Jonathan's Space Report No 427 2000 May 29, Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Stations -------------------- Orbiter OV-104 Atlantis reached the International Space Station at around 0309 UTC on May 21, and docked with the PMA-2 docking adapter on the Unity node at 0431 UTC. On May 22 at around 0145 UTC the Atlantis cargo bay airlock was depressurized. Mission specialists Jeff Williams and James Voss opened the hatch on the Tunnel Adapter at around 0200 UTC and floated into the cargo bay to carry out external maintenance work on ISS. They reattached the US crane, attached the Russian Strela transfer boom, and replaced a faulty antenna on the Unity node, as well as attaching EVA handrails to the station exterior. They returned to the tunnel adapter and closed the hatch around 0820 UTC (?), beginning repressurization of the airlock at 0832 UTC. [Anyone who has accurate times for the depress and hatch open/close, please forward them]. On May 23 at 0003 UTC the Atlantis crew opened the first hatch to PMA-2 and entered the Station. The crew replaced a set of batteries in Zarya, installed fans and ducting to improve airflow, and delivered supplies and equipment. Three hour-long orbit raising burns by the RCS engines on Atlantis, on May 24 at 0002 UTC, May 25 around 0116 UTC, and May 25 at 2336 UTC, put the ISS/Atlantis complex in a 372 x 380 km x 51.6 deg orbit. On May 11 ISS had been in a 332 x 341 km orbit. The STS-101 crew left the station on May 26, closing the PMA-2 hatch at 0808 UTC and undocking at 2303 UTC. Atlantis performed a 180 degree flyaround of the station and departed the vicinity around 2344 UTC. Atlantis closed its payload bay doors around 0230UTC on May 29 and fired the OMS engines for deorbit at 0512 UTC. The vehicle landed on RW15 at Kennedy Space Center at 0620 UTC. Atlantis will be turned around for the next flight, STS-106, which will launch after the Zvezda module is orbited this summer. Current Launches ---------------- Flight AC-201, the first Lockheed Martin Astronautics Atlas 3A, took off from Cape Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 36B on May 24. The Atlas III first stage is a major redesign for the vehicle, replacing the venerable MA-5 engine system with an Energomash RD-180. The RD-180 is a LOX/kerosene engine with 412 kN thrust and two combustion chambers. The irony of the US's first intercontinental missile being reequipped with Russian engines has drawn a lot of comment. All previous Atlas models used a MA-5A sustainer with one nozzle and MA-5A booster with two nozzles, one on either side of the sustainer. The booster package with the two booster nozzles was jettisoned early in flight, so Atlas was described as a `stage-and-a-half' vehicle. The new much simpler design has no separating booster package. It retains the 3.05m diameter core tank size and is stretched to a length of 29m. The Atlas III first stage cutoff 3 min 2s after launch, and separated from the second stage 11s later. The Atlas 3A second stage is the Centaur IIIA, or Single Engine Centaur. All previous Centaur stages have used a pair of Pratt and Whitney RL-10 LOX/LH2 engines, and the new design is similar in size and shape to its twin-engine Centaur IIA predecessor. The Centaur IIIA uses an RL-10A-4-1B engine which is basically the same as that used on Centaur IIA. The Centaur made its first burn to a 188 x 486 km x 26.8 deg parking orbit at 2322 UTC, and at 2336 UTC restarted to deliver its payload to a 230 x 45777 km x 19.9 deg supersynchronous transfer orbit. AC-201's payload was Eutelsat W4, an Alcatel Spacebus 3000B2 comsat for the European Telecommunications Satellite Organization (Eutelsat). Dry mass of the satellite is 1285 kg. It carries 32 Ku-band transponders, and antennae covering Russia and Africa. It will be stationed at 36 deg E. This is the third of the high power Eutelsat W series to be launched (W1 was destroyed in a ground accident). There have been many different Atlas variants; here's a recap. They all have in common the basic Atlas design of a 3.05m diameter thin-wall `balloon' tank which needs to be kept pressurized to stop it collapsing. Atlas A, B, C ICBM development, 1957-1959 Atlas D Deployed ICBM, and space vehicle first stage. Used for Mercury spacecraft and for Agena stage. Atlas D (LV-3C) Atlas D with adapter for Centaur Atlas E,F Deployed silo ICBM, refurbished for space use later. Used 1960-1995. Atlas SLV-3 Atlas D upgraded for space launch vehicle use Atlas SLV-3A Upgraded stretched SLV-3 for later Atlas Agena Atlas SLV-3C SLV-3 with adapter for Centaur Atlas SLV-3D Improved SLV-3C introduced 1973 Atlas G Upgraded SLV-3D introduced 1984 Atlas H Special SLV-3 version replacing Atlas E/F for classified USN launches Atlas I Commercial version of Atlas G Atlas II Stretch of Atlas I; used in II, IIA and IIAS variants IIAS has four strapon solid boosters. Atlas III New version with RD-180 main engine The Atlas III stage will also be used in the Atlas 3B launch vehicle, which will carry the Centaur IIIB/DEC and Centaur IIIB/SEC (dual and single engine variant) upper stages. The planned `Atlas 5' launch vehicle, which will succeed both Atlas 3 and Titan 4, (there is no Atlas 4!) does not use an Atlas stage at all: it will have a 3.8 meter diameter Common Core Booster which uses the same RD-180 engine as the Atlas III, and I'll count it as a new family of launch vehicle. Deep Space ---------- The Galileo probe made its encounter G28 perijove pass of the Jupiter system on May 30-31. Reported closest approach to Jupiter was 479000 km at 0553 UTC on May 31; this is probably distance above cloud tops rather than from Jupiter center (an extra 71000 km). The main event was a Ganymede flyby at an altitude of 808 km at 1010 UTC on May 30. Galileo is now apparently in a high eccentricity orbit which will bring it back for its next perijove on Dec 28. If I've done my sums right, this implies a record high apojove of 32 million kilometers in September, well outside the orbit of Jupiter's outermost know satellite Sinope. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. 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 M1-2 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 21A May 3 0707 GOES 11 Atlas 2A Canaveral SLC36A Weather 22A May 3 1325 Kosmos-2370 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Imaging 23A May 8 1601 DSP 20 Titan 4B Canaveral LC40 Early Warn 24A May 11 0148 GPS SVN 51 Delta 7925 Canaveral SLC17A Navsat 25A May 16 0828 Simsat-1 ) Rokot Plesetsk LC133 Test 26A Simsat-2 ) 26B May 19 1011 Atlantis Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 27A May 24 2310 Eutelsat W4 Atlas 3A Canaveral SLC36B Comsat 28A 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 OPF Bay 3 STS-106 2000 Aug? ISS 2A.2b 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'