Jonathan's Space Report Jun 5 1991 (no.75) ---------------------------------------------------- Launch of STS-40/Columbia occurred on June 5 at 13:24:51 UT approximately. Crew are Bryan O'Connor, Sid Gutierrez, Dr. Rhea Seddon, Dr. Jim Bagian, Dr. Tamara Jernigan, Dr. Mille Hughes-Fulford, Dr Andrew Gaffney, several rats, and many jellyfish. Soyuz TM-11 undocked from the Mir complex and landed on May 26. Aboard were the long stay crew Viktor Afanas'ev and Musa Manarov, and Soyuz TM-12 researcher Helen Sharman of England. The Mir/Kvant/Kvant-2/Kristall/Soyuz TM-12 complex is now crewed by Anatoliy Artsebarksiy and Sergey Krikalyov. The Progress M-8 cargo craft carrying supplies and fuel for the station was launched from Baykonur on May 30. Musa Manarov landed with 540 days 22 hours and 31 minutes spaceflight time accrued over two missions to Mir, beating Yuriy Romanenko's record for cumulative spaceflight time by over 100 days, and the US record by over a factor of six. The 10th Resurs-F remote sensing satellite was launched on May 21 from Plesetsk. It carries an MK4 multispectral camera, and is based on the Vostok spacecraft. Kosmos-2149 was launched on May 24 from Plesetsk. It is an imaging recon satellite and will remain in orbit for 2 months. It replaced Kosmos-2138 which was deorbited on May 24 after 59 days in space. Aurora 2, a communications satellite for GE Alascom, was launched by a Delta 7925 on May 29. The GE 3000 class C-band comsat will replace the Aurora 1 which was launched in 1982. TIP 2, a US Navy experimental navigation satellite, reentered on May 26. It was launched in 1975. Kosmos-151, an electronic intelligence satellite launched in 1967, reentered on May 6. Delta 111, the second stage of the launch vehicle which orbited Nimbus 6 in 1975, exploded into hundreds of fragments about May 14. The Delta stages of that era had a habit of exploding years after launch, due to the detonation of left over propellants. More recent Delta launches have burned up all their propellants to avoid this problem. ___________________________________ |Current STS status: | |Orbiters | | | |OV-102 Columbia Earth orbit | |OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1 | |OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 2 | |OV-105 Endeavour VAB Bay 2 | | | |ML/ET/SRB stacks | | | |ML1/STS-43 VAB Bay 1 | |ML2 | |ML3/STS-40/ET/OV-102 LC39B | ----------------------------------- 10 years ago: 31 May 1981. The Indian Space Research Organization launched Rohini RS-D-1, a remote sensing satellite. Problems with the launch vehicle left the satellite in a low orbit from which it reentered in one week. 20 years ago: 30 May 1971. Mariner 9 was launched on its way to orbit Mars and map its surface. Mariner 8 failed earlier in the month. (c) 1991 Jonathan McDowell. Information in this report is obtained from public sources and does not reflect the official views of NASA. .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (205)544-7724 | | Space Science Lab ES65 | uucp: | | NASA Marshall Space Flight Center | bitnet : | | Huntsville AL 35812 | inter : mcdowell@xanth.msfc.nasa.gov | | USA | span : ssl::mcdowell | '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'