Jonathan's Space Report No. 391 1999 Mar 7 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Station ------------------------ The EO-27 crew of Afanas'ev, Avdeev and Haignere are aboard the Mir complex. Paolo D'Angelo sent me some information about Ivan Bella, the Slovak visitor to Mir last month, that I haven't seen elsewhere: Bella is a Colonel in the Slovak Republic Army and was born 1964 May 21 at Brezno. (sigh... I hate it that astronauts are now starting to be younger than me...:-)) The ISS complex remains in automatic flight awaiting Shuttle mission STS-96. Discovery will fly to the ISS and install some equipment. After STS-96, it looks like Discovery may be recycled for an STS-103 Hubble repair mission in October. Recent Launches --------------- NASA's WIRE (Wide Field Infrared Explorer) astronomy satellite was launched on Mar 5, but the mission ran into serious trouble shortly after orbit injection. Some reports indicate the cover of WIRE's solid hydrogen telescope was ejected prematurely, and a significant fraction of the cryogen was vented, spinning up the satellite. The tumbling satellite is continuing to lose power and cryogen; attempts to save the mission are continuing, but the outlook doesn't seem encouraging - even if they get it back, the duration of the mission will be shorter than planned. WIRE was going to make an infrared photometry survey, generating a large catalog of galaxies and quasars. I was really looking forward to seeing the science from WIRE, and hope that NASA will decide to fly a replacement if the current mission can't be saved. The Orbital Sciences L-1011 Stargazer launch aircraft took off from Vandenberg's runway 30/12 at 0155 UTC on Mar 2 carrying the WIRE astronomy satellite. However, at the drop point at 123 W 36 N over the Pacific, the planned 0256 UTC launch was cancelled at T-46 seconds because of a problem with the tail fin release mechanism, and the L-1011 returned to Vandenberg with WIRE still attached. On the second attempt on Mar 5, takeoff was again at 0155 UTC and launch at 0256 UTC this time went smoothly, with the three stage Pegasus XL rocket delivering WIRE to a 539 x 587 km x 97.5 deg orbit. WIRE was the fifth Small Explorer (SMEX) mission; SMEX missions are managed by NASA-Goddard. SMEX missions: SMEX 1 SAMPEX 1992 Jul 3 Solar and Magnetospheric Particles Explorer SMEX 2 FAST 1996 Aug 21 Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer SMEX 3 TRACE 1998 Apr 2 Transition Region and Coronal Explorer SMEX 4 SWAS 1998 Dec 6 Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite SMEX 5 WIRE 1999 Mar 5 Wide Field Infrared Explorer X-38 atmospheric test vehicle V-132 made its first flight at 1617 UTC on Mar 5, dropped from carrier plane NB-52 No. 008 above Edwards AFB. V-132 glided under a parafoil to a landing on the lakebed after a 9 minute flight. V-132 tests the rudders and flaps; the simpler V-131, which made two drop tests earlier, tested the parafoil control system. They are subscale models of the X-38 spacecraft. The first full scale X-38 will be V-133, and the first space flight article will be V-201, which will fly on a Shuttle mission next year. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Feb 7 2104 Stardust Delta 7426 Canaveral SLC17A Probe 03A Feb 9 0354 Globalstar FM23 ) Soyuz-U/Ikar Baykonur Comsat 04B Globalstar FM36 ) Comsat 04A Globalstar FM38 ) Comsat 04C Globalstar FM40 ) Comsat 04D Feb 15 0512 Telstar 6 Proton-K/DM3 Baykonur LC81L Comsat 05A Feb 16 0145 JCSAT-6 Atlas 2AS Canaveral SLC36A Comsat 06A Feb 20 0418 Soyuz TM-29 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 07A Feb 23 1030 ARGOS ) Delta 7920 Vandenberg SLC2W Technol. 08A Orsted ) Space Sci 08B Sunsat ) Technol. 08C Feb 26 2244 Arabsat 3A ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 09A Skynet 4E ) Comsat 09B Feb 28 0400 Raduga-1 Proton-K/DM-2 Baykonur LC81P Comsat 10A Mar 5 0256 WIRE Pegasus XL Vandenberg Astronomy 11A Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia VAB Bay 2 STS-93 Jul 9 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1 STS-96 May 20 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-101 ? OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 2 STS-99 Sep 18 MLP1/RSRM-69/ET-99 VAB Bay 1 STS-93 MLP2/RSRM-70 VAB Bay 3 STS-96 MLP3/ .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'