Jonathan's Space Report No. 574 2006 Dec 11, Somerville, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Station -------------------- A spacewalk and a Shuttle launch highlighted the past month in the International Space Station program. The Expedition 14 crew of Mike Lopez-Alegria, Mikhail Tyurin and Tomas Reiter continues work aboard the International Space Station. On Nov 22-23 Lopez-Alegria and Tyurin made a spacewalk from the Pirs airlock module. They used spacesuits Orlan M-25 and M-27 respectively, according to Andrey Krasil'nikov, who also provided some of the times below. The airlock was depressurized by 2346 UTC on Nov 22, but the crew had problems opening the outer hatch; this was finally accomplished at 0017 UTC on Nov 23. At 0057 UTC, Tyurin launched a 3-gram spherical passive satellite for the Element 21 Golf Company of Canada, with the help of a swing from a golf club. The astronauts moved to the aft end of Zvezda. They inspected but failed to free a stuck antenna on the Progress M-58 cargo ship, and then relocated the WAL2 antenna on Zvezda which is to be used for docking of the European ATV cargo ship. At around 0330 UTC they jettisoned two small cleaning towels. Moving forward to the Zvezda PKhO compartment they installed the BTN-M1 neutron flux experiment; at 0528 they jettisoned three soft thermal covers with masses of less than 1 kg. The astronauts returned to Pirs and closed the hatch at 0555 UTC, repressurizing the airlock at 0559 UTC for a depressurized duration of 6 hours 13 min. Space Shuttle OV-103 Discovery was launched at 0147 on Dec 10 on mission STS-116, Station flight 12A.1, using solid rocket boosters RSRM-95 and external tank ET-123. Target orbit was 58 x 220 km x 51.6 deg; the OMS-2 burn at 0225 UTC raised this to 225 x 250 km. By Dec 11 at 1000 UTC it was in a 298 x 347 km orbit closing in on ISS; Discovery docked with the Station at 2212 UTC on Dec 11. Discovery will dock with Station and install the P5 truss. During a series of spacewalks, the crew will retract the port P6 solar array wing (SAW-4B) and activate the truss electrical and cooling system. They will also stow debris protection panels on the Station for installation on the Zvezda module. After undocking, Discovery will deploy five small satellites from launchers on the ICC cargo carrier in the payload bay. Astronaut Sunita Williams will replace Thomas Reiter on the long-stay Expedition 14 crew. Below I give my usual estimated cargo manifest for the mission; thanks especially to Kim Campbell from Spacehab for proving some good numbers. Location Cargo Mass Bay 1-2 Orbiter Docking System 1800 kg? Bay 3 Tunnel Adapter 112 kg Bay 4-5 Spacehab Logistics Module 5399 kg Bay 5P? APC with SPDU 20 kg? Bay 7-8 Truss segment P5 1860 kg Bay 11-12 Integrated Cargo Carrier 839 kg ) tot 2492 kg STP-H2, FRAM 1398 kg ) Service Module Debris Panels 100 kg? ) RAFT-1 4 kg ) MARScom 3 kg ) MEPSI 2A/2B 3 kg ) ANDE launch cylinder 20 kg? ) ANDE-MAA 50 kg ) ANDE-FCAL 75 kg ) Sill OBSS 202 450 kg? Sill RMS 303 390 kg -------------------------------------------------------- Total 12523 kg Ave Atque Vale -------------- The Mars Global Surveyor probe has fallen silent after 10 years in space, the longest operating Mars probe in history. MGS was launched in 1996 Nov, entered Mars orbit in 1997 Sep, and after an extended aerobraking phase began its primary mission in 1999 Mar. The last definite signals from MGS were received at around 0h UTC on Nov 3; the spacecraft's solar array mechanism appears to have run into problems. Probe Mars arrival End of ops. Duration at Mars Mariner 9 1971 Nov 1972 Oct 0.9 yr Mars-2 1971 Nov 1972 Aug 0.6 yr Mars-3 1971 Dec 1972 Aug? 0.6 yr? Mars-5 1974 Feb 1974 Mar 0.0 yr Viking Orbiter 1 1976 Jun 1980 Aug 4.1 yr Viking Lander 2 1976 Jul 1982 Nov 6.3 yr Viking Orbiter 2 1976 Aug 1978 Jul 1.9 yr Viking Lander 2 1976 Sep 1980 Apr 3.6 yr Fobos-2 1989 Jan 1989 Mar 0.2 yr Mars Pathfinder 1997 Jul 1997 Oct 0.2 yr MGS 1997 Sep 2006 Nov 9.1 yr Mars Odyssey 2001 Oct Active 5.1 yr Mars Express 2003 Dec Active 3.0 yr Spirit 2004 Jan Active 2.9 yr Opportunity 2004 Jan Active 2.8 yr MRO 2006 Mar Active 0.8 yr Fengyun ------- China launched its fourth Fengyun-2 ('Wind and Cloud 2') geostationary weather satellite on Dec 8 at 0053 UTC. The Chang Zheng 3A rocket put FY-2D in geostationary transfer orbit and the spacecraft made its FG-36 apogee motor burn at 1807 UTC the same day. The apogee motor was then probably ejected from the spinning satellite, which carries a visible-IR radiometer. The payload has been cataloged as 2006-53B, in a 35786 x 36478 km x 2.6 deg geosynchronous drift orbit; the final stage is in a 226 x 36221 km x 24.9 deg geostationary transfer orbit and is currently cataloged as 2006-53A, although Space Command may change these designations. Ariane ------- Arianespace launched Ariane 5ECA vehicle L534 from Kourou on Dec 8. This flight V174 mission carried two communications satellites. WildBlue 1 for the WildBlue Communications broadband internet company is a Loral 1300 Ka-band satellite with a dry mass of 2000 kg and a fuelled mass of 4735 kg. The lower satellite on V174 is AMC 18 for SES Americom. This smaller C-band cable TV distribution satellite is a Lockheed A2100A with a dry mass of 918 kg and launch mass of 2081 kg. The EPC core stage reached a -1282 x 233 km x 6.9 deg insertion orbit; the ESC-A upper stage then fired to put the payloads in geostationary transfer orbit of 265 x 35700 km x 2.0 deg. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Oct 13 2056 DirecTV 9S ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 43 Optus D1 ) Comms 43 LDREX 2 ) Tech 43 Oct 19 1628 METOP A Soyuz-2-1A Baykonur LC31 Weather 44A Oct 23 1340 Progress M-58 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 45A Oct 23 2334 SJ-6-2A ) Chang Zheng 4B Taiyuan Sigint? 46A SJ-6-2B ) Sigint? 46B Oct 26 0052 STEREO Ahead ) Delta 7925-10L Canaveral SLC17B Science 47A STEREO Behind ) Science 47B Oct 28 1620 Xinnuo 2 Chang Zheng 3B Xichang Comms 48A Oct 30 2349 XM-Blues Zenit-3SL SL Odyssey Radio 49A Nov 4 1353 DMSP 5D-3 F-17 Delta 4M Vandenberg SLC6 Weather 50A Nov 8 2001 Badr 4 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 51A Nov 17 1912 GPS 58 Delta 7925-9.5 Canaveral SLC17A Navigation 52A Dec 8 0053 Fengyun 2D Chang Zheng 3A Xichang Weather 53B Dec 8 2208 WildBlue 1 ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 54A AMC 18 ) Comms 54B Dec 10 0147 Discovery STS-116 Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 55A .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Somerville MA 02143 | inter : jcm@host.planet4589.org | | USA | jcm@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html | | Back issues: http://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: mail majordomo@host.planet4589.org, (un)subscribe jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'