Jonathan's Space Report No. 108 1992 Mar 30 I hope the email version of this is getting to people. If you see this on the net and were expecting to have already received it by email, let me know. It's nice to know who reads this regularly, so even if you don't want to be on the email list, consider dropping me a note if you find these reports useful. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ First, a correction to last week's report. Soyuz TM-14 was launched at 1054 UTC not 0854 UTC on Mar 17. This reduces the flight hours of Viktorenko, Kaleri and Flade by 2 hours. Thanks to Ed O'Grady for spotting this typo which crept in half way through my sums! The Soviet Union's last imaging spy satellite, Kosmos-2153, reentered on Mar 13 after 247 days in space. This left Kosmos-2175, launched on Jan 21, as the SNG's (Commonwealth of Independent States) only remaining imaging satellite, and it was expected to reenter on Mar 20. No replacement had been launched by Mar 24. The STS-45 mission continues in orbit. There have been some problems with the FAUST (Far UV Space Telescope) and the SEPAC (electron gun experiment) but both have got at least some data. Overall things are going pretty well and I'm having fun watching NASA Select seeing the folks I used to know at Huntsville hunched over their consoles at the POCC (Hi, Chuck). Landing is due on Apr 2. Kosmos-895 reentered on Mar 22. Launched in Feb 1977, it was a Soviet military signals intelligence satellite. There haven't been many launches recently so I thought I'd take the opportunity to review the first quarter of the year, giving launch vehicle, payload, organization responsible for the launch and the payload, and manufacturer of the payload. Note that barely half of the launches so far are by the ex-SSSR. This is way down on previous years; of 22 launches to the same time last year 17 were Soviet, so not only has the ex-SSSR launch rate gone down but that for the rest of the world has increased somewhat (not statistically significantly relative to last year, but there has been a trend over the past few years). Of course, who owns the various Russian satellites is somewhat speculative and probably not known by anyone, even the putative owners. Launch,Date LV Payload LV/org PL/org PL/Manufacturer 01 Jan 21 Soyuz Kosmos-2175 VS SNG GRU KB Foton 02 Jan 22 STS Discovery/Spacelab IML-1 NASA NASA/ESA/CSA Rockwell/MBB-Alenia 03 Jan 24 Molniya Kosmos-2176 VS SNG PVO NPO-PM 04 Jan 25 Soyuz Progress M-11 VS SNG NPOE NPO Energiya 05 Jan 29 Proton Kosmos-2177,2178,2179 VS SNG VMF PO Polyot 06 Feb 10 Atlas 2 DSCS III F-5 GDCLS USAF/DCA GE 07 Feb 11 H-1 Fuyo-1 NASDA NASDA Mitsubishi 08 Feb 17 Kosmos Kosmos-2180 VS SNG VMF PO Polyot 09 Feb 23 Delta 2 GPS 25 MDSSC USAF Rockwell 10 Feb 26 Ariane Superbird B2 AE SCCJ SS/Loral Arabsat 1C ASCO Aerospatiale 11 Mar 4 Molniya Molniya-1 VS SNG RKA? NPO-PM 12 Mar 9 Kosmos Kosmos-2181 VS SNG VMF PO Polyot 13 Mar 14 Atlas 1 Galaxy V GDCLS HCI Hughes 14 Mar 17 Soyuz Soyuz TM-14 VS SNG NPOE/RKA NPO Energiya 15 Mar 24 STS Atlantis/Spacelab Atlas-1 NASA NASA/ESA Rockwell/BAe Abbreviations for organizations AE Arianespace SA, France ASCO Arab Satellite Communications Organization, Saudi Arabia CSA Canadian Space Agency, Canada DCA Defence Communications Agency, US Department of Defense, USA ESA European Space Agency GDCLS General Dynamics Commercial Launch Services, USA GRU Glavnoye Razvedivatel'noye Upravileniye (Soviet Military Intelligence), SNG HCI Hughes Communications Inc., USA MBB Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm, Deutschland (Germany) MDSSC McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Corp, USA NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration, USA NASDA National Space Development Agency, Nippon (Japan) NPOE NPO Energiya (Energiya Scientific/Production Organization), Rossiya NPO-PM NPO Prikladnoi Mekhaniki, Rossiya POP PO Polyot, Rossiya PVO Protivo-Vosdushniya Oborona (SNG Air Defense Force), SNG SCCJ Space Communications Corp, Nippon (Japan) SNG Sodruzhestva Nezabisimikh Gosudarst' (Commonwealth of Independent States) USAF United States Air Force, USA VMF Voenno-Morskoy Flot (SNG Navy), SNG VS SNG Vooruzhennikh Sil Sodruzhestva Nezabisimikh Gosudarst' (Combined Forces of the Commonwealth of Independent States) /* followups to talk.politics.space: we want our NTV! For those of you who have wondered why NASA Select doesnt cover the expendable launches anymore, I hear that the Administrator decided that putting non-NASA launches on NASA Select is bad PR if there is a failure, since everyone thinks the failure is NASA's. Maybe a nice big letter writing campaign to the new Administrator might change this. */ Oops, I editorialized, I promise I won't do it again. ____________________________________________ |Current STS status: | |Orbiters Location Mission | | | |OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-50 | |OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 Mod | |OV-104 Atlantis LEO STS-45 | |OV-105 Endeavour LC39B FRF | | | |ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks | | | |ML1/ LC39A | |ML2/STS-49/ET/OV-105 LC39B | |ML3/STS-50 VAB Bay 3 | -------------------------------------------- Key: ET External Tank FRF Flight Readiness Firing LC Launch Complex LEO Low Earth Orbit ML Mobile Launcher OPF Orbiter Processing Facility OV Orbiter Vehicle SRB Solid Rocket Boosters VAB Vehicle Assembly Building .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : mcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'