Jonathan's Space Report No. 270 1995 Jan 2 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle ------- The next Shuttle mission is STS-72, still scheduled for January 11. Mir --- The 20th main expedition to the Mir complex continues its work. On Jan 1 at 0000:00 UTC, the crew of Yuriy Gidzenko, Sergey Avdeev, and Thomas Reiter had been in flight for 119 days 14 hours 59 min 38 sec (remembering to put in that leap second at 1995 Dec 31d 23h 59m 60s!) since the liftoff of their Soyuz TM-22 spaceship from pad 1 at Baykonur on Sep 3. Recent Launches -------------- The Indian Space Research Organization's IRS-1C (Indian Remote Sensing Satellite) satellite was launched from Baykonur on Dec 28. This was the first Russian launch into a retrograde (99 degree) orbit using the Molniya-M four stage rocket; earlier Russian retrograde launches used the Vostok rocket which has now been retired. The Molniya-M for this flight used a fourth stage called the Blok 2BL, which fired to place IRS-1C in a circular 101.1 min, 805 x 817 km x 98.6 deg sun-synchronous orbit. The Blok-I third stage appears to have been suborbital, the first time such a flight profile has been used. The IRS-1C is more advanced than earlier Indian remote sensing satellites, with a 10-m resolution panchromatic camera and a 20-m resolution multispectral camera. Also launched with IRS-1C was the Skipper subsatellite, a joint project between the US Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and the Russian Defense Ministry which will simulate ICBM reentry and test out aerobraking techniques. According to my rather out of date information, the payload is built by the Utah State University Space Dynamics Lab in collaboration with the Moscow Aviation Institute and has a mass of 230 kg; it will maneuver to a low perigee and then deorbit over Kwajalein in the Pacific in about a week. Anyone with more info on Skipper is encouraged to get in touch. Echostar 1, a Lockheed Martin Astro Space AS7000 series television broadcast satellite, was successfully launched by a Chinese Chang Zheng 2E rocket on Dec 28 into low Earth orbit. An EPKM solid kick motor fired to place the satellite in a 222 x 35081 km x 24.4 deg geostationary transfer orbit, from where the satellite's liquid apogee engine would further raise the orbit to a circular geostationary one. Echostar carries 16 Ku-band transponders. NASA-Goddard's X-Ray Timing Explorer satellite was launched on Dec 30 from pad 17A at Cape Canaveral. It entered a 565 x 583 km x 23.0 deg orbit. The satellite carries the PCA (Proportional Counter Array) instrument with large collecting area but low spatial resolution, for accurate timing and 2-60 keV spectral measurements of bright X-ray sources. The HEXTE (High Energy X-ray Timing Experiment) will study X-rays of higher energy (up to 200 keV) and the ASM (All Sky Monitor) has a wide field of view to spot X-ray flare stars and burst sources in the 2-10 keV range.. XTE was built by NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center. XTE's launch vehicle was a two stage McDonnell Douglas Delta 7920-10 model, Delta 230. Launch was at 1348 UTC on Dec 30; first the two liquid vernier engines ignite, and immediately afterwards the main engine ignited successfully, 2.5 seconds before liftoff. Six of the nine Hercules GEM solid rocket motors (Nos. 1,2,3,7,8 and 9) ignited and the vehicle left the pad. The six solids burnt out and separated as solids 4,5 and 6 ignited, at around T+1 min 5 sec. Solids 4,5 and 6 then burnt out and separated at 2min 11 sec. The main RS-27 engine cutoff at 4min 20 sec and the first, Thor-derived, stage fell away at 4:29. The Delta second stage ignited its AJ-10-118K liquid engine at 4:34 and the 10-foot payload shroud, having survived those upper-level winds, was jettisoned at 4:40, at an altitude of 143 km. The first burn of the second stage shut down at 1358 UTC, T+9:55, with Delta/XTE in a 157 x 613 km x 28.73 deg Earth orbit. The combination coasted toward apogee for an hour, and at 1456 (T+1:08:18) the Delta reignited for a 1 min 31 sec burn to circularize the orbit at 565 x 583 km x 23.0 deg. Delta 230 separated from XTE at 1506 UTC. At 1526 UTC Delta 230 ignited for the third time in an evasive maneuver to leave the vicinity of XTE, and at 1534 UTC the AJ-10-118K was turned on for the fourth and last time in a depletion burn intended to lower the orbit and get rid of residual propellant, to avoid the possibility of a later explosion (in the 1970s exploding relic Delta stages were responsible for significant contributions to the orbital debris population). It ended up in a 176 x 575 km x 25.0 deg orbit and should reenter rapidly. Satellite catalog number 23658, which had been reserved for the Fasat-Alfa Chilean subsatellite that failed to separate from Sich-1, has now been assigned to the Centaur AC-117 stage from the JCSAT-3 launch, which on Dec 17 was tracked in a 175 x 79168 km x 22.93 deg orbit. Cataloged with Kosmos-2326 (1995-71A, 23748) is the rocket stage (1995-71C, 23750) which reentered on the day of launch, implying the existence of an object (1995-71B, 23749) for which no elements have yet been released. This may be a misunderstanding based on the incorrect assumption that the Konus-A experiment is intended to separate from the main satellite, and the catalog number may be reassigned. The Goddard OIG group has reported the decay of object 23453 (Kosmos-2305), as suggested by me in JSR 269, although they confused the issue by labelling it Kosmos-398! The Gals 2 satellite has been positioned at 70.9E over the Indian Ocean. Asiasat 2 has reached geostationary position at 100.5E. Telecom 2C fired its apogee engine between Dec 17 and Dec 21, immediately reaching its geostationary location at 1.0E. Insat 2C arrived at its 92.5E position on Dec 19. On Dec 24 Galaxy 3R raised its transfer orbit to 1292.35 min, 30054 x 35793 km x 1.4 deg. Another engine firing on Dec 26 completed the ascent to synchronous altitude, placing it in a 1435.46 min, 35756 x 35792 km x 0.1 deg orbit drifting E over 94.9W. TDRS 1 left its 139.6W position in mid December to drift E. The German television satellite DFS Kopernikus 1 left its 33E slot on around Dec 14. The US Navy UHF F6 completed its testing period at 171W and moved during November-December to a new location at 105.3W. Intelsat 503 has reached a new station at 157.0E. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Nov 4 1422 Radarsat ) Delta 7920 Vandenberg SLC2W Rem sensing 59A SURFSAT ) 59B Nov 6 0515 Milstar DFS 2 Titan 4 Centaur Canaveral LC40 Comsat 60A Nov 12 1230 Atlantis ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 61A Docking Module ) Nov 17 0120 ISO Ariane 44P Kourou ELA2 Astronomy 62A Nov 17 1425 Gals-2 Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur LC200L Comsat 63A Nov 28 1130 Asiasat 2 Chang Zheng 2E Xichang Comsat 64A Dec 2 0808 SOHO Atlas IIAS Canaveral LC36B Astronomy 65A Dec 5 2118 USA 116 Titan 4 Vandenberg SLC4E Recon 66A Dec 6 2323 Telecom 2C ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 67A Insat 2C ) Comsat 67B Dec 14 0610 Kosmos-2323 ) Navsat 68A Kosmos-2324 ) Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur LC200L Navsat 68B Kosmos-2325 ) Navsat 68C Dec 15 0023 Galaxy IIIR Atlas IIA Canaveral LC36A Comsat 69A Dec 18 1431 Progress M-30 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo ship 70A Dec 20 0052 Kosmos-2326 Tsiklon-2 Baykonur LC90 Eorsat/Sci 71A Dec 28 0645 IRS-1C ) Molniya-M Baykonur LC31 Rem.sensing 72A Skipper ) Military 72B Dec 28 1150 Echostar 1 Chang Zheng 2E Xichang Comsat 73A Dec 30 1348 XTE Delta 7920 Canaveral LC17A Astronomy 74A Payloads no longer in orbit -------------------------- Nov 5 Columbia Landed at KSC Nov 18 Molniya-1 (80-92A) Reentered Nov 20 Atlantis Landed at KSC Dec 7 Galileo Probe Entered Jovian atmosphere Dec 11 Kosmos-398 Reentered over Pacific Dec 18 Kosmos-2305 Deorbited Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 2 STS-75 Feb 22 OV-103 Discovery Palmdale OMDP OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 1 STS-76 Mar 21 OV-105 Endeavour LC39B STS-72 Jan 11 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-52/ET-75/OV-105 LC39B STS-72 ML2/ ML3/RSRM-53 VAB Bay 1 STS-75 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 | | ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'