Jonathan's Space Report No. 129 1992 Sep 29 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mir --- Russian cosmonauts Solov'yov and Avdeev have completed four spacewalks to install the Sofora thruster package and relocate the Kurs rendezvous antenna. Shuttle ------- Space Shuttle Endeavour landed on Runway 33 at Kennedy Space Center at 1253 UTC on Sep 20. Flight time was 190 hours and 30 minutes. Columbia was mated to the STS-52 stack on Sep 22 and rolled out to LC39B on Sep 26. Launch is scheduled for Oct 15. Crew are Jim Wetherbee (Commander), Mike Baker (Pilot), Lacy Veach, William Shepherd and Tammy Jernigan (Mission specialists), all of NASA, and Steven MacLean of the Canadian Space Agency (Payload specialist). Columbia will carry the following payloads: IRIS cradle with Lageos/LAS/IRIS payload MPESS pallet with USMP-1 payload MPESS pallet with USMP-1 avionics HH-G mounting plates with ASP payload TPCE GAS payload CTA satellite The ASI (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana) Lageos 2 satellite carries retroreflectors for accurate laser tracking. It will allow geodesists to measure accurately the shape of the Earth and monitor the processes of plate tectonics. The 400 kg Lageos 2 will be inserted in a transfer orbit by the Italian Research Interim Stage (IRIS), on its first flight. The MAGE 1SC apogee motor will then fire to circularize the orbit. The United States Microgravity Payload continues the MSL materials science series. The European Space Agency's Attitude Sensor Package (ASP) consists of three experimental trackers mounted on Hitchhiker-G plates on the payload bay wall. The Canadian Space Agency's CTA (Canadian Target Assembly) is a small test satellite which will be released by the remote manipulator arm and visually tracked by Canadian payload specialist Steven MacLean using the Space Vision System experiment. The Tank Pressure Control Experiment is a Getaway Special class experiment from NASA Lewis Research Center. Launches --------- Mars Observer was launched by Titan III CT-4 from LC40 at Cape Canaveral at 1705 UTC on Sep 25. The MO/TOS combination was placed in low earth orbit by the Titan second stage, which was deboosted shortly afterwards. The TOS (Orbital Sciences Corp. Transfer Orbit Stage) meanwhile ignited to place the Mars Observer on an escape trajectory. TOS then executed an avoidance maneuver to make sure it will not impact Mars. No TOS telemetry was transmitted, leaving flight controllers unsure of the launch's success until Mars Observer started transmitting about 1.5 hours after launch. Mars Observer will reach Mars orbit in Aug 1993. Kosmos-2209, a Statsionar class geostationary comsat, was launched by Proton from Baykonur on Sep 10. By Sep 20 it was on station at 23.8 degrees west. It is probably a military comsat in the Kosmos-1546 series. Kosmos-2210 was launched by Soyuz from Plesetsk on Sep 22 about 1620 UTC. It is a two-month long imaging recon flight, replacing Kosmos-2203 which was deorbited on the same day. Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission OV-102 Columbia LC39B STS-52 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 3 STS-53 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 2 OMDP OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-54 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/STS-53 VAB Bay 3 ML2/ ML3/STS-52/ET/OV-102 LC39B .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : mcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'