Jonathan's Space Report No 273 1996 Jan 20 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle ------- Shuttle mission STS-72 has been completed with two satellite retrievals and two spacewalks. Endeavour completed its rendezvous with the Space Flyer Unit satellite on Jan 13. The SFU successfully retracted its solar panels, but failed to latch them, so the decision was made to jettison them. The first panel was ejected at 0935 UTC and the second at 0947 UTC. At 1057 UTC the RMS 303 robot arm was used to grapple SFU, and it was berthed in Endeavour's payload bay at 1139 UTC. SFU carried science and technology experiments for Japan's National Space Development Agency. Endeavour then lowered its orbit to 302 x 311 km x 28.5 deg. The OAST-Flyer (Spartan 206) satellite was released using the RMS arm at 1132 UTC on Jan 14. OAST-Flyer carries an experiment to measure contamination caused by spacecraft outgassing, and a test of a laser-fired explosive separation device to make sure the device doesn't go off accidentally in sunlight. It also carried an amateur radio experiment. Astronauts Leroy Chiao and Daniel Barry carried out a spacewalk on Jan 15. The airlock was depressurized at 0525 UTC, and NASA declared the EVA in progress at 0535 UTC. The hatch was opened at 0540 UTC. Chiao and Barry tested out Space Station equipment including a portable work platform and a rigid umbilical truss for carrying electrical cables and fluid lines. The astronauts returned to the airlock at 1130 UTC and closed the hatch 3 minutes later, returning their suits to orbiter power and repressurizing the airlock at 1144 UTC. NASA's official time for the walk was 6h 9m 19s, while I would give it an extra ten minutes (counting from depressurization rather than battery power). On Jan 15-16 the Shuttle carried out a series of rendezvous burns to approach the OAST-Flyer Spartan, and on Jan 16 at 0947 UTC Wakata grappled the satellite with the RMS arm. The second spacewalk to test out Space Station tools and equipment was performed by Chiao and Winston Scott. It started a little behind schedule, with depressurization at 0534 UTC on Jan 17, and hatch opening at 0554. The spacewalk ended at 1234 UTC, for a duration of 7 hours 0 min (depress to repress) or 6h 53m 41s (on-battery-power to repress, the official NASA number). Scott tested out the thermal modifications to the spacesuit by standing in shadow on the Spartan Flight Support Structure while the Orbiter was turned to make the payload bay as cold as possible. Endeavour closed its payload bay doors early on Jan 20, firing its braking rockets at 0641 UTC and reentered to a nighttime landing on runway 15 at Kennedy Space Center at 0742 UTC on Jan 20. The next Shuttle mission is STS-75, with orbiter Columbia and the reflight of the 20 km long tethered satellite, which failed on its first flight in 1992. Errata -------- I was wrong! Fred Cerkan informs me that STS-72 was not the first flight with no TAL requirement - STS-1, the very first mission, had no TAL requirement or TAL capability. IRS-1C's panchromatic camera has a resolution of under 6 m, not 10m as I said earlier. Thanks to several readers for the correction. Request for Info ---------------- Know anyone who worked for ABL in the 1960s? I'm trying to find information on the MG-18 rocket, a version of the X-258 Altair II used as an upper stage on Scout and Thor. Any info welcome. Recent Launches -------------- Ariane V82 was launched on Jan 12 from Kourou. It was an Ariane 44L model with the H-10-III upper stage. V82 carried two communications satellites, PAS 3R and Measat 1. PAS 3R is a Hughes HS-601 comsat with a launch mass of 2918 kg, to provide C and Ku band communications and television broadcasting services for the Atlantic Ocean region. It is due to be stationed at 43 deg W, and carries 16 C-band and 16 Ku-band transponders. PAS 3R replaces PAS 3, lost in a launch accident in 1994. MEASAT 1 (Malaysia/East Asia Satellite) is another Hughes satellite, this time the older HS-376 spin-stabilized model. Measat 1 is owned by Binariang Sdn. Bhd., the Malaysian telecommunications agency, and will provide C and Ku-band telecommunications services over Malaysia and the rest of SE Asia. Delta 231 was launched on Jan 14 from Cape Canaveral Air Station and successfully rocketed to geostationary transfer orbit of 1357 x 35418 km x 21.0 deg. Payload of Delta 231 was Koreasat 2, a Lockheed Martin Astro Space AS3000 class comsat. Koreasat 1, launched last year, used up half its stationkeeping fuel reaching geostationary orbit after a launch malfunction left it in a lower than normal transfer orbit. The Koreasat (Mugunghwa) satellites are owned by Korea Telecom. The McDonnell Douglas launch vehicle was a 7925 model. Kosmos-2327 was launched on Jan 16 from Plesetsk into a 947 x 1020 km x 83.0 deg orbit, characteristic of a navigation satellite in the Parus series. It is in the same plane as the Parus satellite launched in Nov 1993 and named Kosmos-2266. The ground track is consistent with an ontime launch at 1534 UTC. Launch vehicle was a Kosmos-3M from the Polyot organization. It has now been confirmed that the capsule found in Ghana last year is the reentry vehicle from the German Express microgravity satellite which failed to reach its planned orbit in Jan 1995. Negotiations are underway for its return to Germany. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Dec 2 0808 SOHO Atlas IIAS Canaveral LC36B Astronomy 65A Dec 5 2118 USA 116 Titan 4 Vandenberg SLC4E Recon 66A Dec 6 2323 Telecom 2C ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 67A Insat 2C ) Comsat 67B Dec 14 0610 Kosmos-2323 ) Navsat 68A Kosmos-2324 ) Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur LC200L Navsat 68B Kosmos-2325 ) Navsat 68C Dec 15 0023 Galaxy IIIR Atlas IIA Canaveral LC36A Comsat 69A Dec 18 1431 Progress M-30 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo ship 70A Dec 20 0052 Kosmos-2326 Tsiklon-2 Baykonur LC90 Eorsat/Sci 71A Dec 28 0645 IRS-1C ) Molniya-M Baykonur LC31 Rem.sensing 72A Skipper ) Military 72B Dec 28 1150 Echostar 1 Chang Zheng 2E Xichang Comsat 73A Dec 30 1348 XTE Delta 7920 Canaveral LC17A Astronomy 74A Jan 11 0941 Endeavour Shuttle Kennedy LC39 Spaceship 01A Jan 12 2310 Panamsat 3R ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 02A Measat 1 ) Comsat 02B Jan 14 1111 Koreasat 2 Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17B Comsat 03A Jan 14 1132 OAST-Flyer OV105, LEO Science 01B Jan 16 1534? Kosmos-2327 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk Navsat 04A Payloads no longer in orbit -------------------------- Dec 7 Galileo Probe Entered Jovian atmosphere Dec 11 Kosmos-398 Reentered over Pacific Dec 18 Kosmos-2305 Deorbited Jan 20 Endeavour Landed at KSC Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 2 STS-75 Feb 22 OV-103 Discovery Palmdale OMDP OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 1 STS-76 Mar 21 OV-105 Endeavour KSC RW15 STS-72 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/ ML2/ ML3/RSRM-53 VAB Bay 1 STS-75 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS6 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/QEDT/jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html | | ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'