II 7925, it has nine Alliant strapon solid boosters, but each booster is the larger GEM-46 instead of the Delta II's GEM-40. The Delta 3 Second Stage is an all-new liquid hydrogen fuel upper stage with a Pratt and Whitney RL-10B-2 engine; the Aug 23 flight was the first complete and successful flight of the stage in space (the first Delta 3 was destroyed early in flight, and the second had an RL-10 failure early in the second burn). The Delta 3 stage is 8.8m long and 4.0m diameter, with a dry mass of 2476 kg. Two communications satellites were launched on an Ariane 44LP rocket from Kourou on Aug 17. The Arianespace rocket placed the satellites in a 277 x 35745 km x 3.0 deg low-inclination geostationary transfer orbit. The upper satellite on flight V131 was Brasilsat B4, for the Brazilian communications company Embratel. This is the fourth and last of the Brasilsat B series which use a unique Hughes HS-376W bus, based on the old HS-376 spin-stabilized design but with a larger diameter and using the R-4D liquid apogee motor instead of a solid apogee motor. Dry mass of B4 is 820 kg and launch mass is 1750 kg. B4 is a C-band satellite replacing the 15-year-old Brasilsat A2. The lower satellite on this launch was Nilestar 102, for the Egyptian communications company Nilesat SA. The satellite has a dry mass of 813 kg, a launch mass of 1827 kg, and is a Eurostar 2000 class bus built by Astrium SAS of Toulouse (formerly Matra). The satellite will join Nilesat 101 in providing Ku-band broadcast services. A classified satellite was launched on a US Air Force/Lockheed Martin Titan 4 from Vandenberg on Aug 17. The satellite, a payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, is believed to be an ONYX (formerly LACROSSE) radar imaging spacecraft built by Lockheed Martin. The Titan 4B, vehicle B-28, was launched from Space Launch Complex 4-East. The Titan second stage reached a 572 x 675 km x 68.0 deg orbit and separated from the payload. Amateur observers report the payload has made two small maneuvers since then and on Aug 23 was in a 681 x 695 km x 68.1 deg orbit. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jul 4 2344 Kosmos-2371 Proton-K/DM-2? Baykonur LC200? Commsat 36A Jul 12 0456 Zvezda Proton-K Baykonur LC81L Station 37A Jul 14 0521 Echostar VI Atlas 2AS Canaveral SLC36B Commsat 38A Jul 15 1200 CHAMP ) Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Science 39A MITA ) Science 39B Rubin ) Imaging 39C Jul 16 0917 GPS SVN 44 Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17A Navsat 40A Jul 16 1239 Samba ) Soyuz-Fregat Baykonur LC31 Science 41A Salsa ) Science 41B Jul 19 2009 Mightysat 2.1 Minotaur Vandenberg CLF Tech 42A Jul 28 2242 PAS 9 Zenit-3SL Odyssey, POR Commsat 43A Aug 6 1827 Progress M1-3 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 44A Aug 9 1113 Rumba ) Soyuz-Fregat Baykonur LC31 Science 45A Tango ) Science 45B Aug 17 2316 Brasilsat B-4 ) Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Commsat 46A Nilesat 102 ) Commsat 46B Aug 17 2345 USA 152 Titan 4B Vandenberg SLC4E Recon 47A Aug 23 1105 DM-F3 Delta 8930 Canaveral SLC17B Test 48A Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia Palmdale OMDP OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 3 STS-92 2000 Oct ISS 3A OV-104 Atlantis LC39B STS-106 2000 Sep ISS 2A.2b OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 2 STS-97 2000 Nov? ISS 4A MLP-1 MLP-2/RSRM-75/ET-103/OV-104 LC39B STS-106 MLP-3/RSRM-76/ET-104 VAB Bay 3 STS-92 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'