Jonathan's Space Report

Jul 2 1991 (no.78)
----------------------------------------------------

Atlantis is on the pad. The STS-43 mission will deploy
a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) sometime this
month.

Anatoliy Artsebarksiy and Sergey Krikalyov continue in orbit aboard the
Mir/Kvant/Kvant-2/Kristall/Soyuz TM-12/Progress M-8 complex.  On Jun 12
they deployed a lightsat from one of the scientific airlocks.  'Mayak'
was intended for ionospheric studies, but its transmitter failed after
deployment.  They also jettisoned 9 garbage bags on Jun 10 and a further
8 on Jun 20.  On Jun 25 they made a five hour spacewalk to repair the
docking antenna on the Kvant module, and on Jun 28 they made another
spacewalk to install a radiation monitoring experiment and an external
TV camera. 

Scout S216C was launched from Space Launch Complex 5 at Vandenberg AFB,
California, at 1400UT on Jun 29.  The Scout G-1 carried a USAF lightsat
into 830 km polar orbit.  The satellite, REX (Radiation EXperiment), was
built by Defense Systems, Inc and is similar in design to their Stacksat
payloads launched last year.  It will monitor near earth radiation and
ionospheric irregularities which affect radio communicaitons. 

Kosmos-2151, launched on Jun 13 by Tsiklon 3 from Plesetsk, is an
electronic intelligence satellite. 

The 10th Resurs-F remote sensing satellite landed on Jun 20 after a 30
day mapping mission with an MK4 camera. 

The 81st Molniya-1 comsat was launched on Jun 18 into elliptical 12-hour
orbit from Plesetsk.  The Molniya-1 is used for Soviet government
communications. 

___________________________________
|Current STS status:              |
|Orbiters                         |
|                                 |
|OV-102 Columbia        OPF Bay 2 |
|OV-103 Discovery       OPF Bay 1 |
|OV-104 Atlantis        LC39A     |
|OV-105 Endeavour       VAB Bay 2 |
|                                 |
|ML/ET/SRB stacks                 |
|                                 |
|ML1/STS-43/ET/OV-104   LC39A     |
|ML2                              |
|ML3                    VAB Bay 3 |
-----------------------------------

Copyright 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                 |
 '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'