Jonathan's Space Report No. 349 1998 Feb 10 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Mir --------------- Despite problems with his Sokol emergency spacesuit, Andy Thomas replaced David Wolf as a Mir crew member on Jan 25. Endeavour undocked from Mir on Jan 29 at 1657 UTC and made one flyaround of the station before its sep burn. Endeavour landed on Jan 31 at Kennedy Space Center's runway 15 at 2235 UTC. Shortly before Endeavour's undocking, Soyuz TM-27 was launched carrying the new Mir crew. Commander is Talgat Musabaev from Kazakstan, and flight engineer is Russian Nikolai Budarin. French astronaut Leopold Eyharts is Soyuz TM-27 cosmonaut-researcher, and will stay aboard Mir until returning with the Soyuz TM-26 crew of Anatoliy Solov'yov and Pavel Vinogradov in February. After Soyuz TM-27 reached orbit and Endeavour undocked, there were 13 humans in space on three separate spacecraft, equalling the previous record. Progress M-37 undocked from the Kvant module at 1253 UTC on Jan 30. Soyuz TM-27 then docked at this port (+X) at 1754 UTC Jan 31. After the departure of Soyuz TM-26 from the -X port on Mir, TM-27 will fly around to the -X port and Progress M-37 may attempt to dock again at +X in a further test of the remote control TORU system. The next Shuttle mission is STS-90/Neurolab, using orbiter Columbia. Recent Launches --------------- A classified satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office was put into elliptical 63 degree inclination orbit on Jan 29 by a Lockheed Martin Atlas IIA Centaur rocket. This rocket, AC-109, was launched way out of production sequence and it seems likely launch of the payload is several years late. Rumour has it that the satellite's name is CAPRICORN. It may be a follow-on to the SDS communications data relay satellites used to pass on spy satellite imaging data, and may also have either infrared missile warning or signals intelligence secondary payloads aboard. Another theory is that it may be the COBRA BRASS payload for infrared early warning satellite technology development, which was announced as due to fly this year. Arianespace's first launch of the year was an Ariane 44LP model, placing two satellites in geostationary transfer orbit. The upper payload was Brasilsat B-3, a communications satellite for Brazil's EMBRATEL. The satellite is the third Hughes HS-376W, a spin-stabilized satellite which is actually much larger than the old standard HS-376 and which uses a liquid apogee engine instead of a solid motor. The lower satellite was Inmarsat 3 F5, for the International Maritime Communications Satellite Organization (based in London). Inmarsat 3 F5 is an LM Series 4000 satellite with a solid Thiokol Star 30 apogee motor, built by Lockheed Martin/East Windsor. Orbital Sciences Corp.'s second Taurus rocket reached orbit on Feb 10, making two successes on two attempts for Taurus. The first Taurus flight was a hybrid using a refurbished Peacekeeper stage 1 as its first stage; this one is believed to be the first `true' Taurus, using a Castor 120 first stage. Castor 120 is Thiokol's civilian version of the Peacekeeper stage. This Taurus also uses a new, larger, payload fairing for its multiple satellite payload. The primary payload on Taurus was the Geosat Follow-On (GFO), built by Ball Aerospace for the US Navy Space and Naval Systems Warfare Command using a modified Techstar bus with a mass of 365 kg. The original Geosat was a larger research satellite launched in 1985 on an Atlas, and provided sea surface height information (and thus information on the shape of the Earth's gravity field) with a radio altimeter. Geosat it turn was a successor to NASA's 1978 Seasat mission. GFO is a smaller satellite which will be the first to directly provide tactical altimeter information, downlinking to USN ships allowing them to avoid strong head-on currents; GFO data may also have a role in anti-submarine warfare. GFO carries a 13.5 GHz pulse radar altimeter, a radiometer for spotting underwater currents and ice packs, GPS receiver for determining its orbit, and hydrazine thrusters for fine orbit adjust. GFO's final planned orbit is expected to be 800 x 800 km x 108 deg; its initial orbit is 777 x 875 km x 108.0 deg. Two Orbcomm low orbit comsats were also carried on the flight, stacked beneath GFO. They join the eight satellites orbited on a Pegasus in December. The final stage of the Taurus carries the second CPAC (Celestis Payload Attach Container) with the cremated remains of several individuals. Erratum for JSR 347: Tony Stroeve informs me that although the Lockheed Martin LM700 bus is derived from the Lockheed Martin/Motorola Iridium bus, the Iridium is not considered an LM700. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jan 7 0228 Lunar Prospector Athena-2 SP Florida LC46 Probe 01A Jan 10 0032 Skynet 4D Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17B Comsat 02A Jan 22 1256 'Ofeq-4 Shaviyt Palmachim Imaging F01 Jan 23 0248 Endeavour Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 03A Jan 29 1633 Soyuz TM-27 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 04A Jan 29 1837 CAPRICORN? Atlas IIA Canaveral LC36 Comsat? 05A Feb 4 2329 Brasilsat B3 ) Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Comsat 06A Inmarsat 3 F5 ) Comsat 06B Feb 10 1320 GFO ) Taurus Vandenberg 576E Altimeter 07A Orbcomm ) Comsat 07B Orbcomm ) Comsat 07C Celestis-02 ) Burial 07D? Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-90 Apr 2 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-91 May 28 OV-104 Atlantis Palmdale OMDP OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-88 Jul 9? MLP/SRB/ET/OV stacks MLP1/ MLP2/RSRM65 VAB Bay 3 STS-90 MLP3/ .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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/~jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html | | Back issues: ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'