Jonathan's Space Report No. 245 1995 Jun 27 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Editorial Note: The WWW version of the newsletter will now be making available draft info throughout the week as it becomes available to me, on the Stop Press page . Shuttle ------- OV-104 Atlantis lifted off from pad 39A at 1932:18 UTC on 1995 Jun 27. Ascent was normal through main engine cutoff and external tank ET-70 separation at 1941 UTC. The OMS 2 orbit circularization burn was carried out at 2015 UTC. Expected post-OMS 2 orbit was 157 x 295 km x 51.7 deg, period 89.0 min. Docking with Mir is expected on Thursday. Recent Launches -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The second flight of the Pegasus XL air-launched rocket ended in failure on Jun 22. The Lockheed L-1011 Stargazer carrier aircraft took off from Vandenberg AFB around 1900 UT and flew to the Point Arguello Warning Area over the Pacific Ocean off the California Coast. The Pegasus was dropped at 1958 and the first stage fired successfully. However, an interstage ring failed to jettison prior to second stage ignition at 1959 UT. This caused loss of vehicle control, and at 2000 UT the range safety officer destroyed the vehicle at an altitude of 144 km. STEP 3, built by TRW, had a mass of 265 kg. It carried the SAMME (Space Active Modular Materials Experiments) payload to study exposure to space of solar cells and advanced materials, as well as vibration suppression technology and experimental computer disk drives. The first Pegasus XL flight last year also failed to reach orbit. The latest failure is bad news for manufacturer Orbital Sciences Corp. and for the small satellite owners whose launches will be delayed; NASA's science program was planning to use the Pegasus XL intensively over the next year. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. May 14 1345 USA 110 Titan 4 Centaur Canaveral LC40 Sigint? 22A May 17 0634 Intelsat 706 Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Comsat 23A May 20 0333 Spektr Proton Baykonur LC81 Mir module 24A May 23 0552 GOES 9 Atlas Centaur Canaveral LC36B Weather 25A May 24 2010 Kosmos-2312 Molniya-M Plesetsk LC16 Early Warn 26A May 31 1527 UHF F/O F5 Atlas Centaur Canaveral LC36A Comsat 27A Jun 8 0443 Kosmos-2313 Tsiklon-2 Baykonur LC90 Recon 28A Jun 10 0024 DBS 3 Ariane 42P Kourou ELA2 Comsat 29A Jun 22 1958 STEP 3 Pegasus XL/L1011 PAWA Science FTO Jun 27 1932 Atlantis Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 30A? Reentries --------- May 23 Progress M-27 Deorbited May 31 Kosmos-2311 Landed? Jun 8 Kosmos-2258 Reentered Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-73 Sep 21 OV-103 Discovery LC39B STS-70 Jul 13 OV-104 Atlantis LEO STS-71 Jun 27 OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-69 Jul 30 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-48/ET-72 VAB Bay 1 STS-69 ML2/RSRM-44/ET-71/OV-103 LC39B STS-70 ML3 LC39A STS-71 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'