Jonathan's Space Report No. 424 2000 May 1 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Stations -------------------- Soyuz TM-30 docked with Mir's forward (-X) port on Apr 6 at 0631 UTC. Zalyotin and Kaleri have reactivated Mir and are settling in for a stay of uncertain duration. Progress M1-2, cargo ship 11F615A55 No. 252, was launched on Apr 25 and docked with the rear Kvant port on Mir at 2128 UTC on Apr 27. Progress M1-1 undocked from that port at 1633 UTC on Apr 26 and was deorbited over the Pacific at 1927 UTC on Apr 26. Mir's orbit was raised on Apr 29 in the first of a series of three burns. The next Shuttle mission is STS-101, to the international space station. Launch is postponed to mid-May following weather delays. Errata ------- Contrary to the suggestion in the table in JSR 423, all Ariane 5 missions so far used the "short" fairing. The "long" fairing will probably first be used for the ENVISAT mission. Thanks to my European correspondents for setting me straight. The delay to the Cluster launch, which is also delaying other European satellites, is actually a seal problem in attitude control thrusters. Indications are that the problem is minor and slips will be a few weeks only. Current Launches ---------------- A Krunichev Proton-K successfully launched Eutelsat's Sesat (Siberia-Europe Satellite) on Apr 17. Sesat is an MSS-2500-GSO (Gals/Ekspress) comsat built by NPO PM of Krasnoyarsk, with an Alcatel Espace telecoms payload with 18 Ku-band transponders. The Energiya Blok DM-2M upper stage made two burns to deliver Sesat to geosynchronous altitude. The satellite has 8 Fakel SPD-100 plasma thrusters for stationkeeping. Eutelsat grew out of the European Communication Satellites (ECS) launched starting in 1983; they have since developed their Hot Bird fleet of European television broadcast satellites, but the venture into broadcasting to Siberia is a new step for them. The combination of a Russian-built spacecraft bus and European communications payload follows the trend set by the similar Ekspress A series. Arianespace launched an Ariane 42L from Kourou on Apr 19. Flight V129 placed the Galaxy IVR comsat into orbit for Panamsat. Galaxy IVR is a Hughes HS-601HP model with a dry mass of 1895 kg. It carries 28 Ku-band and 28 C-band transponders. After insertion in a standard 219 x 32007 km x 7.0 deg geostationary transfer orbit, Galaxy IVR's R-4D apogee engine raised orbit to 35765 x 35792 km x 0.1 deg by Apr 27 and was over 67W by late April; final destination is 99W. The Galaxy satellites provide US domestic telecom services; the original Galaxy IVH failed in May 1998, putting pagers out of action across the USA. Over fifty HS-601 class satellites have now been launched, and most are still operating. The Ariane 42L vehicle has two strap-on liquid boosters; the flight was the 51st launch of the uprated H10-3 high energy upper stage and the 124th launch of the three-stage Ariane 1/2/3/4 class vehicle. NEAR-Shoemaker has now entered its operational 50-km-radius polar orbit around minor planet (433) Eros. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Mar 12 0407 Ekspress A2 Proton Baykonur Comsat 13A Mar 12 0929 MTI Taurus Vandenberg 576E Imaging 14A Mar 12 1449 ICO F-1 Zenit-3SL Sea Launch Comsat F02 Mar 20 1828 Dumsat Soyuz/Fregat Baykonur LC31 Tech 15A Mar 21 2328 Asiastar ) Ariane 5 Kourou ELA3 Comsat 16A Insat 3B ) Comsat 16B Mar 25 2034 IMAGE Delta 7326 Vandenberg SLC2W Science 17A Apr 4 0501 Soyuz TM-30 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 18A Apr 17 2106 Sesat Proton Baykonur LC200L Comsat 19A Apr 19 0029 Galaxy IVR Ariane 42L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 20A Apr 25 2008 Progress M-2 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 21A Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia Palmdale OMDP OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1 STS-92 2000 Sep? ISS 3A OV-104 Atlantis LC39A STS-101 2000 May? ISS 2A.2a OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 2 STS-97 2000 Nov? ISS 4A .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'