Jonathan's Space Report
No. 332 1997 Aug 29 Cambridge, MA
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Shuttle and Mir
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Problems with Mir's primary and backup oxygen systems were quickly fixed
on Aug 25. Power from Spektr and Kristall's solar panels has resumed,
but they're having problems making the panels track the sun. The
spacewalk by Solov'yov and Foale to search for the Spektr punctures will
take place in early September.
The STS-86 mission is being prepared for launch in September,
and will dock with Mir. During a spacewalk, the MEEP exposure
experiments will be retrieved from the outside of Mir's
Docking Module. The payload bay of Atlantis contains:
Bay 1: Tunnel adapter
Bay 2-4: External Airlock and Orbiter Docking System
Bay 5-7: Long Tunnel
Bay 5S? : carriers for retrieved MEEP experiment
Bay 8-9: Spacehab Double Module
Bay 13S: GAS can
The ODS will be used to dock to Mir; supplies will be brought
up in the Spacehab module.
Recent Launches
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NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) was launched on Aug 25. The
Advanced Composition Explorer is the last Delta-class Explorer space
science satellite, and will study the composition of cosmic rays and
high energy particles in interplanetary space. ACE will be stationed at
the Earth-Sun L1 libration point, 1.4 million km from Earth in the
direction of the Sun.
ACE was launched by a Boeing Delta 7920-8. The Delta second stage
entered a 185 km parking orbit and then reignited to place itself
and ACE in a 185 km x 1.4 million km elliptical orbit. At apogee,
ACE will fire an onboard propulsion system to station itself at L1.
The Delta rocket will probably be perturbed into solar orbit.
This is the first time a Delta second stage has been placed in such
a high orbit; previously escape missions have used the three stage
version of the Delta.
The Delta-class Explorers have been:
ISEE 1 International Sun-Earth Explorer 1 1977 Oct 22-1987 Sep
IUE International Ultraviolet Explorer 1978 Jan 26-1996 Sep
ISEE 3 International Sun-Earth Explorer 3
(ICE) (aka International Cometary Explorer) 1978 Aug 12-1986
DE 1/2 Dynamics Explorer 1 and 2 1981 Aug 3-1991 Feb
SME Solar Mesosphere Explorer 1981 Oct 6-1983 Jul
AMPTE-CCE Charge Composition Explorer 1984 Aug 16-1989 Jan
COBE Cosmic Background Explorer 1989 Nov 18-1997 May
EUVE Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer 1992 Jun 7
RXTE Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer 1995 Dec 30
ACE Advanced Composition Explorer 1997 Aug 25
(Many earlier Explorer flights were also launched on Delta, but I count
them in other subdivisions of the Explorer program, e.g. Atmosphere
Explorer and Interplanetary Monitoring Platform).
Another Panamsat comsat was launched on Aug 28 aboard an International
Launch Services/Krunichev Proton-K from Baykonur. An Energiya Blok DM-3
upper stage was used to deliver it to a standard geostationary
transfer orbit of 214 x 36018 km x 51.6 deg. (Actually the Proton
usually uses a slightly lower 46 degree transfer orbit inclination).
The PAS 5 satellite is a Hughes HS-601HP design, and is using a
Marquardt R-4D-12 liquid apogee engine to raise its orbit to
geostationary.
Orbital's Pegasus XL made another successful flight on Aug 29. This time
it launched the FORTE satellite for Los Alamos National Lab. FORTE will
study natural and artificial radio emissions from the ionosphere, as
part of a program to develop technology for monitoring nuclear test ban
treaties. Early reports are that FORTE is operating successfully in an
800 x 807 km x 70.0 deg orbit. FORTE stands for Fast On-orbit Recording
of Transient Events; it was built at Los Alamos.
The Lewis satellite's attitude control system malfunctioned on Aug 26,
leading to battery discharge and probable loss of the satellite,
although attempts to revive it are continuing.
Last issue I mentioned Olin Aerospace as proving propulsion for the
LMLV's Orbit Adjust Module. This company is now Primex Aerospace.
NASA's Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF) is scheduled for
launch one year from now. The spacecraft, being built by TRW, will carry
imaging and spectroscopic X-ray detectors and be launched into a highly
elliptical orbit by Shuttle/IUS on 1998 Aug 27. The AXAF operations
control center will be in Cambridge, Massachusetts, together with the
AXAF Science Center (a joint venture led by the SAO and MIT X-ray
groups, who also developed the instruments together with Penn State,
Utrecht and MPE). As the launch date approaches, don't be surprised if
this newsletter gets a little sporadic :-)
Table of Recent Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
Jul 1 1802 Columbia ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 32A
Spacelab MSL-1R )
Jul 5 0411 Progress M-35 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 33A
Jul 6 0600 Sojourner - Sagan Station, Mars Rover
Jul 9 1304 Iridium SV015 ) Delta 7920 Vandenberg SLC2W Comsat 34A
Iridium SV017 ) Comsat 34B
Iridium SV018 ) Comsat 34C
Iridium SV020 ) Comsat 34D
Iridium SV021 ) Comsat 34E
Jul 23 0343 GPS SVN 43 Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17A Navsat 35A
Jul 28 0115 Superbird C Atlas IIAS Canaveral LC36B Comsat 36A
Aug 1 2020 OrbView 2 Pegasus XL Vandenberg Remote sen.37A
Aug 5 1536 Soyuz TM-26 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 38A
Aug 7 1441 Discovery Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 39A
Aug 7 2227 CRISTA-SPAS OV-103,LEO Remote sen.39B
Aug 8 0646 PAS 6 Ariane 4 Kourou ELA2 Comsat 40A
Aug 14 2049 Kosmos-2345 Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur Early Warn 41A
Aug 19 1750 Agila 2 CZ-3B Xichang LC2 Comsat 42A
Aug 21 0038 Iridium 22) Delta 7920 Vandenberg SLC2W Comsat 43E
Iridium 23) Comsat 43D
Iridium 24) Comsat 43C
Iridium 25) Comsat 43B
Iridium 26) Comsat 43A
Aug 23 0651 Lewis LMLV-1 Vandenberg SLC6 Remote sen. 44A
Aug 25 1439 ACE Delta 7920 Canaveral LC17A Space sci. 45A
Aug 28 0033 PAS 5 Proton-K/DM3 Baykonur Comsat 46A
Aug 29 1502 FORTE Pegasus XL Vandenberg Space sci. 47A
Current Shuttle Processing Status
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Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due
OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 2 STS-87 Nov 19
OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 3 STS-91 May 28
OV-104 Atlantis LC39A STS-86 Sep 22
OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-89 Jan 15
MLP/SRB/ET/OV stacks
MLP1/
MLP2/RSRM-61/ET/OV-104 LC39A STS-86
MLP3/
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| 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.* |
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