Jonathan's Space Report No. 388 1999 Feb 10 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Station ------------------------ The Chandra observatory was flown from California to KSC on Feb 4. We're hoping for a launch on Jul 9. The Mir space station remains in orbit with Gennady Padalka and Sergey Avdeev aboard. Progress M-40 undocked on Feb 4 at 0959 UTC, but the attempt to deploy the Znamya-2.5 reflector ran into trouble when it caught on an antenna. Two attempts failed to deploy the antenna, and the experiment was abandoned. Progress M-40 fired its engines for the deorbit burn at 1016 UTC on Feb 5 and reentered over the Pacific. At 1123 UTC on Feb 8, Padalka and Avdeev undocked from Mir's -X port in Soyuz TM-28, and redocked at the +X Kvant port at 1139 UTC, freeing up the front port for the planned Soyuz TM-29 docking. Recent Launches --------------- The Stardust probe was launched from Cape Canaveral on Feb 7 at 2104 UTC. Launch vehicle was a Boeing Delta 7426. Four GEM-40 solid boosters separated one minute after launch. First stage separation at 2108 UTC was followed by the second stage's first burn, placing the stack in a 185 x 185 km x 28 deg parking orbit at 2114 UTC. The second stage restarted at 2125 to change the orbit to approximately 178 x 7184 km x 28.5 deg (planned). This was followed by third stage burn at 2129 UTC and spacecraft separation at 2131 UTC. After its depletion burn, the Delta 266 second stage was left in a 294 x 6818 km x 22.5 deg orbit. The Star 37FM third stage entered solar orbit and separated from the Stardust probe. Stardust's orbit has a 2 year period. This is the second Delta launch using the Star 37FM lightweight third stage; the first was Deep Space 1. Stardust was built by Lockheed Martin Astronautics/Denver. The fourth mission in the Discovery program, Stardust will fly 100 km from comet 81P/Wild-2 in Jan 2004 and recover cometary material using an aerogel substance. The encounter will take place 1.9 AU from the Sun. Stardust will also collect some material from the interplanetary medium. A return capsule would land on a lake bed in Utah in Jan 2006. Stardust uses Denver's Space Probe bus with a return vehicle, the Sample Reentry Capsule (SRC). The SRC is passive, and the Stardust bus orients it for entry before separating. The navigation camera is a Voyager spare. Probe mass is 340 kg full. The Discovery missions are: NEAR En route to rendezvous with (433) Eros Mars Pathfinder Landed near Ares Vallis, Mars Lunar Prospector In low lunar polar orbit Stardust En route to 81P/Wild-2 Genesis Launch to L1 due 2001 Contour Launch 2002 to flyby several comets Five more missions are currently under consideration for selection. The first Soyuz-U/Ikar launch vehicle placed four Globalstar satellites in orbit on Feb 9, with launch at 0354 UTC. The vehicle was a standard Soyuz-U (11A511U) with an extra Ikar payload stage derived from the Yantar' reconnaissance satellite's propulsion module. The Soyuz-U third stage, Blok-I, ignitied at 4min 43s and separated at 8 min 48s into flight in a 236 x 884 km x 52.0 deg transfer orbit. The Ikar stage, with a Melnikov 17D61 UDMH/N2O4 engine, burned at second apogee, at 0623 UTC, and dispensed the Globalstar satellite on top of the dispenser, FM36, into 915 x 947 km x 52.0 deg orbit at 0727 UTC. The three remaining satellites (FM 23,38,40) mounted around the side of the dispenser were released at the same time, according to a Globalstar source, (the Starsem web page describes a plan for a later deployment of the three at 0904 UTC, which is presumably out of date) into a 903 x 946 km x 52.0 deg orbit. The Ikar stage has not yet been cataloged. The Globalstar satellites will provide mobile communications at L-band. The satellites were built by Loral and Alenia. This was the first launch carried out by the Starsem organization, a joint venture including Aerospatiale and TsSKB-Progress (the launch vehicle manufacturer). The dispenser was built by Aerospatiale/Aquitaine (Bordeaux). Thanks to Igor Lissov for confirmation of launch pads for recent Russian flights. Mars Global Surveyor made its aerobraking exit burn at 0811 UTC on Feb 4, raising periapsis out of the Martian atmosphere. It will enter its final mapping orbit on Feb 18. Orbit is currently 384 x 406 km x 93.0 deg. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Dec 4 0835 Endeavour ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 69A Unity ) Station 69F PMA-1 ) PMA-2 ) Dec 6 0043 Satmex 5 Ariane 42L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 70A Dec 6 0057 SWAS Pegasus XL Vandenberg Astronomy 71A Dec 10 1157 Nadezhda ) Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132/1 Navsat 72A Astrid-2 ) Science 72B Dec 11 1845 Mars Climate Orb. Delta 7425 Canaveral SLC17A Mars probe 73A Dec 14 0431 SAC-A Endeavour,LEO Science 69B Dec 15 0209 Mightysat Endeavour,LEO Technol. 69C Dec 19 1130 Iridium 88?) CZ-2C/SD Taiyuan Comsat 74A Iridium 89?) Comsat 74B Dec 22 0108 PAS 6B Ariane 42L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 75A Dec 24 2003 Kosmos-2361 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132/1 Navsat 76A Dec 30 1835 Kosmos-2362 ) Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur LC200L Navsat 77A Kosmos-2363 ) Navsat 77B Kosmos-2364 ) Navsat 77C Jan 3 2021 Mars Polar Lander) Delta 7425 Canaveral SLC17B Mars probe 01A MPL Cruise Stage ) DS2 Microprobe 1 ) DS2 Microprobe 2 ) Jan 27 0034 ROCSAT-1 Athena-1 Canaveral SLC46 Science 02A Feb 7 2104 Stardust Delta 7426 Canaveral SLC17A Probe 03A Feb 9 0354 Globalstar FM23 ) Soyuz-U/Ikar Baykonur Comsat 04B Globalstar FM36 ) Comsat 04A Globalstar FM38 ) Comsat 04C Globalstar FM40 ) Comsat 04D Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-93 Jul 9 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1 STS-96 May 20 OV-104 Atlantis VAB Bay 2 STS-101 Oct 14 OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 2 STS-99 Sep 18 MLP1/RSRM-69/ET-99 VAB Bay 1 STS-93 MLP2/ MLP3/ .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS6 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@cfa.harvard.edu | | USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html | | Back issues: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: mail majordomo@head-cfa.harvard.edu, (un)subscribe jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'