Jonathan's Space Report No. 392 1999 Mar 16 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Human spaceflight ------------------- The EO-27 crew of Afanas'ev, Avdeev and Haignere are aboard the Mir complex. Discovery is being prepared for the STS-96 mission to the International Space Station. Valeriy Illarionov died of cancer in Zvezdniy Gorodok on Mar 10. A former Soviet Air Force cosmonaut and support member for the Apollo-Soyuz program, Illarionov never flew in space. STS-103 is now definitely planned for October with the HST repair mission. After that the Shuttle, Mir and ISS launch schedule remains uncertain. Recent Launches --------------- Four Globalstar satellites were launched by Soyuz-Ikar on Mar 15. The Soyuz-U's Blok-I third stage delivered the Ikar upper stage with Globalstar dispenser to a 235 x 899 km x 52.0 deg transfer orbit. The Ikar stage circularization burn placed the four satellites in a 897 x 950 km x 52.0 deg parking orbit. Satellite M022 was separated first from the top of the dispenser, followed by ejection of the other three satellites from the sides. Satellite separation was at 0637 UTC following launch at 0306 UTC. For a while the Ikar was in a similar orbit to the Globalstars, but it made a depletion deorbit burn on Mar 16 and reentered. On the first Soyuz/Ikar launch on Feb 9, the Ikar deorbit burn came soon after deployment and the Ikar was never cataloged by Space Command. The Soyuz-U/Ikar is build by TsSKB-Progress of Samara and marketed by the French Starsem company. The Globalstar satellites are L-band low orbit mobile telephone comsats built by Loral and Alenia. The WIRE infrared astronomy satellite lost all of its hydrogen cryogen by Mar 8, so, sadly, the mission is a total loss. The spacecraft may be used for engineering tests. In Taiwanese documents written in Chinese, the ROCSAT (Republic Of China Satellite) satellite, launched on Jan 27, is written using the Chinese name for China (often translated 'Middle Kingdom'). In the Wade-Giles transliteration used in Taiwan this word is Chunghua (or Chunghwa), as opposed to the mainland Pinyin transliteration in which the same word would be Zhongguo. Since I prefer to use the name in the owner's language, I've amended the listing accordingly. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jan 27 0034 Chunghua-1 Athena-1 Canaveral SLC46 Science 02A Feb 7 2104 Stardust Delta 7426 Canaveral SLC17A Probe 03A Feb 9 0354 Globalstar M023 ) Soyuz-U/Ikar Baykonur Comsat 04B Globalstar M036 ) Comsat 04A Globalstar M038 ) Comsat 04C Globalstar M040 ) Comsat 04D Feb 15 0512 Telstar 6 Proton-K/DM3 Baykonur LC81L Comsat 05A Feb 16 0145 JCSAT-6 Atlas 2AS Canaveral SLC36A Comsat 06A Feb 20 0418 Soyuz TM-29 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 07A Feb 23 1030 ARGOS ) Delta 7920 Vandenberg SLC2W Technol. 08A Orsted ) Space Sci 08B Sunsat ) Technol. 08C Feb 26 2244 Arabsat 3A ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 09A Skynet 4E ) Comsat 09B Feb 28 0400 Raduga-1 Proton-K/DM-2 Baykonur LC81P Comsat 10A Mar 5 0256 WIRE Pegasus XL Vandenberg Astronomy 11A Mar 15 0306 Globalstar M022 ) Soyuz-U/Ikar Baykonur Comsat 12A Globalstar M041 ) Comsat 12B Globalstar M046 ) Comsat 12C Globalstar M037 ) Comsat 12D Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia VAB Bay 2 STS-93 Jul 9 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1 STS-96 May 20 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-101 ? OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 2 STS-99 Sep 18 MLP1/RSRM-69/ET-99 VAB Bay 1 STS-93 MLP2/RSRM-70 VAB Bay 3 STS-96 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'