Jonathan's Space Report No. 467 2001 Nov 14 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Station -------------------- The EP-2 crew - Afanas'ev, Haignere and Kozeev - undocked Soyuz TM-32 from the Pirs module at 0138:30 UTC on Oct 31. Deorbit burn was at 0404 UTC, with landing 180 km SE of Dzhezkazgan at 0459:26 UTC. This leaves the Ex-3 crew of Culbertston, Dezhurov and Tyurin with a fresh Soyuz transport ship, Soyuz TM-33, docked with the Zarya module. On Nov 12 Culbertson and Dezhurov made a spacewalk from the Pirs module. It was depressurized past 50 mbar around 2127 UTC, and the hatch was opened at 2141 UTC. The astronauts completed external connections for the Pirs module and finished setting up the Kurs rendezvous system. The hatch was closed at 0245 UTC on Nov 13 and repressurization began at around 0250 UTC for a duration of about 5 hr 23min. Preparations are continuing for the launch of STS-108, with Endeavour now at pad 39B. Red Planet - Erratum --------------------- I can't believe I did this - thanks to alert reader Mike Grabois who pointed out my use of 'perigee' and 'apogee' when I meant to type the generic terms 'periapsis' and 'apoapsis'. In the 1960s-70s the planet-specific terms - in this case I believe `periares', `apoares' - had a brief popularity, although the difficulty of coming up with new terms for each new body (how about `perieroticon' for NEAR about Eros?) has led to the generic terms winning out for the most part. Exceptions are perihelion/aphelion which is well-hallowed in use for the Sun; perijove and apojove which seem to be in common use for Galileo at Jupiter; in astronomy, periastron/apastron and perigalacticon/apogalacticon are sometimes seen for stars and galaxies respectively. Recent Launches --------------- No new orbital launches this week. A suborbital STARS missile defense target(Polaris with Orbus-1 upper stage) was destroyed during launch from Kodiak on Nov 9. A successful Minuteman 3 operational test flew from Vandenberg to Kwajalein on Nov 7. A Topol' was launched from Plesetsk to Kamchatka on Nov 1. Mars Odyssey continues aerobraking and now has a periapsis of 110 km. Genesis is now arriving at the Earth-Sun L1 point. A malfunctioning thermal radiator is causing some concern for the health of the sample return capsule's critical battery, which is overheating, but Genesis is expected to begin collecting solar wind samples on schedule. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Sep 7 1939 Picosat 7/8 - Sindri, LEO Technology 00-42C Sep 8 1525 USA 160 ) Atlas IIAS Vandenberg SLC3E Sigint 40A NRO satellite ) 40C Sep 14 2335 Pirs ) Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Station module Progress M-SO1 ) Cargo 41A Sep 21 1849 Orbview-4 ) Taurus 2110 Vandenberg 576E Imaging F01 QuikTOMS ) Environment F01 SBD ) Technology F01 Celestis-4 ) Burial F01 Sep 25 2321 Atlantic Bird 2 Ariane 44P Kourou ELA2 Ku telecom 42A Sep 30 0240 Starshine 3 ) Athena-1 Kodiak Science 43A Picosat ) Technology 43B PCSat ) UHF/VHF comm 43C Sapphire ) Technology 43D Oct 5 2120 USA 161 Titan 4B Vandenberg SLC4E Imaging 44A Oct 6 1645 Raduga-1 Proton-K/DM2? Baykonur C telecom 45A Oct 11 0232 USA 162 Atlas IIAS Canaveral SLC36B Data relay? 46A Oct 18 1851 QuickBird Delta 7320 Vandenberg SLC2W Imaging 47A Oct 21 0859 Soyuz TM-33 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 48A Oct 22 0453 TES ) PSLV Sriharikota Imaging? 49A BIRD ) Imaging 49C PROBA ) Imaging/tech 49B Oct 25 1134 Molniya-3 Molniya-M Plesetsk LC43/3 Comms 50A Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-109 2002 Feb 14 HST SM-3B OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1? Maintenance OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 2? STS-110 2002 Mar 21 ISS 8A OV-105 Endeavour LC39B STS-108 2001 Nov 29 ISS UF-1 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'