Jonathan's Space Report No. 210 1994 Sep 10 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle ------- Shuttle mission STS-64 was launched at 2222:53 UTC on Sep 9 from pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center. The Redesigned Solid Rocket Motors separated at 2 min into the flight, and the lightweight External Tank, ET-66, was jettisoned at 9 min after launch, just after main engine cutoff. Orbit on Sep 10.6 was 253 x 266 km x 57.0 deg. This is Discovery's 19th flight into space. One of the main payloads is LITE (the Lidar In-Space Technology Experiment). Lidar is essentially radar using an optical wavelength laser instead of microwaves. LITE consists of a Spacelab pallet with a laser transmitter and a receiver telescope. In an interesting historical note, the 96-cm receiver telescope was built in the 1960s as the engineering model for the telescope on the OAO-B satellite, lost in a 1970 launch failure. It was refurbished for the LITE mission. Mir --- The Mir commander and flight engineer, Yuriy Malenchenko and Talgat Musabaev, made a spacewalk on Sep 9 to inspect the damage to the Kvant module made by Progress M-24 when it collided with Kvant during its second attempted docking on Aug 30. [I don't have the start time or duration of this EVA yet]. Valeriy Polyakov, station doctor, stayed inside Mir during the EVA. Launches -------- AT&T Skynet Satellite Services' Telstar 402 was launched by an Ariane 42L on Sep 9 into a 224 x 35717 km orbit inclined 6.9 degrees. This was the 30th Ariane 4 launch, and the 28th successful one. The payload was a Martin Marietta Astro Space Series 7000 satellite, the second to be launched. It carried 24 C-band and 16 Ku-band transponders, and a pair of UK Royal Ordnance bipropellant Leros liquid apogee engines. A few minutes after Telstar 402 separated from the Ariane H10+ third stage, controllers commanded the spacecraft tanks to be pressurized. Telemetry indicates that an explosion occurred at this point and all contact with the satellite was lost. The first Series 7000 satellite, Telstar 401, continues to operate successfully in geostationary orbit. More details on the DMSP launch: DMSP F-12 (23545) is a Martin Marietta (formerly GE, formerly RCA, soon to be Lockheed Martin) Astro Space Block 5D-2 class USAF weather satellite. Launch was at 1738 UTC on Aug 29, and the launch vehicle was a Martin Marietta (formerly General Dynamics, formerly Convair) Atlas. This particular rocket was Atlas 20E, a refurbished ICBM originally built in the early 1960s. 56 Atlas E rockets have been launched, with a variety of payloads: Atlas 11E and two others remain in the inventory. Atlas Date Mission Atlas Date Mission 3E, 4E: 1960 ICBM R&D 52E 1986 NOAA-10 5E 1964 ABRES reentry test 8E, 9E, 12E, 13E: 1961 ICBM R&D 53E 1991 DMSP 22546 14E: 1984 Navstar 10 54E 1988 DMSP 20542 16E, 17E, 18E: 1961 ICBM R&D 55E 1985 Navstar 11 20E: 1994 DMSP 23545 57E 1964 ICBM test 21E, 22E 1961 ICBM R&D 58E 1983 DMSP 18541 24E 1963 ICBM test 59E 1987 DMSP 19543 25E, 26E, 27E 1961 ICBM R&D 60E 1982 DMSP 17540 28E 1990 USAF Stacksat 61E 1990 DMSP 21544 30E, 32E 1961 ICBM R&D 62E 1963 ICBM test 34E 1993 NOAA-13 63E 1988 NOAA-11 35E, 36E 1961 ICBM R&D 64E,65E,66E,67E 1962-3 ICBM tests 39E 1984 NOAA-9 68E 1980 USN PARCAE 4 40E 1962 ICBM R&D 69E,70E,71E,72E 1963 ICBM tests 41E 1985 USN Geosat 73E 1983 NOAA-8 42E 1984 Navstar 9 74E 1968 ABRES reentry test 48E 1964 ICBM test 75E 1983 Navstar 8 50E 1991 NOAA-12 76E 1981 Navstar 7 77E,78E 1968 ABRES reentry tests The Kosmos-2290 spy satellite was launched on Aug 26 into a 211 x 292 km orbit at an inclination of 64.8 degrees. It raised its orbit from 208 x 280 km to 208 x 348 km on Sep 6. This confirms that 2290 is indeed an active payload, and supports the interpretation that it is an imaging spy satellite. Earlier low orbit Zenit launches were just dummy satellites which made no manouevres. Causality Erratum ----------------- Magellan's orbit trim was on Aug 25, not on Sep 25 as I claimed in JSR 209. Recent Launches --------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Aug 2 2000 Kosmos-2285 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 ? 45A Aug 3 1439 P90-6 APEX Pegasus/NB-52 Point Arguello Technology 46A Aug 3 2357 DBS 2 Atlas IIA Canaveral LC36A Comsat 47A Aug 5 0112 Kosmos-2286 Molniya Plesetsk LC16 Early Warn 48A Aug 10 2305 Brasilsat B1 ) Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Comsat 49A Turksat 1B ) Comsat 49B Aug 11 1527 Kosmos-2287 ) Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur LC81 Navsat 50A Kosmos-2288 ) Navsat 50B Kosmos-2289 ) Navsat 50C Aug 23 1431 Molniya-3 Molniya Plesetsk LC43 Comsat 51A Aug 25 1425 Progress M-24 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 52A Aug 26 1200 Kosmos-2290 Zenit-2 Baykonur LC45 Recon 53A Aug 27 0858 USA-105 Titan Centaur Canaveral LC41 SIGINT 54A Aug 27 2310 Optus B3 CZ-2E Xichang Comsat 55A Aug 28 0750 Kiku 6 H-II Tanegashima Comsat 56A Aug 29 1738 DMSP 23545 Atlas 20E Vandenberg Weather 57A Sep 9 0029 Telstar 402 Ariane 42L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 58A Sep 9 2222 Discovery Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 59A Reentries --------- Jul 23 Columbia Landed at KSC Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 1 OMDP - OV-103 Discovery LEO STS-64 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-66 Oct 27 OV-105 Endeavour VAB Bay 1 STS-68 Oct 2 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-40/ET-65/OV-105 VAB Bay 1 STS-68 ML2/ LC39B ML3/RSRM-42/ VAB Bay 3 STS-66 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'