Jonathan's Space Report No. 305 1996 Nov 26 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Mir --------------- The Space Shuttle Orbiter OV-102 Columbia was launched at 1955:50 UTC on Nov 19 from Kennedy Space Center. The SRBs separated at 1957 UTC and main engine cutoff was at 2004 UTC. The OMS 2 burn at around 2040 UTC placed Columbia in a circular orbit. Mission STS-80 carries the Orfeus astronomy satellite, the Wake Shield Facility, and spacewalk equipment. A hold was called at 1952 UTC, T-31s just prior to entering computer RSLS control because too much hydrogen was in the aft compartment, but after a two minute pause permission was given to continue. The Orfeus satellite was deployed on Nov 20 at 0411 UTC. It carries an ultraviolet telescope and spectrographs. Wake Shield Facility was deployed on Nov 22 at 2038 UTC. OV-102, Orfeus and WSF are in a 91.6 min, 346 x 358 km x 28.5 deg orbit. Columbia retrieved WSF at 0203 UTC on Nov 26 and berthed it in the payload bay at 0236 UTC. The Progress M-33 cargo ship was successfully launched from Baykonur on Nov 19 and docked with Mir on Nov 22 at 0101 UTC. Progress M-32 undocked from Mir at 1944 UTC on Nov 20 and was deorbited over the Pacific at 2242 UTC. Recent Launches --------------- The Russian Mars-96 space probe mission failed to leave Earth orbit on Nov 17. This failure is very sad news both for Mars exploration and for the Russian space program. In last week's report I said that Mars-96 got into solar orbit, based on announcements from the IKI web site which reported a successful Blok-D-2 second burn and ADU solar orbit insertion burn. However it soon emerged that their claim of success was premature. The Blok-D-2 made a successful first burn, entering a 160 km circular orbit. On the second burn, possibly because of incorrect commands sent by the probe, it burned for only a few seconds before shutting down, and the probe remained in a lower perigee Earth parking orbit of 145 x 171 km x 51.6 deg. Mars-96 separated from the Blok-D-2 and fired its own ADU engine, entering an elliptical 87 x 1500 km orbit. It made two revolutions of the Earth in this orbit and reentered a few hours later, somewhere over the South Pacific, at around 0132 UTC Nov 17. This piece, the M1 No. 520 probe with the two MAS landers and two Penetrator probes, was tracked by Russian radars but missed by US Space Command. The Blok-D-2 rocket stage reentered over the South Pacific at 31 S 96 W (US data) or 50.9 S 168 W (Russian data) a day later, at 0120 UTC Nov 18. The excitement on Sunday about possible radioactive debris reentering over Australia or Chile was apparently misplaced, since the payload had reentered the previous day and Space Command was only tracking the rocket. [Some of these details are thanks to Igor Lissov of Videocosmos]. There were four small plutonium RTG batteries aboard the two MAS landers, with 15 g of Pu-238 each. The two penetrator probes each carried five of the RTG batteries. The RTGs were designed to survive reentry and the probability of contamination is considered low. We don't know where the probe reentered, since no-one (Russian or American) managed to determine a precise orbit for it. Some estimates say it could be anywhere from the south Pacific to the mid Atlantic. Mass of Mars-96 was 6825 kg; mass of the Blok-D-2 was 1900 kg with 12400 kg of fuel which was vented after spacecraft separation. Traditionally, Mars-96 (the prelaunch name) would have been designated Mars-8 after a successful launch. It is not yet clear whether this designation will be applied. In the old days, a failure like this would have been given a Kosmos cover name. Eutelsat's Hot Bird 2 communications satellite was launched by a Lockheed Martin Astronautics Atlas IIA from Cape Canaveral on Nov 21. The Atlas IIA was flight AC-124. Its Centaur IIA upper stage placed Hot Bird 2 in geostationary transfer orbit of 168 x 35784 km x 23.8 deg. Hot Bird 2 is a Matra Marconi Space Eurostar 2000 Plus class satellite, and carries Ku band transponders for television broadcasts to Europe. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Oct 20 0720 FSW-2 Chang Zheng 2D Jiuquan Remote sen. 59A Oct 24 1137 Molniya-3 Molniya-M Plesetsk Comsat 60A Nov 4 1709 SAC-B/HETE Pegasus XL Wallops Science 61A Nov 7 1700 MGS Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17A Mars probe 62A Nov 13 2240 Arabsat 2B ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 63A Measat 2 ) Comsat 63B Nov 16 2048 Mars-96 Proton-K Baykonur LC200L Mars probe 64A Nov 19 1955 Columbia Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 65A Nov 19 2320 Progress M-33 Soyuz-U Baykonir LC1 Cargo ship 66A Nov 20 0411 ORFEUS OV-102,LEO Astronomy 65B Nov 21 2047 Hot Bird 2 Atlas IIA Canaveral LC36B Comsat 67A Nov 22 2038 WSF OV-102, LEO Materials 65C Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia LEO STS-80 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-82 Feb 13 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-81 Jan 12 OV-105 Endeavour Palmdale OMDP ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-58/ VAB Bay 3 STS-82 ML2/RSRM-54/ET-83 VAB Bay 1 STS-81 ML3/ .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 | | Back issues: ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'