Jonathan's Space Report

Nov 3 1990 (no.58)
----------------------------------------------------

Atlantis and Columbia have passed their tanking tests, but the Atlantis
launch has been delayed until at least late November because of problems
with the AFP-658 recon satellite.  Meanwhile, European observers have
recovered the AFP-731 recon satellite launched on Atlantis' last
mission.  It is now in an 800 km high orbit at 65 degrees inclination. 
(Thanks to Ted Molczan for this information). 

Gennadiy Manakov and Gennadiy Strekalov continue in orbit aboard the
Mir/Kvant/Kvant-2/Kristall/Soyuz TM-10/Progress M-5 complex. The
spacewalk has been delayed because Strekalov has a cold.

INMARSAT (the International Maritime Satellite Organization) launched
the Inmarsat II F-1 communications satellite on a Delta 6925 from
Canaveral on Oct 30. The satellite will be used for communications
by ships and airplanes. This is the first Inmarsat II satellite;
there were no Inmarsat I satellites, since Inmarsat leased sats
from other organizations in the first phase of its existence
(the Marisat satellites from Comsat General Corp, USA, and the 
MARECS satellites from the European Space Agency).

The final stage of the Chang Zheng 4 launch vehicle used to
orbit the Feng Yun 1B weather satellite has exploded into over
50 fragments.

___________________________________
|Current STS status:              |
|Orbiters                         |
|                                 |
|OV-102 Columbia        LC39B     |
|OV-103 Discovery       OPF Bay 1 |
|OV-104 Atlantis        LC39A     |
|                                 |
|ML/ET/SRB stacks                 |
|                                 |
|ML1/STS-38/ET/OV104    LC39A     |
|ML2                    VAB       |
|ML3/STS-35/ET/OV102    LC39B     |
-----------------------------------


(c) 1990 Jonathan McDowell