Jonathan's Space Report No. 253 1995 Aug 19 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle ------- STS-69 SRB repairs are beginning. Columbia will soon be rolled to the VAB and mated with the STS-73 stack. Recent Launches -------------- The first flight of the Lockheed Launch Vehicle, LLV-1, was a failure. The vehicle was destroyed 2 minutes and 40 seconds after launch from Space Launch Complex 6 at Vandenberg AFB, California. The first stage separated on time, but the rocket started oscillating toward the end of first stage flight. Shortly after second stage ignition the vehicle was destroyed on command. The rocket was at an altitude of 148 km. The LLV-1 consists of a Castor 120 first stage, an Orbus 21D second stage, and an OAM Orbit Adjust Module hydrazine third stage. The payload was VITASAT, a comsat for the Volunteers In Technical Assistance (VITA) of Arlington, Virginia. The 136 kg satellite was built using CTA Inc.'s GEMSTAR bus, and is used by both VITA and CTA (CTA refer to the satellite as GemStar 1). By Aug 18, Mugunghwa-ho (Koreasat 1) was in a 1120.0 min, 27961 x 30731 km x 0.2 deg orbit, a period increase of 45 minutes over the past week (out of a required increase of 6 hours to reach geostationary orbit.) The Series 3000 satellite has a dry mass of 652 kg, and at launch carried 625 kg of solid apogee motor fuel and 187 kg of hydrazine propellant for for a total mass of 1464 kg. (Thanks to Jeongjoo Park for Koreasat information). On Aug 14, PAS 4 was at 69.5 deg E drifting 0.3 deg E per day. Space Command data indicate that Himawari 4, 1989-70A, moved into geostationary orbit and was on station at 120.0E on Aug 9. Spacenet 2, 1984-114A, has left its 69.1W location and is slowly drifting west at 0.1 deg/day. TDRS 1 is at 138.7W. Galaxy 6 is back at 74.1W; its apparent excursion to 75W in early Aug. may have been an error. Erratum ------- In my note on DSCS, the 28 Nov 1993 Atlas launch should have been AC-106, not AC-108. Thanks to several readers for catching this. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jul 5 0309 Kosmos-2315 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Navigation 32A Jul 7 1623 Helios 1A ) Ariane 40 Kourou ELA2 Recon 33A CERISE ) Sigint 33B UPM LBSAT 1 ) Technology 33C Jul 10 1238 USA 112 Titan 4 Centaur Canaveral LC41 Sigint 34A Jul 13 0530 Galileo Probe - Galileo, Solar orb. 89-84E Jul 13 1342 Discovery Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 35A Jul 13 1955 TDRS 7 IUS Discovery,LEO Comsat 35B Jul 20 0304 Progress M-28 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 36A Jul 24 1552 Kosmos-2316 ) Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur LC?? Navigation 37A Kosmos-2317 ) Navigation 37B Kosmos-2318 ) Navigation 37C Jul 31 2330 DSCS III F9 Atlas IIA Centaur Canaveral LC36A Comsat 38A Aug 2 2359 Prognoz-M2 ) Molniya-M Plesetsk LC43/3 Science 39A Magion 4 ) Science 39F Aug 3 2358 PAS 4 Ariane 4 Kourou ELA2 Comsat 40A Aug 5 1110 Mugunghwa-ho Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17B Comsat 41A Aug 9 0121 Molniya-3 Molniya-M Plesetsk LC43 Comsat 42A Aug 15 2230 Gemstar 1 LLV-1 Vandenberg SLC6 Comsat FTO Reentries --------- Jul 7 Atlantis Landed at KSC Jul 22 Discovery Landed at KSC Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-73 Sep 21 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1 OMDP OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 2 STS-74 Oct 26 OV-105 Endeavour LC39A STS-69 Aug ? ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-48/ET-72/OV-105 LC39A STS-69 ML2/RSRM-51 VAB Bay 1? STS-74 ML3/RSRM-50 VAB Bay 3 STS-73 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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/space/jsr/jsr.html | | ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'