Jonathan's Space Report No. 159 1993 Jun 29 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shuttle ------- Endeavour completed its rendezvous with the EURECA satellite on Jun 24. The satellite was grappled with the RMS arm at 1353 UTC and berthed in the payload bay at 1636. However, two antennas on the satellite failed to close up correctly. During the spacewalk on Jun 25, astronauts David Low and Jeff Wisoff successfully latched the antennas. This was the first time the Spacelab Tunnel airlock has been used for a spacewalk; this airlock is carried on all Spacelab module and Spacehab module missions, since the tunnel to the modules connects to the usual Shuttle airlock. The airlock was depressurized at 1300 and the astronauts opened the hatch at 1312. As well as the EURECA work the astronauts practised techniques for the HST repair mission. The hatch was closed at 1850 and the repress began by 1857, making an EVA of 5 hr 57 min. A landing attempt on Jun 29 was waved off due to bad weather; another attempt is due on Jun 30. Meanwhile, Discovery was rolled out to pad 39B on Jun 28. Mission STS-51 is due for launch on July 17. Mir --- The EO-13 crew, Gennadiy Manakov and Aleksandr Poleshchuk, made a spacewalk on Jun 18 to carry out further preparatory work for the next crew's solar panel relocation experiment. As of Jun 25, both Progress M-17 and Progress M-18 were still docked to the complex, as well as the Soyuz TM-16 ferry. The next crew, EO-14, will be launched on July 1 aboard Soyuz TM-17. Crew commander is rookie Vasiliy Vasilevich Tsibliev, who joined the former Soviet Air Force cosmonaut corps in 1987. Flight engineer ('bortinzhener') is Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Serebrov, a member of the NPO Energiya cosmonaut group since 1978. He has made three spaceflights, aboard Soyuz T-7, Soyuz T-8, and Soyuz TM-8. Cosmonaut researcher is Jean-Pierre Haignere, a French Air Force pilot who has been an astronaut trainee with CNES (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales) since 1985. Launches -------- Kosmos-2251, launched Jun 16, is the 47th in a series of small low orbit communications satellites thought to be used by Russian military and intelligence services. It was launched by an 11K65M Kosmos rocket built by NPO Yuzhnoye of Ukraine. Six small communications satellites were launched by a single Tsiklon rocket, and have been given the designations Kosmos-2252 to Kosmos-2257. I haven't determined their exact launch date yet. The RADCAL satellite was launched by Scout S217C from Space Launch Complex 5 at Vandenberg on Jun 25. RADCAL, also known as P92-1, was built by Defense Systems Inc. for the USAF Space Test Program. It will be used by Vandenberg AFB's 40th Space Wing to calibrate the radars used to track objects in orbit. RADCAL carries a C-band transponder operating on the same frequency as the radars, and a GPS navigation package so that its orbit can be precisely determined. This calibration will allow the Space Command radars to determine orbital positions of other satellites to within a few metres. The 87 kg satellite was due to be placed in a 830 km polar orbit. Only one more launch of LTV's Scout is currently planned: MSTI-2, also from Vandenberg later this year. Hughes Communications' Galaxy 4H comsat was launched on Jun 25 by Ariane. This is the 6th HS-601 class comsat to be launched. The satellite is a 'hybrid', with both C-band (6/4 GHz) and Ku-band (12/11 GHz) transponders. NASA's second SEDS (Small Expendable Deployer System) mission was launched piggyback on a Delta second stage on Jun 26. The primary payload was the Navstar GPS 39 navigation satellite. SEDS 2 carried the PMG (Plasma Motor Generator) payload, with a 500m conducting tether containing a copper cable. The tether deployer and end mass contained a xenon gas dispenser to complete a 0.1 kV electrical circuit through the tether with a 0.3 amp current, in a 6-hour experiment to study space tethers' electrodynamic properties. Rockwell's GPS 39 is the 32nd Navstar satellite to be launched (they put them up in a fairly random order!) and the 21st of the Block II series. The Navstar satellites carry atomic clocks which are used to generate navigation signals. Date Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. May 26 0335? Molniya-1 Molniya Plesetsk Comsat 35A May 27 Gorizont Proton Baykonur Comsat FTO Jun 16 0420 Kosmos-2251 Kosmos R-14 Plesetsk Comsat 36A Jun 21 1307 Endeavour Shuttle Kennedy Spaceship 37A Jun 21? Kosmos-2252 ) Tsiklon Plesetsk Comsat 38A Kosmos-2253 ) Comsat 38B Kosmos-2254 ) Comsat 38C Kosmos-2255 ) Comsat 38D Kosmos-2256 ) Comsat 38E Kosmos-2257 ) Comsat 38F Jun 25 Galaxy 4H Ariane 42P Kourou Comsat (39?) Jun 25 2330 RADCAL Scout G-1 Vandenberg Calib. (40?) Jun 26 1327 Navstar GPS 39) Delta 7925 Canaveral Navsat (41?) SEDS 2/PMG ) Tether Reentries --------- Jun 7 Kosmos-2240 Landed in Kazakhstan? Jun 20 Resurs-F2 Landed in Kazakhstan Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 2 STS-58 OV-103 Discovery LC39B STS-51 OV-104 Atlantis Palmdale OMDP OV-105 Endeavour LEO STS-57 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1?/RSRM-33/ET-59/OV-103 LC39B STS-51 ML2/ ML3?/RSRM-34 VAB Bay 3 STS-58 Thanks to Ed O'Grady and Sergey Voevodin for information appearing in this issue. .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'