Jonathan's Space Report

4 Oct 1991 (no.90)
----------------------------------------------------

Atlantis is being prepared for mission STS-44.  Cracks have been found
on some seals on Atlantis' wing leading edge; they're being replaced,
but there's no news on a possible delay to the November launch. 
Discovery has returned to the Kennedy Space Center and is in Orbiter
Processing Facility Bay 3, formerly the OMRF (Orbiter Maintenance and
Refurbishment Facility) and recently upgraded to the standards of the
other two OPF bays.  Its next mission is STS-42. 

Anatoliy Artsebarksiy and Sergey Krikalyov continue in orbit aboard the
Mir/Kvant/Sofora/Kvant-2/Kristall/Soyuz TM-12 complex.  Progress M-9
has been undocked and deorbited. Soyuz TM-13 was launched on Oct 2
from Kosmodrom Baykonur in the Republic of Kazakhstan. It will
dock with Mir on Oct 4. Crew of TM-13 are Soviet Air Force cosmonaut
Aleksandr Volkov, Kazakh Republic cosmonaut Tokhtar Aubakirov, 
and Austrian cosmonaut Franz Viehbock. Artsebarksiy, Aubakirov and
Viehbock will return to Earth on Oct 10 in TM-12 leaving Volkov
and Krikalyov in orbit. 

An alert reader has spotted my inability to add. Volkov has 216 days
flight experience, not 185 as I erroneously claimed last week.

The Canadian Anik E-1 communications satellite was
launched on Sep 26 by Ariane 44P from Kourou.

Kosmos-2156, launched Sep 19 by Soyuz from Plesetsk, is a high
resolution imaging spy satellite for Soviet military intelligence.

Kosmos-2157 to Kosmos-2162, six small communications relay satellites
possibly for the Soviet Navy, were launched by 3-stage Tsiklon from
Plesetsk on Sep 28.

___________________________________
|Current STS status:              |
|Orbiters                         |
|                                 |
|OV-102 Columbia        Palmdale  |
|OV-103 Discovery       OPF Bay 3 |
|OV-104 Atlantis        OPF Bay 2 |
|OV-105 Endeavour       OPF Bay 1 |
|                                 |
|ML/ET/SRB stacks                 |
|                                 |
|ML1/STS-44/ET          VAB Bay 3 |
|ML2                              |
|ML3?/STS-42            VAB Bay 1 |
-----------------------------------

N.B.  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            |                                        |
 |  NASA Marshall Space Flight Center |                                        |
 |  Huntsville AL 35812               |  inter : mcdowell@xanth.msfc.nasa.gov  |
 |  USA                               |                                        |
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