Jonathan's Space Report No. 444 2001 Jan 16, Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Stations -------------------- The next Shuttle flight is STS-98. Atlantis will deliver the Destiny lab module to the Station. STS-98 was rolled out to the pad on Jan 3 but continuing concerns about wiring in the solid boosters led to a decision to roll back the vehicle to the VAB. The rollback is expected on Jan 19, with launch slipping to sometime in Feb. Atlantis' cargo manifest is roughly as follows: (once again I haven't found a payload bay diagram... anyone with locations for the PDGF and SASA please let me know.) Est. Mass (kg) Bay 1-2: Orbiter Docking System 1800 and External Airlock 3 EMU spacesuits (S/N unknown) 360? Bay 5-13: Destiny Module 14056 Bay 4P? Adapter Beam with 500? PDGF (Power Data Grapple Fixture) Unknown Adapter Beam with 500? SASA (S-band Antenna Support Assembly) Sill: Canadarm RMS 202 410 ------ Total payload bay cargo 17626 kg There's also the Destiny nadir window shutter and Destiny EVA slidewire, which may be stored in the External Airlock. Current Launches ---------------- The first launch of the 21st century was Chinese. The second Shenzhou spaceship was launched from China's Jiuquan space center on Jan 9. This flight is reported to carry animals (species so far unidentified, probably nothing larger than mice) presumably in a test of the spaceship's life support systems, as well as scientific experiments, including China's first gamma ray burst detectors. Shenzhou 2 made three orbit raising manuevers during its flight. The Shenzhou orbital module has its own solar panels and will remain operational in orbit; the descent module was recovered at 1122 UTC on Jan 16. Landing was in Inner Mongolia. The Turksat 2A (Eurasiasat 1) satellite was launched by Ariane 44P from Kourou on Jan 10. The satellite is an Alcatel Spacebus 3000B3 with a dry mass of 1577 kg (launch mass 3535 kg) and a 37m solar panel span. The satellite was placed in a 162 x 36742 km x 2.9 deg orbit; by Jan 13 the perigee had been raised to 21185 km. The H10-3 Ariane upper stage reentered within one day of launch. Turksat 2A is owned by Eurasiasat, a joint venture between Turk Telecom of Ankara and Alcatel Espace. It is based in Monaco, and it will be interesting to see which country registers the satellite with the UN. The satellite has 36 Ku-band transponders and three antennae. The Stardust probe flew past Earth at a distance of 3706 km at 1115 UTC on Jan 15, and flew near the Moon at a distance of 98000 km at around 0200 UTC on Jan 16. The gravity assist flyby changes Stardust's heliocentric orbit from 0.956 x 2.216 AU x 0.0 deg to 0.983 x 2.285 AU x 3.7 deg. Galileo made a 2326 km altitude flyby of Ganymede at 0825 UTC on Dec 28. Perijove was 464030 km at 0326 UTC Dec 29. Galileo is now in a 0.53 x 15.47 Gm orbit with next perijove around May 23; future mission events are still under discussion but a Callisto flyby on May 23 is possible. The Russian Resurs-O1 No. 1L remote sensing satellite, cover name Kosmos-1689, reentered on Jan 14. It was launched in 1985. Confirming earlier rumours, Space News is reporting that Japan's LDREX experiment launched on an Ariane 5 in December was a failure. There's still no information on NASDA's web site. I present an improved list of suborbital launches for the year 2000. Thanks to Carl Rigg and David Legangneux for sending me some extra info; the list below includes those launches I have managed to confirm. Large rockets not in the list include the Hera launch of Feb 5 (apogee only 60 km, so not a space launch) and the Arrow 2 launch of Sep 14 (apogee probably 10-40 km). Small rockets such as the Nike Orion are also omitted. The R-29RM Shtil' launch on Apr 6 was reportedly by PL Borisoglebsk; I don't know that submarine's serial number. K-18 is the Karelia and K-407 is the Novomoskovsk. The Topol'-M launched Sep 27 is the first from a mobile launcher; two sources identify it as distinct from the Sep 26 launch but I'm a bit worried they may be the same launch. JSR Suborbital Log 2000 Rev 1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date Vehicle Mission Site Apogee/km 2000 Jan 19 0219 Minuteman 2 MSLS IFT-4 Vandenberg LF03 1600 2000 Jan 19 0240 Minuteman 2 PLV PLV/EKV Meck 230 2000 Feb 9 0959 Topol'-M Test 10 GNIIP 1000? 2000 Feb 25 0745 Black Brant XII NASA 40.08UE Poker Flat Pad 3 1000? 2000 Feb 26 0919 Black Brant XII GEODESIC Poker Flat Pad 4 1000 2000 Mar 8 0940 Peacekeeper GT29PA Vandenberg LF05 1600? 2000 Mar 27 0700 Shtil' - K-18, Barents 1000? 2000 Mar 27 0110? Shtil' - K-?, Okhotsk 1000? 2000 Mar 27 1000? Shtil' - K-18, Barents 1000? 2000 Apr 6 Shtil' - K-?, Barents 1000? 2000 Apr 30 Trident D-5 - SSBN 742, ER 1000? 2000 Apr 30 Trident D-5 - SSBN 742, ER 1000? 2000 May 24 0801 Minuteman 3 PRP FTM-02 Vandenberg LF09 1600? 2000 May 28 2000 Minuteman 2 TLV-1 Vandenberg LF06 1600? 2000 Jun 9 0801? Minuteman 3 GT172GM Vandenberg LF10 1600? 2000 Jul 8 0419 Minuteman 2 MSLS IFT-5 Vandenberg LF03 1600? 2000 Jul 8 0440 Minuteman 2 PLV PLV/EKV Meck 230? 2000 Sep 12 Shtil' - K-18, Barents 1000? 2000 Sep 21 2150 Trident D-5 - HMS Vengeance, ER 1000? 2000 Sep 26 1100 Topol'-M - GNIIP 1000? 2000 Sep 27 Topol'-M - GNIIP 1000? 2000 Sep 28 0801 Minuteman 3 GT173GM Vandenberg LF04 1600? 2000 Sep 28 1001 Minuteman 3 GT174GM Vandenberg LF09 1600? 2000 Oct 11 0930 Topol' - GNIIP 1000? 2000 Oct 14 Storm-2 PAC-3 DT6 Fort Wingate LC96 104 2000 Nov 1 1000 UR-100NUTTKh - Baykonur 1000? 2000 Nov 4 DF-31 - Taiyuan 1000? 2000 Dec 4 0916 SS-520 SS-520-2 Svalrak 1000 2000 Dec 16 DF-31 - Taiyuan 1000? 2000 Dec 27 Shtil' - K-407, Barent 1000? Smaller, intermediate altitude rockets: 2000 Feb 12 0327 Black Brant IX NASA 36.186UG White Sands 350? 2000 Feb 26 0459 Black Brant IX NASA 36.162DG White Sands 350? 2000 Mar 27 1117 Skylark 7 TEXUS 37 Esrange 243 2000 Apr 2 Skylark 7 TEXUS 38 Esrange 240? 2000 May 6 0635 Black Brant IX NASA 36.183UG White Sands 350? 2000 Jul 6 1441 Black Brant IX NASA 36.166UM White Sands 350? 2000 Jul 7 1025 Terrier Oriole - Wallops Island 368 2000 Jul 15 Shahab 3 - Shahpur, Iran? ? 2000 Jul 17 0617 Black Brant VIII NASA 27.143UE White Sands 300? 2000 Jul 26 1806 Black Brant IX NASA 36.185GS White Sands LC36 350? 2000 Aug 5 0500 Black Brant IX NASA 36.189UG White Sands 406 2000 Aug 21 2014 VS-30/Orion - Alcantara 315 2000 Sep 5 1802 Black Brant IX NASA 36.151US White Sands 350? 2000 Sep 21 Shahab 3 - Shahpur, Iran? ? 2000 Oct 26 0957 Black Brant VC NASA 21.126CE White Sands 275? 2000 Dec 9 1220 Sonda 3 XV-30 Barriera do Inferno 430 Erratum ------- In the annual launch log part 4, the Start should of course have been listed under Russian vehicles rather than "Other". Oops. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Dec 1 0306 Endeavour) Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39 Spaceship 78A ITS P6 ) Station seg. Dec 5 1232 EROS A1 Start-1 Svobodniy Imaging 79A Dec 6 0247 USA 155 Atlas 2AS Canaveral SLC36A Commsat? 80A Dec 20 0026 Astra 2D ) Ariane 5G Kourou ELA3 Commsat 81A GE 8 ) Commsat 81B LDREX ) Tech 81C Dec 20 1620 Beidou CZ-3A Xichang LC2 Navsat 82A Dec 27 1856 Gonets D-1 ) Tsiklon-3 Plesetsk LC32 Commsat F03 Gonets D-1 ) Gonets D-1 ) Strela-3 ) Strela-3 ) Strela-3 ) Jan 9 1700 Shenzhou 2 Chang Zheng 2F Jiuquan Spaceship 01A Jan 10 2209 Turksat 2A Ariane 44P Kourou ELA2 Commsat 02A Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia Palmdale OMDP OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1 STS-102 2001 Mar? ISS 5A.1 OV-104 Atlantis LC39A STS-98 2001 Feb? ISS 5A OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 2 STS-100 2001 Apr 19 ISS 6A .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'