Jonathan's Space Report Jun 14 1991 (no.76) ---------------------------------------------------- Columbia landed at 1539UT on Jun 14, on runway 22 at Edwards AFB. This completed the STS-40 Spacelab Life Sciences 1 mission. Atlantis is being processed for the STS-43 mission which will deploy another Tracking and Data Relay Satellite; this will be followed by Discovery's STS-48 mission to launch the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite. After the current mission, Columbia will undergo modification for extended duration flights, its next mission being another Spacelab flight about a year from now. This week Columbia recaptured the 'Orbiter with most flight hours' record from Discovery, with a total of 1804 hours 23 minutes in its 11 flights. Anatoliy Artsebarksiy and Sergey Krikalyov continue in orbit aboard the Mir/Kvant/Kvant-2/Kristall/Soyuz TM-12/Progress M-8 complex. An Okean oceanographic remote sensing satellite built by NPO Yuzhnoye was launched on Jun 4 by Tsiklon from Plesetsk. Correction: the date of the Delta 111 explosion was May 1, according to calculations by Mike McCants. Also, the deployment of the classified USA-70 satellite, international designation 1991-31C, from the STS-39 mission is now confirmed. ___________________________________ |Current STS status: | |Orbiters | | | |OV-102 Columbia EAFB RW22 | |OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1 | |OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 2 | |OV-105 Endeavour VAB Bay 2 | | | |ML/ET/SRB stacks | | | |ML1/STS-43/ET VAB Bay 1 | |ML2 | |ML3 VAB Bay 3 | ----------------------------------- 10 years ago: 4 Jun 1981. The Kosmos-1275 navigation satellite was launched. On 1981 Jul 24 it disintegrated into many pieces, possibly as a result of colliding with another space object. 20 years ago: 6 Jun 1971. The first space station mission, with cosmonauts Georgiy Dobrovol'skiy, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsaev launched in Soyuz-11 to dock with the Salyut space lab and spend 22 days aboard. Just prior to reentry on 29 June, a valve on the Soyuz-11 accidentally failed open venting the cabin air and causing the deaths of all three crew members. 20 years ago: 15 Jun 1971. The first KH-9 HEXAGON ("Big Bird") spy satellite was launched. The Big Bird has now been superseded by the Advanced Crystal and Lacrosse recon satellites. 30 years ago: 8 Jun 1961. The Discoverer 24 spy satellite failed to reach orbit when its Agena engine did not ignite. Discoverer 25 completed a succesful mission Jun 16-19. (c) 1991 Jonathan McDowell. Information in this report is obtained from public sources and does not reflect the official views of NASA. .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (205)544-7724 | | Space Science Lab ES65 | uucp: | | NASA Marshall Space Flight Center | bitnet : | | Huntsville AL 35812 | inter : mcdowell@xanth.msfc.nasa.gov | | USA | span : ssl::mcdowell | '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'