Jonathan's Space Report No. 469 2001 Dec 11 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Station -------------------- Progress M1-7 soft docked to the Zvezda module at 1943 UTC on Nov 28. The docking probe was connected to Zvezda, but the vehicle was not firmly latched, preventing hatch opening and raising fears that vibration from a Shuttle docking could knock the spacecraft loose. A rubber seal left over from the previous occupant of the docking port, Progress M-45 was blocking the docking system and a spacewalk was required to clear it out of the way before a final seal could be made. This was very similar to the situation in April 1987 when astronauts had to make a spacewalk to fix an almost identical problem with the docking of the Kvant module to Mir. Dezhurov and Tyurin depressurized the Pirs airlock on Dec 3; by 1306 UTC pressure passed 50 mbar. After a 5 minute leak check at 21 mbar, the spacesuits went to battery power, the pressure was brought down even lower to 14 mbar and the hatch was opened at 1320 UTC. Dezhurov and Tyurin emerged at around 1327 UTC and by 1440 UTC were at the aft end of Zvezda. They identified the debris fouling the docking port as the rubber O-ring from the Progress M-45 docking system. At 1453 UTC the debris was removed and a minute later ground controllers successfully commanded the Progress M1-7 to complete a firm docking. Dezhurov and Tyurin returned to Pirs at 1559 UTC, closing the hatch at 1606 and repressurizing at 1609 for an EVA duration of 3hr3min (depress/repress), 2hr46min (hatch open/close, Russian rule) or 2hr 55min (NASA rule). Note: NASA refers to the new Progress as `Progress 6', a shorthand for the fact that Progress M1-7 is space station flight 6P. However, the real `Progress-6' was launched to Salyut-6 in May 1979, so I recommend that this nomenclature be avoided - use `Progress mission 6P' or `ISS 6P' if you must, but Progress M1-7 or Progress No. 256 (the factory serial number) is better. Space Shuttle mission STS-108 (ISS mission UF-1) was launched on Dec 5 at 2219:28 UTC. Endeavour reached an orbit of approximately 58 x 230 km (according to the NASA PAO) at 2228 UTC. At 2259 UTC Endeavour fired its OMS engines to raise perigee to 225 km. Mass after OMS-2 was 114692 kg. Endeavour docked with the Station at 2003 UTC on Dec 7; problems aligning the vehicles delayed hard dock until 2051 UTC, and the hatch was opened at 2243 UTC. The Raffaello module was unberthed from Endeavour at 1701 UTC on Dec 8 and berthed to Unity at 1755 UTC. STS-108 astronauts Linda Godwin and Dan Tani carried out a spacewalk on Dec 10 to install thermal blankets on the P6 solar array gimbal motor bearings, which were distorting due to temperature changes. The Shuttle's airlock was depressurized at about 1747 UTC, hatch was open at 1749 UTC, and the astronauts emerged at 1803 and 1814 UTC. The blankets were installed by 2010 UTC; after failing to engage a solar array latch, the crew moved on to retrieve tools for the next mission and returned to the airlock to close the hatch about 2157 UTC. The airlock was repressurized at 2204 UTC, for a duration of 4hr17m (depress/repress), 4h08m (hatch open/close) or 4h11m (NASA rule). Recent Launches --------------- Three Uragan (`Hurricane') navigation satellites were launched on Dec 1 as Block 30 of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS). The satellites, Uragan 790, Uragan 789 and Uragan-M 711, were renamed Kosmos-2380, Kosmos-2381 and Kosmos-2382 on orbit. One of the new trio is the first Uragan-M improved model. The first Uragan satellite was launched in 1982; the Uragans are the Russian analogs of the Navstar GPS satellites. Thanks to Richard Langley for passing on Russian data. The Proton-K launch vehicle reached orbit at 1813 UTC and the Blok DM lower adapter separated from the payload complex. Reentry of the adapter and the Proton final stage were observed in the USA and Europe. The DM made its first burn from low parking orbit at about 1908 UTC, raising apogee to 19000 km. The orbit was circularized at apogee at about 2200 UTC and the satellites were deplyed by 2228 UTC. On Dec 7 the satellites were in 19100 x 19130 km x 64.8 deg orbits. The JASON/TIMED mission took off on Dec 7 at 1507 UTC. The Boeing Delta 7920-10C flew a complicated profile; the Delta second stage reached an initial orbit of 215 x 1343 km x 66.2 deg at 1517 UTC. A second burn at 1559 UTC circularized at apogee to 1320 x 1330 km x 66.0 deg, and the Jason 1 satellite was ejected at 1602 UTC. Five minutes later the DPAF adapter separated to reveal the TIMED satellite inside it. Burn 3 at 1614 UTC put Delta/TIMED in a descending 636 x 1330 km x 71.3 deg orbit; at perigee at 1706 UTC a fourth burn circularized at 627 x 640 km x 74.1 deg and TIMED was ejected six minutes later. A final depletion burn left the Delta stage in a low perigee orbit. Jason 1 is a joint mission between CNES (the French space agency) and NASA/JPL, following on the Topex satellite which carried the Poseidon sea surface altimeter. Jason carries Poseidon 2, as well as orbital tracking experiments and a microwave radiometer which measures the amount of water vapor, allowing path delay errors to be calibrated. The satellite uses the Alcatel Proteus bus and has a dry mass of 472 kg plus 28 kg of hydrazine propellant. The second payload, TIMED, is the first NASA Solar Terrestrial Probe, operated by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab to study the thermosphere, mesosphere and lower ionosphere. TIMED was built in-house at APL and has a mass of 587 kg; the project is managed at NASA-Goddard. It measures solar and auroral energy input, atmospheric cooling rates, and atmospheric composition, temperature and wind profiles. Russia launched a Meteor-3M weather satellite on Dec 10 into a 996 x 1015 km x 99.7 deg orbit. The Meteor-3M No. 1, with a mass around 2500 kg, is an improved version of the Meteor-3 satellite first flown in 1984, and carries visible and IR sensors and NASA's SAGE III instrument which studies aerosols and the ozone layer. Four small subsatellites were also carried into orbit: Badr B, Maroc-Tubsat, Kompas and Reflektor. The Zenit final stage and four small separation motor covers (which will be in higher apogee orbits) are expected to be in orbit too, for a total of 10 objects; 5 have been cataloged so far and it will probably take a while to sort them out. Badr B is Pakistan's second satellite. Built in collaboration with the English company SIL, it has a mass of 70 kg and carries an Earth imager. Maroc-Tubsat was built by the Technical University of Berlin for the Centre Royal de Teledetection Spatiale, Morocco, and has a mass of 45 kg. It carries an imager and a store-forward communications test. The Russian Kompas satellite, built by Makeev for the IZMIRAN geophysics institute, is an 80 kg satellite with a magnetometer and other sensors designed to attempt prediction of earthquakes. The satellite was originally built for use on the Shtil' rocket. Finally, the 8 kg Reflektor was built by NII KP in Russia for space debris studies in a joint experiment with the USAF's AF Research Lab. Four Trident I C-4 submarine-launched ballistic missiles flew a suborbital trajectory down the Eastern Range on Dec 9 after launched from the USS Ohio. Lockheed Martin reports that 221 Trident Is have been launched, although I have only been able to find public records of 153. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Nov 26 1824 Progress M1-7 Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1 Cargo 51A Nov 27 0035 DirecTV 4S Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 TV broadcast 52A Dec 1 1804 Kosmos-2380 ) Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur Navsat 53A Kosmos-2381 ) Navsat 53B Kosmos-2382 ) Navsat 53C Dec 5 2219 Endeavour ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 54A Raffaello ) Dec 7 1507 Jason 1 ) Delta 7920-10 Vandenberg SLC2W Science 55A TIMED ) Science 55B Dec 10 1719 Meteor-3M ) Zenit-2 Baykonur LC45 Weather 56A Badr B ) Imaging 56 Maroc-Tubsat) Imaging 56 Kompas ) Science 56 Reflektor ) Technology 56 Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-109 2002 Feb 14 HST SM-3B OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1? Maintenance OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 2? STS-110 2002 Mar 21 ISS 8A OV-105 Endeavour ISS STS-108 2001 Dec 7 ISS UF-1 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'