Jonathan's Space Report No. 202 (revised) 1994 Jul 5 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A serious goof in the first version of this report, so I'm trying again. Please delete the previous version! Shuttle ------- Launch of STS-65 is still due on July 8. LAUNCHES -------- NPO Energiya's Soyuz spacecraft 11F732 no. 68 was launched at 12:24:50 UTC on Jul 1 from Baykonur, becoming Soyuz TM-19 on reaching orbit. Soyuz TM-19 carried the Mir EO-16 crew (callsign: "Agat") to the orbital complex, and docked at the rear port of the Kvant module (vacated by Progress M-23 on Jul 2) at 13:55:01 UTC on Jul 3. The EO-16 crew commander is Lt-Col. Yuriy Ivanovich Malenchenko of the Russian Air Force. The flight engineer is Lt-Col. Talgat Bigeldinovich Musabaev, also of the Russian Air Force. Both men are currently members of the Russian Air Force cosmonaut detachment, although Musabaev is a Kazakh and was originally selected as backup for the Kazakh mission to Mir flown by Tokhtar Aubakirov in 1991. The EO-16 crew will replace two of the EO-15 crewmembers currently aboard Mir, Viktor Afanas'ev and Yuriy Usachyov, who will land back on Earth on Jul 9. Physician-cosmonaut Valeriy Polyakov will remain aboard Mir with the EO-16 crew. Orbital Sciences' revolutionary Pegasus winged launch vehicle suffered its first complete launch failure on Jun 27. The modified Lockheed L-1011 carrier plane took off from Vandenberg AFB, California and released the first Pegasus XL over the Point Arguello Warning Area at 2115 UTC. The rocket malfunctioned during the first stage burn and was destroyed. Payload on this sixth Pegasus launch was the US Air Force Space Test Program's STEP Mission 1 satellite. STEP 1 was a DSI/TRW Eagle class light satellite carrying radio propagation experiments, a plasma environment analyser, the CHAMPION ionosphere-magnetosphere coupling experiment, and an accelerometer and mass spectrometer to study the upper atmosphere. In last week's report, I should have noted that Martin Marietta have bought the old General Dynamics launch vehicle group. Therefore, the recent Atlas I AC-76 flight was a Martin Marietta launch, not a General Dynamics one. Apologies to Martin Marietta and its Atlas Centaur team for the misattribution. The UHF F/O F-3 satellite launched by AC-76 carries 39 UHF communications channels (21 narrow band, 17 relay, and 1 Fleet Broadcast). This HS-601 class satellite is owned by Hughes Space and Communications, and will be delivered to the US Navy's Space Command once it has been checked out in geostationary orbit. Launch of AC-76 occurred at 1350:02 UTC; the booster engines were jettisoned within three minutes and the Atlas main stage fell away at 1354. The first Centaur burn ended at 1400, placing the Centaur/HS-601 in parking orbit a few hundred km above the Earth. Centaur reignited at 1414 for a 70 second burn, and separated at 1418 UTC leaving the HS-601 in a 221 x 15600 km x 27 deg transfer orbit. The HS-601 later began burns of its ARC 490N liquid apogee engine to raise the satellite's orbit towards its operational geostationary height of 35780 x 35780 km x 0 deg. However orbital details for the satellite have not been released; this is unusual as earlier UHF F/O mission trajectories have been unclassified. The satellite launched into a 63 degree orbit on Jul 3 is a Chinese FSW (Fanhui Shi Weixing) recoverable satellite launched from Jiuquan, and not a Russian Kosmos from Plesetsk, as I suggested in the first version of this report. Orbit of the FSW satellite is 173 x 342 km x 63.0 deg. This is very similar to the orbits used by Russian's Yantar' satellites, and the ground track of the satellite passes close to the Plesetsk launch site on the first orbit before the actual launch, hence my initial confusion. The McDonnell Douglas DC-X reusable rocket has made two more test flights, on Jun 20 and Jun 27. The second flight was aborted because of an explosion in the aft compartment at launch time; the rocket made a successful emergency landing and the damage is reportedly not severe. Recent Launches --------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Apr 23 0802 Kosmos-2278 Zenit-2 Baykonur LC45 SIGINT 23A Apr 26 0214 Kosmos-2279 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC133 Navsat 24A Apr 28 1714 Kosmos-2280 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC31 Recon 25A May 3 1555 USA-103 Titan Centaur Canaveral LC41 SIGINT 26A May 4 0000 SROSS C2 ASLV Sriharikota Science 27A May 9 0247 MSTI-2 Scout G-1 Vandenberg SLC5 Technology 28A May 19 1703 P91-A (STEP 2) Pegasus/HAPS Point Arguello WA Science 29A May 20 0201 Gorizont 42 Proton/DM2 Baykonur LC81 Comsat 30A May 22 0430 Progress M-23 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1? Cargo 31A May 25 1015 Kosmos Tsiklon-3 Plesetsk LC32 SIGINT? FTO Jun 7 0720 Kosmos-2281 Soyuz-U Plesetsk LC16 Recon 32A Jun 14 1605 Foton No. 9 Soyuz-U Plesetsk LC43 Materials 33A Jun 17 0707 Intelsat 702 ) Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Comsat 34A STRV 1 ) Technology 34B STRV 2 ) Technology 34C Jun 24 1350 UHF F/O F3 Atlas I Centaur Canaveral LC36B Comsat 35A Jun 27 2115 STEP 1 Pegasus XL Point Arguello WA Science FTO Jul 1 1224 Soyuz TM-19 Soyuz-U2 Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 36A Jul 3 0804? FSW Chang Zheng 2 Jiuquan Remote sens 37A Reentries --------- May 23 Progress M-22 Deorbited Jun 3 Tiros VII Reentered Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission OV-102 Columbia LC39A STS-65 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-64 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-66 OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-68 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-40/ET-65 VAB Bay 3 STS-68 ML2/RSRM-41 VAB Bay 1 STS-64 ML3/RSRM-39/ET-64/OV-102 LC39A STS-65 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'