Jonathan's Space Report No. 237 1995 Apr 12 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle ------- Processing of Discovery for STS-70 and Atlantis for STS-71 continues; it seems likely that STS-70 will fly first because of the delays in the Mir program. Columbia completed its refit in California and departed Palmdale on Apr 11 aboard the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft en route to KSC. Mir --- Dezhurov, Strekalov and Thagard remain aboard Mir; they had been in space for 29 days 9 hr 49 min at 1600UTC on Apr 12. Launch of Progress No. 227 (named Progress M-27 after launch) was carried out on Apr 9 at 1934 UTC, and the Progress docked with the Mir complex on Apr 11 at 2300 UTC. Apr 12 is the 34th anniversary of the launch of the Vostok spaceship, when Yuriy A. Gagarin became the first human in space. Recent Launches -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The newly formed Lockheed Martin carried out its first launch on Mar 22; the former General Dynamics Commercial Launch Services, which had become Martin Marietta CLS, is now part of the new Lockheed Martin empire, and the San Diego (old GD/Convair Space Systems Division) and Denver (old Martin Marietta Astronautics Titan plant) operations are to be merged. Lockheed Martin's Atlas IIAS launch vehicle flight AC-115 (Atlas stage number 8204) took off from LC36B at Cape Canaveral and placed a Space Systems/Loral FS-1300 class communications satellite in orbit for INTELSAT, the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization. Intelsat 705 will be placed over the Atlantic Ocean. The AC-115 launch was swiftly followed by the final Atlas E launch from Vandenberg on Mar 24, and a further Atlas Centaur launch, this time a IIA model, from pad 36A at Canaveral on Apr 7. AC-114 (with Atlas first stage 8111) placed American Mobile Satellite Corp.'s AMSC-1 into orbit. AMSC-1 (also known as M-SAT) is a Hughes HS-601 class comsat with 16 L-band and one Ku-band transponders. The satellite is the first to be optimized for mobile telephone communications. It will be complemented by a similar M-SAT satellite for Canada's Telesat Mobile Inc., to be launched later this year. Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Pegasus launch vehicle returned to flight on Apr 3. This was the first successful launch using the Lockheed L-1011 carrier airplane, which took off from Vandenberg AFB and dropped the Pegasus over the Point Arguello Warning Area in the Pacific. The 3-stage standard Pegasus placed three small satellites in a 730 x 750 km x 70.0 deg orbit. The three satellites all use OSC's new Microstar bus design. Two of the satellites, Orbcomm FM1 and FM2, are the first satellites in OSC's Orbital Communications Corp. (Orbcomm) subsidiary's low Earth orbit (LEO) communications network. They are 1.0m in diameter and 0.16m high, with a mass of 40 kg; once on orbit they deploy a 3.3m long VHF/UHF communications antenna and a pair of solar panels spanning 2.2m. Orbcomm FM2's uplink antenna was malfunctioning last week, but FM1 was operating well. The third satellite is Microlab 1, a 68 kg scientific satellite 1.0m in diameter and 0.3m high. It carries NASA-MSFC's Optical Transient Detector experiment to study the global distribution of lightning, and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research's GPS-MET experiment which will study the occultation of GPS navigation satellite signals by the atmosphere to derive meteorological information. Microlab is owned by OSC, with NASA and NSF renting the space for and operation of their experiments. The Orbcomm program has been shrouded in commercial secrecy, with few details released on the precursor test payloads: Satellite Launch date Orbit Design. Orbcomm-X 1991 Jul 17 771 x 776 x 98.5 1991-50B Orbcomm-XP-1 1993 Feb 9 727 x 790 x 25.0 1993-09A Orbcomm? 1993 Apr 25 747 x 835 x 69.9 1993-26B Orbcomm FM1 1995 Apr 3 727 x 756 x 70.0 1995-17A Orbcomm FM2 1995 Apr 3 737 x 747 x 70.0 1995-17B Microlab 1 1995 Apr 3 731 x 749 x 70.0 1995-17C On Apr 5 Israel launched its most sophisticated satellite to date, the 'Ofeq-3 ("Horizon-3") 3-axis stabilized technology satellite. The Shaviyt launch vehicle took off on a westward trajectory from Palamchim Air Force Base in Israel and placed the satellite and the AUS-51 solid motor third stage in a retrograde orbit. 'Ofeq-3 carries an electro-optical scanner and has a mass of 225 kg. It has been reported in the media as Israel's first spy satellite, but I think this is probably an overstatement. 'Ofeq-3 should probably be considered as Israel's first 3-axis-stabilized technology development satellite, with an experimental imaging system (whose resolution may be as good as a few metres) intended for both remote sensing and military reconnaissance applications, but it isn't a full fledged spysat. 'Ofeq-3's westward orbit is rare, but not a record; some US Air Force satellites in the 1960s went to an inclination of 144 degrees to the eastward equator (i.e. 36 degrees to the westbound equator). There are quite a few polar retrograde satellites with inclinations up to around 105 degrees, and the GAMBIT spy satellites used inclinations up to 110 degrees regularly in the 1960s and 1970s. Below I give a table of all satellites whose inclinations exceeded 110.5 degrees. Highest inclination satellite orbits Satellite Launch Orbit (km x km x deg) Owner GAMBIT 28 1966 May 14 133 x 358 x 110.6 NRO GAMBIT 68 1971 Jan 21 139 x 418 x 110.9 NRO GAMBIT 69 1971 Apr 22 132 x 401 x 110.9 NRO GAMBIT 71 1971 Oct 23 134 x 416 x 110.9 NRO GAMBIT 64 1970 Apr 15 130 x 388 x 111.0 NRO GAMBIT 66 1970 Aug 18 151 x 365 x 111.0 NRO GAMBIT 67 1970 Oct 23 135 x 396 x 111.1 NRO GAMBIT 70 1971 Aug 12 137 x 424 x 111.0 NRI GAMBIT 72 1972 Mar 17 131 x 409 x 111.0 NRO GAMBIT 44 1966 Jun 20 127 x 325 x 111.4 NRO GAMBIT 49 1968 Jan 18 138 x 404 x 111.5 NRO GAMBIT 51 1968 Apr 17 134 x 427 x 111.5 NRO GAMBIT 47 1967 Oct 25 136 x 429 x 111.6 NRO GAMBIT 45 1967 Aug 16 142 x 449 x 111.9 NRO CORONA 66? 1964 Jun 13 350 x 364 x 115.0 NRO CORONA 70? 1964 Aug 21 349 x 363 x 115.0 NRO Geos 3 1975 Apr 9 839 x 853 x 115 NASA GAMBIT 27 1966 Apr 19 145 x 398 x 117.0 NRO RAE 1 1968 Jul 4 5861 x 5861 x 120 NASA NTS 1 1974 Jul 14 13445 x13767 x 125 USAF 'Ofeq-1 1988 Sep 19 245 x 1152 x 142.9 Israel 'Ofeq-2 1990 Apr 3 206 x 1586 x 143.2 Israel 'Ofeq-3 1995 Apr 5 369 x 729 x 143.4 Israel OV1-2 1965 Oct 5 403 x 3462 x 144.3 USAF OV1-8P 1966 Jul 14 998 x 1013 x 144.3 USAF OV1-4 1966 Mar 30 879 x 1011 x 144.5 USAF OV1-5 1966 Mar 30 996 x 1048 x 144.7 USAF Kosmos-2290 was deorbited on Apr 4 from its 180 x 557 km x 64.8 deg orbit. The reason for the unusual maneuver a week before deorbit (see JSR 236) remains unclear. My description of the Start launch vehicle last week was inaccurate; it differs from Start-1 in that there is a new second stage inserted between the first and second stages of Start-1. According to Maxim Tarasenko, apparently there are actually six stages including a small kick motor to circularize the orbit. The failure was in the fourth stage, and the fifth stage never got a chance to fire. The debris impacted eastern Russia. Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Mar 2 0638 Endeavour ) Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 07A Astro 2 ) Mar 2 1300 Kosmos-2306 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Calibration 08A Mar 7 0923 Kosmos-2307 ) Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur LC200 Navigation 09A Kosmos-2308 ) Navigation 09B Kosmos-2309 ) Navigation 09C Mar 14 0611 Soyuz TM-21 Soyuz-U2 Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 10A Mar 18 0801 SFU ) H-II Tanegashima Science 11A GMS-5 ) Weather 11B Mar 22 0405? Kosmos-2310 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk Navigation 12A Mar 22 0618 Intelsat 705 Atlas IIAS Canaveral LC36B Comsat 13A Mar 22 1645? Kosmos-2311 Soyuz-U Plesetsk Recon 14A Mar 24 1405 DMSP 24547 Atlas E Vandenberg SLC3 Weather 15A Mar 28 0900 Gurwin-1 ) Start Plesetsk Technology FTO UNAMSAT ) Comsat FTO EKA-2 ) Dummy FTO Mar 28 0618 Eutelsat HB1 ) Ariane 44LP Kourou Comsat 16B Brasilsat B2 ) Comsat 16A Apr 3 1348 Orbcomm 1 ) Pegasus L1011 VAFB/PAWA Comsat 17A Orbcomm 2 ) Comsat 17B Microlab 1 ) Science 17C Apr 5 1116 'Ofeq-3 Shaviyt Palamchim Technol. 18A Apr 7 2347 AMSC-1 Atlas IIA Canaveral LC36A Comsat 19A Apr 9 1934 Progress M-27 Soyuz-U Baykonur Cargo 20A Reentries --------- Mar 2 ODERACS II D Reentered Mar 3 ODERACS E Reentered Mar 3 Foton 10 Landed in Russia Mar 10 Kosmos-2280 Deorbited Mar 15 Progress M-26 Deorbited over Pacific Mar 18 Endeavour Landed at Edwards AFB Mar 18 Kosmos-2244 Deorbited Mar 22 Soyuz TM-20 Landed in Kazakhstan Apr 3 Kosmos-2137 Reentered Apr 4 Kosmos-2290 Reentered Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia Aboard SCA OMDP - OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-70 Under review OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-71 Under review OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-69 Jul 20 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/ ML2/RSRM-44 VAB Bay 3 STS-70 ML3/RSRM-45/ET-70 VAB Bay 1 STS-71 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/QEDT/jcm/jsr.html | ! ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'