Jonathan's Space Report
No. 246 1995 Jul 4 Cambridge, MA
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Shuttle
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Atlantis fired its OMS engines for the first rendezvous burn, NC-1, at
2311 UTC on Jun 27, putting it in a 91.35 min, 293 x 387 km x 51.6 deg
orbit. A second burn at 1048 UTC on Jun 28 raised the orbit to 91.47
min, 302 x 390 km. Further rendezvous burns were the NH burn at about
2157 on Jun 28; NC3 at about 0757 on Jun 29; and the TI (Terminal
Initiation) burn at 0930 on Jun 29. By 1100 UTC on Jun 29 Atlantis was
stationkeeping 100 metres from Mir; at 1240 it had approached to 10
metres from the Kristall port.
Docking of Atlantis with Kristall was completed successfully on time at
1300 UTC. The docking ring was retracted to draw the spacecraft together
and make a tight seal by 1306 UTC, and at around 1500 UTC the Atlantis
crew entered Mir.
The ten individuals on board the Mir/Atlantis complex were a record
for the crew of a single space vehicle (although there have been
as many as thirteen humans in space at once). The ten were:
Robert 'Hoot' Gibson (STS-71 Commander),
Charles Precourt (STS-71 Pilot),
Ellen Baker (STS-71 Mission Specialist 1),
Greg Harbaugh (STS-71 Mission Specialist 2),
Bonnie Dunbar (STS-71 Mission Specialist 3),
Vladimir Dezhurov (Mir EO-18 Komandir),
Gennadiy Strekalov (Mir EO-18 Bortinzhener),
Norman Thagard (Mir EO-18 Kosmonavt-issledovatel'),
Anatoliy Solov'yov (Mir EO-19 Komandir), and
Nikolai Budarin (Mir EO-19 Bortinzhener).
The Mir/Atlantis complex was in a 393 x 399 km x 51.6 deg orbit with
a period of 92.49 min on Jun 30.
At 0218 UTC on Jun 29 Mir and Atlantis were easily observable from
the Harvard campus, Atlantis following Mir by a few minutes and of
comparable brightness.
On Jul 3 the EO-18 and STS-71 crews returned to Atlantis, and
the EO-19 crew (Solov'yov and Budarin) closed the Mir hatch at
around 2000 UT. Early on Jul 4, the two EO-19 cosmonauts entered
the Soyuz TM-21 ferry ship and prepared to undock for an exercise
in joint manoeuvring and photography.
Soyuz TM-21 undocked at 1055 UTC on Jul 4, and backed off to a distance
of 100m. Atlantis then undocked at 1109:45 UTC and began to back away
from the Mir station. As Atlantis began its flyaround at a distance of
210m, Soyuz redocked with the Kvant module at 1139 UTC. Redocking was
about a minute early. Just prior to the redocking, one of Mir's attitude
control computers crashed, putting Mir in free drift, although this was
not considered a serious problem. This was Solov'yov's seventh docking
with Mir over the course of four missions. At 1235 UTC, Atlantis
completed its 360 degree flyaround and ignited its engines for the
separation burn, while sending back spectacular TV of the Mir complex.
There have been two previous occasions in which three Russian spacecraft
have been flown in proximity operations. On 1969 Oct 15 the Soyuz-6,
Soyuz-7 and Soyuz-8 spacecraft carried out a rendezvous, although the
planned docking of Soyuz-7 and Soyuz-8 was not carried out. Details
of this operation are still not available. All three
spacecraft were occupied on that occasion. On 1993 Jul 3, the Progress
M-18 cargo ship undocked from Mir while the Soyuz TM-17 ferry was
stationkeeping a few hundred metres away, docking at the vacated port
twenty minutes later. On that occasion the EO-13 crew were aboard Mir
and the EO-14 crew aboard Soyuz, while the Progress does not carry a
crew. The only occasions on which three US spacecraft have carried
out proximity ops involved use of the Manned Manoeuvring Unit (MMU);
I only count occasions when the spacecraft were not physically connected,
which rules out most spacewalks.
Triple Spacecraft Rendezvous History
------------------------------------
Date Spacecraft Crew
(Duration)
1969 Oct 15 Soyuz 6 Shonin, Kubasov
Soyuz 7 Filipchenko, Volkov, Gorbatko
(Unknown) Soyuz 8 Shatalov, Yeliseev
1984 Apr 8 Challenger Crippen, Scobee, Hart, Van Hoften
MMU 2 Nelson
(42 min) Solar Maximum Mission None
1984 Nov 12 Discovery Hauck, Walker, Fisher, Allen
MMU 3 Allen
(Unknown) Palapa B2 None
1984 Nov 14 Discovery Hauck, Walker, Fisher, Gardner
MMU 2 Gardner
(Unknown) Westar 6 None
1993 Jul 3 Mir/Soy TM-16/Prg M-17 Manakov, Poleshchuk
Soyuz TM-17 Tsibliev, Serebrov, Haignere
(20 min) Progress M-18 None
1995 Jul 4 Mir None
Soyuz TM-21 Solov'yov, Balandin
(29 min) Atlantis Gibson, Precourt, Baker, Harbaugh,
Dunbar, Dezhurov, Strekalov, Thagard
The Atlantis crew will now spend a few days carrying out further medical
research in the Spacelab module. The module aboard Atlantis is probably
Long Module Unit 2, which has made four previous flights into space
(Spacelab D1, International Microgravity Lab 1, Spacelab J, and Spacelab
Life Sciences 2). There is one other Spacelab Long Module, Unit 1, which
has made six flights in space (Spacelabs 1 and 3, Spacelab Life
Sciences 1, US Microgravity Lab 1, Spacelab D2, and International
Microgravity Lab 2). [Can anyone confirm that LM Unit 2 is indeed the
module currently in orbit?]
Mir
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After the free flight and redocking, the EO-19 crew of Solov'yov and
Budarin opened the Soyuz TM-21 hatch and were back aboard Mir by 1240
UTC on Jul 4. The Kristall module will be repositioned from the -X to
the -Z port on Jul 17. Progress M-28 will be launched on Jul 20 and dock
at the -X port on Jul 22. On Sep 1 the Soyuz TM-22 spaceship will be
launched with the EO-20 crew of Yuri Gidzenko (RKA/Russian Air Force),
Sergei Avdeev (RKA/Energia) and Thomas Reiter (ESA). Progress M-28 will
undock on Sep 2 and TM-22 will replace it at -X on Sep 3. The EO-19 crew
will undock from Kvant on Sep 9 and land in Kazakhstan. At the end
of October, Atlantis will revisit Mir on the STS-74 mission, delivering
the Stikovochnoy Modul' (Docking Module) to be attached to the Kristall
port. This module, developed by RKK Energia and built by the Krunichev factory
is around 2m in diameter and 5 m long, recently arrived in the US for
prelaunch processing. (From the pictures, it doesn't seem to be related
to the 37K Kvant or 77KS Kvant-2 class modules - if anyone can tell me
about its design heritage or has any more details on this module, please
email me.)
Recent Launches
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Kosmos-2314 was launched on Jun 28 from Plesetsk into an 89.6 min,
166 x 339 km x 67.1 deg orbit. The satellite is a Yantar' class
spy satellite built by TsSKB (Central Specialized Design Bureau)
of Samara, Russia and will operate for around two months obtaining
images for the Russian GRU intelligence agency.
Table of Recent Launches
------------------------
Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
May 14 1345 USA 110 Titan 4 Centaur Canaveral LC40 Sigint? 22A
May 17 0634 Intelsat 706 Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Comsat 23A
May 20 0333 Spektr Proton Baykonur LC81 Mir module 24A
May 23 0552 GOES 9 Atlas Centaur Canaveral LC36B Weather 25A
May 24 2010 Kosmos-2312 Molniya-M Plesetsk LC16 Early Warn 26A
May 31 1527 UHF F/O F5 Atlas Centaur Canaveral LC36A Comsat 27A
Jun 8 0443 Kosmos-2313 Tsiklon-2 Baykonur LC90 Recon 28A
Jun 10 0024 DBS 3 Ariane 42P Kourou ELA2 Comsat 29A
Jun 22 1958 STEP 3 Pegasus XL/L1011 PAWA Science FTO
Jun 27 1932 Atlantis Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 30A
Jun 28 1830? Kosmos-2314 Soyuz-U Plesetsk Recon 31A
Reentries
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May 23 Progress M-27 Deorbited
May 31 Kosmos-2311 Landed?
Jun 8 Kosmos-2258 Reentered
Current Shuttle Processing Status
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Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due
OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-73 Sep 21
OV-103 Discovery LC39B STS-70 Jul 13
OV-104 Atlantis LEO STS-71
OV-105 Endeavour VAB Bay 1 STS-69 Jul 30
ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks
ML1/RSRM-48/ET-72/OV-105 VAB Bay 1 STS-69
ML2/RSRM-44/ET-71/OV-103 LC39B STS-70
ML3 LC39A STS-71
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| Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 |
| Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | |
| Astrophysics | |
| 60 Garden St, MS4 | |
| 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.* |
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