Jonathan's Space Report No. 221 1994 Dec 2 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recent Launches --------------- Ariane V70 was lost during third stage burn on Dec 1. This vehicle was an Ariane 42P model which included the first flight of the H-10-III third stage. The new third stage was meant to burn 30s longer and carries an extra 75 kg of payload, and replaces the H-10+ stage, which in turn replaced the original H-10 stage for the Ariane 4. The H-10-III failed to achieve full thrust, causing the mission to fail to reach orbit. The planned orbit was 200 x 30526 km x 7.0 deg. V70 was the 42nd Ariane 4 flight and is the third failure. The others were in Feb 1990 and Jan 1994. The next flight is due to use the older H-10+ third stage. Payload of Ariane V70 was Panamsat K2. The satellite, a Hughes HS601 comsat, was to be stationed at 43W to provide Atlantic communications for Panamsat. The British Aerospace-built Orion 1 comsat was launched by a Martin Marietta Atlas IIA launch vehicle on Nov 29. The comsat will be used by Orion Satellite Systems. The AC-110 Centaur stage delivered Orion 1 into an unprecedented elliptical transfer orbit of 403 x 122762 km x 25.5 deg. By Nov 30 the liquid apogee engine had raised the Orion's orbit to 25010 km x 122766 km x 3.0 deg. The apogee will subsequently be lowered until the orbit is a circular 35780 km geostationary one. The fuel-saving high apogee transfer technique has been used before, but never with such an extreme apogee. A Musson-class geodetic satellite, Geo-IK, was launched from Plesetsk on Nov 29 into a 1480 x 1527 km x 73.6 deg orbit. The Tsiklon's S5M third stage also entered orbit. The gravity-gradient stabilized Geo-IK carries transponders to allow mapping of the Earth's gravitational field and (probably) laser reflectors for precise tracking. The first Chinese DFH-3 communications satellite was reportedly launched on Nov 29. The launch vehicle is the Chang Zheng (Long March) 3A, which made a test flight in February. It placed the DFH-3, built by Germany for China, in a 246 x 36052 km x 28.1 deg geostationary transfer orbit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Nov 1 0037 Astra 1D Ariane 42P Kourou ELA2 Comsat 70A Nov 1 0931 Wind Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17B Science 71A Nov 2 0104 Kosmos-2293 Tsiklon-2 Baykonur LC90 EORSAT 72A Nov 3 1700 Atlantis Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 73A Nov 4 0547 Resurs-O1 No. 3 Zenit-2 Baykonur LC45 Rem.sensing 74A Nov 4 1250 CRISTA-SPAS - Atlantis, LEO Science 73B Nov 11 0722 Progress M-25 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 75A Nov 20 0039 Kosmos-2294 ) Proton-K/DM-2 Baykonur LC200 Navsat 76A Kosmos-2295 ) Navsat 76B Kosmos-2296 ) Navsat 76C Nov 24 0916 Kosmos-2297 Zenit-2 Baykonur LC45 SIGINT 77A Nov 29 0254 Geo-IK Tsiklon Plesetsk LC32 Geodetic 78A Nov 29 1021 Orion 1 Atlas IIA Canaveral LC36A Comsat 79A Nov 29 DFH-3 Chang Zheng 3A? Xichang Comsat 80A Dec 1 2255 Panamsat K2 Ariane 42P Kourou ELA2 Comsat FTO Reentries --------- Nov 4 Molniya-1 Reentered (1984-29A) Nov 4 Soyuz TM-19 Landed in Kazakhstan Nov 14 Atlantis Landed at Edwards AFB Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia Palmdale OMDP - OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-63 Feb 2 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-71 OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-67 Feb 23 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM/ET VAB Bay 3 STS-63 ML2/RSRM-43 VAB Bay 1 STS-67 ML3/ .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/QEDT/jcm/jsr.html | ! ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'