Jonathan's Space Report No. 377 1998 Oct 24 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Mir --------------- STS-95 is due to be launched on Oct 29. Meanwhile, Endeavour has been moved to pad 39A in preparation for STS-88 with a Space Station module payload. At Mir, the crew are awaiting the launch of the next Progress cargo ferry. Erratum ------- Oops! John Glenn is Col. USMC (Ret.), not USAF of course. Apologies to the hundreds of Marines and their friends who emailed to remind me of this. Recent Launches --------------- *Ariane 5 - fully successful flight The third Ariane 5 test vehicle was launched on Oct 21 from the Ensemble de Lancement Ariane No. 3 (ELA 3) at the Centre Spatial Guyanais, Kourou. The Ariane 5, Europe's largest ever rocket, consists of two EAP solid boosters, the EPC core stage powered by the LOX/LH2 Vulcain engine, and the EPS (L9) upper stage with storable propellants. Ariane 503 carries the ARD and Maqsat-3 payloads. Maqsat-3, built by Kayser-Threde, is a dynamic model of Eutelsat W2, the payload originally scheduled for the Ariane 503 mission. Mass is 2730 kg. Size is 2.0m diameter, 2.5m long. The satellite is not instrumented except for a few shock transducers and strain gauges to monitor the launcher environment. Maqsat-3 will remain attached to the EPS stage in orbit. It is launched inside the Speltra adapter. The ARD (Atmospheric Reentry Demonstrator) spacecraft, built by Aerospatiale for ESA, will make a suborbital flight. It is launched upsidedown on top of the Speltra and is jettisoned before the EPS upper stage ignites. The ARD shell is an 80 percent scale model of the Apollo Command Module. ARD carries GPS recievers, a SARSAT beacon, and a TDRS relay system. It features an experimental heat shield 2.8m in diameter, a recovery system with three 23-m parachutes, and 7 of DASA's 400N hydrazine thruster systems for attitude control. Launch was at 1637:21 UTC. At T+2:23, the EAP boosters separated at 72 km altitude. The nose fairing separated at T+3:13. The EPC engine cutoff at T+9:53 and EPC separated from the EPS. At T+12:02, the ARD separated from the EPS/Speltra/Maqsat-3. ARD and the EPC stage entered a 1 x 830 km orbit. This doesn't count as truly in orbit, since the low perigee ensures reentry on the first revolution. ARD reached apogee of 830 km at T+43:21 as it arced around the world to a landing at 153.35W, 3.69N in the Pacific at T+1h43min (Thanks to Stefan Barensky for the position). At T+12:43 the Speltra adapter cover separated revealing Maqsat-3. At T+15:14 the EPS stage Aestus engine ignited; it burned until T+31:00. At this point on a normal mission the satellite would separate from the EPS, but to avoid extra space debris Maqsat did not do this. The EPS/Maqsat-3 satellite is in a 1027 x 35863 km x 7.0 deg geostationary transfer orbit. Ariane 5 is now qualified for operational use. Meanwhile, an Ariane 4 is due for launch on Oct 28 on mission V113. * Orbital's Pegasus launches SCD-2 Brasil's SCD-2 satellite was launched on Oct 23 by a Pegasus, mission P-33. This flight used the old `standard' Pegasus in its L-1011 configuration, not the Pegasus XL which has been used for all recent missions. Orbital's L-1011 Stargazer aircraft took off from the Cape Canaveral Air Station's Skid Strip (Runway 02/20, 28.2N 80.6W) at 2305 UTC on Oct 22 and flew to the drop zone near Cape Canaveral (in the Mayport, Florida, Warning Area) at 29.0N 78.3W. This is the first Pegasus launch staged from Cape Canaveral Air Station; the SCD-1 launch in 1993 took off from the Shuttle Landing Facility (RW15/33) at the NASA Kennedy Space Center next door and probably (can anyone confirm?) used the same drop location. The three stage Pegasus ignited 5 seconds after drop. The first stage carried a NASA experiment attached to its right wing, to study hypersonic boundary layer separation. The third stage reached an orbit of 743 x 768 km x 25.0 deg with the SCD-2 satellite. This orbit is very close to the planned one, which will be a relief for Orbital after difficulties on the last mission, when a second stage problem led to a low initial orbit that could only be corrected because of the presence of a Primex hydrazine fourth stage not carried on the current mission. The next Pegasus mission, an XL, will launch NASA's SWAS astronomy satellite. The 115 kg Satelite de Coleta de Dados (Data Collection Satellite) relays data from environmental monitoring stations. It is owned and operated by INPE, the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espacias de Brasil. As well as the SCD-1 and SCD-2 satellites, INPE launched an SCD-2A test satellite in Nov 1997 on the first, unsuccessful flight of INPE's own VLS launch vehicle. * Deep Space 1 on its way NASA carried out its first launch in the New Millenium Program (NMP) on Oct 24. Deep Space 1 was placed in solar orbit by a Boeing Delta 7326 rocket. Delta 7326 is a new variant of Delta II which uses three solid Alliant GEM-40 strapons, the standard Delta II first and second stages, and a Thiokol Star 37FM solid motor as the third stage. This third stage is smaller than the usual Delta II Star 48 third stage, but much more powerful than the earlier Star 37E model used as Delta's third stage in the 1970s and 1980s. Ejected from the Delta second stage was the SEDSAT microsatellite, built by the Huntsville, Alabama chapter of SEDS (the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space). SEDSAT has two amateur radio transponders and an earth imaging camera. Delta entered a 185 km parking orbit, then fired again to enter a 174 x 2744 km x 28.5 deg orbit. The third stage separated and accelerated to solar orbit with DS1, while the second stage burned again to a planned 556 x 1042 km x 31.5 deg orbit with SEDSAT. DS1's orbit is around 1.0 x 1.3 AU with an inclination to the ecliptic around zero, but I haven't been able to find solar orbital elements or state vectors to give an accurate orbit. (1 AU = mean Earth orbit radius = 149.6 million km). The 475 kg Deep Space 1 probe was built by Spectrum Astro for JPL using the SA-200HP bus. Its mission is to test new technology for future probes, and the main experiment is a xenon ion propulsion drive. DS1 will fly past the high inclination Mars-crossing minor planet 1992 KD, which is about 2 to 5 km in diameter. 1992 KD's orbit comes to within 1.33 AU of the Sun, just within the perihelion of Mars' orbit (1.38 AU). Although JPL is describing 1992 KD as a Near Earth Object (NEO) of the subclass called Amor asteroids, the IAU Minor Planet Center's definition of an Amor requires a perihelion of 1.30 AU or less, so officially it doesn't quite count as an NEO. An additional 2001 flyby of Comet 19P/Borrelly is also an option. That comet has a similar perihelion distance and inclination but its orbit is much more elliptical, so the flyby speed would be much higher. By that time DS1's engine will have moved it to an orbit of around 1.12 x 1.42 AU. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Sep 8 2113 Iridium SV77) Delta 7920 Vandenberg SLC2 Comsat 51E Iridium SV79) Comsat 51D Iridium SV80) Comsat 51C Iridium SV81) Comsat 51B Iridium SV82) Comsat 51A Sep 9 2029 Globalstar FM5 ) Zenit-2 Baykonur Comsat F05 Globalstar FM7 ) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM9 ) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM10) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM11) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM12) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM13) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM16) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM17) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM18) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM20) Comsat F05 Globalstar FM21) Comsat F05 Sep 16 0631 PAS 7 Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Comsat 52A Sep 23 0506 Orbcomm FM21 ) Pegasus XL/HAPS Wallops I Comsat 53A Orbcomm FM22 ) Comsat 53B Orbcomm FM23 ) Comsat 53C Orbcomm FM24 ) Comsat 53D Orbcomm FM25 ) Comsat 53E Orbcomm FM26 ) Comsat 53F Orbcomm FM27 ) Comsat 53G Orbcomm FM28 ) Comsat 53H Sep 28 2341 Molniya-1T? Molniya-M Plesetsk Comsat 54A Oct 3 1004 STEX ) ARPA Taurus Vandenberg 576E Technol. 55A ATEX ) Oct 5 2251 Eutelsat W2 ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 56A Sirius 3 ) Comsat 56B Oct 9 2250 Hot Bird 5 Atlas IIA Canaveral SLC36B Comsat 57A Oct 20 0719 UHF F/O F9 Atlas IIA Canaveral SLC36A Comsat 58A Oct 21 1637 ARD ) Ariane 5 Kourou ELA3 Technol. Maqsat 3) Technol. 59A Oct 23 0002 SCD-2 Pegasus Canaveral RW02/20 Rem.Sens. 60A Oct 24 1208 Deep Space 1 Delta 7326 Canaveral SLC17A Probe 61A? Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-93 OV-103 Discovery LC39B STS-95 Oct 29 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 2 ? OV-105 Endeavour LC39A STS-88 Dec 3 MLP2/RSRM-68/ET-98/OV-103 LC39B STS-95 MLP3/RSRM-67/ET-97/OV-105 LC39A STS-88 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS6 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@cfa.harvard.edu | | USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html | | Back issues: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: mail majordomo@head-cfa.harvard.edu, (un)subscribe jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'