Jonathan's Space Report No. 499 2003 May 8, Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Station -------------------- The Expedition 7 crew of Malenchenko and Lu has replaced Expedition 6 aboard the Space Station. Soyuz 11F732 No. 212 (Soyuz TMA-2) docked with the nadir port on the Zarya module at 0556 UTC on Apr 28, with hatches open to the station at 0727 UTC. The Ex-6 crew of Bowersox, Budarin and Pettit boarded Soyuz 11F732 No. 211 (Soyuz TMA-1) on May 3 and undocked from the Pirs nadir port at 2243 UTC. After almost 2 orbits of the Earth Soyuz TMA-1 fired its deorbit engines at 0112 UTC. The engine and orbital modules separated from the descent module at 0140 UTC, and entry began at around 0143 UTC. A descent computer failure caused the spacecraft to fly a ballistic reentry, slowly spinning the craft to remove lift which could send the vehicle off course if incorrectly aimed. This also meant that the crew suffered unexpectedly high accelerations of around 8g and landed 450 km short along the groundtrack. Several parachute lines also broke, but the crew landed safely and were recovered some hours late. Although there was confusion for some hours about the health of Don Pettit, who was not seen on camera initially, it appears that he was feeling the effects of the return to gravity more than his fellow crewmembers but is otherwise all right. There is some confusion about the actual landing time; a ballistic entry should have made the landing time earlier than the scheduled 0206 UTC but various sources give from 0207 UTC to 0212 UTC; the time will presumably be refined eventually. Recent Launches --------------- NASA's GALEX ultraviolet astronomy satellite reached orbit on Apr 28. The Orbital Sciences Pegasus rocket was launched from the company's L-1011 Stargazer launch aircraft which took off from the Skid Strip runway at Cape Canaveral at 1103 UTC on Apr 28. The drop was over 29.0N 78.5W at about 1159:52 UTC with ignition at about 1159:57 UTC. The three stage rocket climed away and the third stage shut down at 1209 UTC putting GALEX in a 690 x 702 km x 29 deg orbit. GALEX is a NASA Small Explorer (SMEX) mission with principal investigator Chris Martin of Caltech. It carries a 0.50-meter telescope and two ultraviolet microchannel plate cameras (one for the near UV 135-180 nm, and one for the far UV 180-300 nm), and will carry out an all-sky survey as well as deeper surveys in selected regions. This will be the first all-sky survey in the ultraviolet band since the much less sensitive TD-1 satellite in 1972 - the all sky limit in the far UV band will be over 3000 times more sensitive, about 25 microJansky compared to about 0.08 Jy for TD-1. GALEX is the seventh SMEX mission, following SAMPEX (trapped radiation), FAST (auroral studies), TRACE (solar imaging), SWAS (submillimeter astronomy), WIRE (infrared survey, failed) and RHESSI (solar flare studies). The Indian Space Research Organization launched the second GSLV rocket, GSLV-D2, on May 8. The Russian-developed cryogenic upper stage entered geostationary transfer orbit and deployed GSAT-2, a test satellite with C, Ku and S-band communications payloads, an ionospheric beacon experiment, and a solar X-ray spectrometer. GSAT-2 will use its liquid apogee motor to reach geostationary orbit. Kosmos-2397 is now being tracked in a geostationary drift orbit of 35892 x 35926 km x 2.3 deg, drifting west over 69E. The upper stage has not been cataloged; the transfer orbit was 217 x 35911 km x 49.3 deg, a slightly higher inclination that the standard 47 degree used for most Proton/DM missions to GEO. The earlier US-KMO mission Kosmos-2379 also was tracked in a 49.2 deg transfer orbit. Two SOZ ullage motors have been found in the transfer orbit. After 33 years, Space Command has cataloged the Agena D rocket stages 1968-63B, 1969-36B and 1970-69B from the first three CANYON communications intelligence satellite launches. It has always been puzzling that these Agenas were not in the catalog; later launches such as 1972-101A had the Agena D in geostationary transfer orbit. I had speculated that the early CANYON vehicles had kept their Agena stages attached for the apogee burn, making them the only Agenas to reach geosynchronous orbit (the CANYONs were in inclined 1440-minute, 10 degree orbits, not quite geostationary). With the addition of these stages to the catalog it seems likely that, like the later vehicles, the Agenas separated in transfer orbit and the payloads used apogee motors to circularize their orbits. However it is rather surprising that the objects are only now being cataloged - I hope this represents real tracking and not just an administrative assumption that the objects were missed and must be up there. The actual elements are still classified, although one may hope the general orbital altitudes will soon be notified to the United Nations as required by the registration convention. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Mar 11 0059 DSCS III A-3 Delta IVM Canaveral SLC37B Comms 08A Mar 28 0127 IGS Optical-1 ) H2A 2024 Tanegashima Imaging 09A IGS Radar-1 ) Radar 09B Mar 31 2209 GPS SVN 45 Delta 7925 Canaveral SLC17A Navigation 10A Apr 2 0153 Molniya-1T Molniya-M Plesetsk Comms 11A Apr 8 1343 Milstar 6 Titan 4 Centaur Canaveral SLC40 Comms 12A Apr 9 2252 Galaxy 12 ) Ariane 5G Kourou ELA3 Comms 13B Insat 3A ) Comms 13A Apr 12 0047 Asiasat 4 Atlas 3B/SEC Canaveral SLC36B Comms 14A Apr 24 0423 Kosmos-2397 Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur LC81/24 Early Warn 15A Apr 26 0353 Soyuz TMA-2 Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1/5 Spaceship 16A Apr 28 1159 GALEX Pegasus XL Canaveral RW30/12 UV Astron 17A May 8 1128 GSAT-2 GSLV Sriharikota Comms .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'