Jonathan's Space Report No. 314 1997 Feb 21 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Mir --------------- Discovery completed its rendezvous with Hubble on Feb 13. Steve Hawley used the RMS arm to grapple HST at 0834 UTC and by shortly after 0900 UTC the telescope was docked to the FSS (Flight Support Structure) in the aft part of the cargo bay. On Feb 14 astronauts Mark Lee and Steven Smith carried out a spacewalk to install the STIS and NICMOS science instruments. After depressurizing the airlock to 5 psi, the spacewalk was postponed when escaping air caused the Hubble solar arrays to move. Depressurization was completed at around 0430 UTC. First, the GHRS spectrograph was removed from its axial bay on HST and parked on the ORUC carrier. Then, the STIS spectrograph was removed from its ORUC enclosure and placed inside HST. GHRS was placed in the empty enclosure for return to Earth. Now it was the turn of the Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS, my personal favorite HST instrument which has generated loads of delicious data on the ultraviolet spectra and continua of quasars) to be retired. It was removed from its axial bay and parked, to be replaced by the NICMOS infrared camera/spectrograph brought up in the SAC carrier (used to carry up new solar panels on STS-61). Finally FOS was laid in the NICMOS enclosure on SAC for its journey home to honorable retirement. According to Bill Harwood's web page, the airlock close was at 1116 UTC, but I don't have the repressurization time. HST's science compartment has radial bays, accessed from the side, and axial bays, accessed from the end. The radial bays contain three Fine Guidance Sensors, FGS-1 to FGS-3 (FGS-1 was replaced on this mission), and the WFPC-2 Wide Field and Planetary Camera, responsible for the majority of the pretty pictures you see. The axial bays, whose boundaries are rotated 45 degrees to the radial bays, contain the Faint Object Camera (FOC), which takes ultraviolet pictures, the COSTAR device which carries corrective lenses for FOC, and the new NICMOS and STIS. COSTAR also provided spectacles for GHRS and FOS, but NICMOS and STIS have their own corrective optics. FOS is the only one of the original science (non-FGS) instruments still aboard. The High Speed Photometer was replaced by COSTAR, and the original WFPC was replaced by WFPC-2. HST Instruments Location Launch After STS-82 Carried up in -------- ------ ------------ ------------- Radial +V2 FGS-1 FGS-1R STS-82 ORUC FSIPE Radial -V3 FGS-2 FGS-2 STS-31R HST Radial -V2 FGS-3 FGS-3 STS-31R HST Radial +V3 WFPC WFPC-2 STS-61 ORUC SIPE Axial +V3/+V2 FOC FOC STS-31R HST Axial +V2/-V3 HSP COSTAR STS-61 ORUC SIPE Axial -V3/-V2 GHRS STIS STS-82 ORUC SIPE Axial -V2/+V3 FOS NICMOS STS-82 SAC SIPE The spacewalkers have discovered potentially serious rips in Hubble's insulation, caused by degradation over the seven years the material has been in orbit. An orbital debris puncture in an antenna was also noticed. Four more spacewalks have now been completed. EVA-2, by Greg Harbaugh and Joe Tanner, replaced the Fine Guidance Sensor in a 7h 26m spacewalk. EVA-3, by Lee and Smith, made a 7h 11m walk to install a new computer and data recorder. EVA-4 was 6h 34m and saw installation of new electronics and covers on the magnetometer sensors, plus initial repairs to the insulation. EVA-5 involved more insulation repairs; the astronauts then spent some time in the airlock awaiting word on whether an extra gyro replacement would be needed, before finally cleaning up the payload bay and repressurizing after a 5h 17m walk. (The times given are NASA's EVA times from when the spacesuits go on battery power until repressurization; I prefer to measure from depressurization to repressurization, which gives times about 5 minutes longer in each case). The Hubble Space Telescope was released back into orbit at 0641 UTC on Feb 19. Discovery landed on Runway 15 at Kennedy Space Center at 0832 UTC on Feb 21. Recent Launches --------------- An 11K68 Tsiklon-3 rocket built by the Ukrainian Dnepropetrovsk company Yuzhnoe was launched from Plesetsk in Russia on Feb 14. The S5M third stage fired twice to enter a circular 1400 km orbit and deployed six small communications satellites built by NPO Prikladnoi Mekhaniki of Krasnoyarsk, Russia. The names of the satellites are not yet confirmed but I am guessing that three are Kosmos military satellites in the Strela-3 system for the Russian Federation Ministry of Defense (MO RF) and three are development satellites for the Gonets civilian version of Strela-3, which is probably officially owned by the Russian Space Agency (RKA). The first satellite is in a 1413 x 1422 km x 82.6 deg orbit; orbits for the others are similar. JCSAT 4 was launched by a Lockheed Martin Astronautics/Denver Atlas IIAS from Cape Canaveral on Feb 17. JCSAT 4 is a communications satellite owned by Japan Satellite Systems Inc (JSAT, Kabushiki-gaisha Nihon Sateraito Sisutemuzu). It is an HS-601 class satellite built by Hughes. The Atlas IIAS AC-127 Centaur second stage entered a low parking orbit and then reignited to place JCSAT-4 in a Super-GTO orbit of 221 x 94251 km x 23.5 deg. The HS-601's liquid apogee engine will change inclination to equatorial, then lower the apogee and raise perigee to achieve geostationary orbit. By Feb 20, it was in a 14339 x 94291 km x 6.5 deg orbit. Galileo completed its orbit 6 Europa encounter on Feb 20. It flew 587 km from Europa. Its next orbit will take it past Ganymede on Apr 5. The Haruka satellite has now raised its perigee to 500 km. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jan 12 0928 Atlantis Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 01A Jan 17 1628 GPS 42 Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17A Navsat FTO Jan 30 2204 GE 2 ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 02A Nahuel 1A) Comsat 02B Feb 10 1409 Soyuz TM-25 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 03A Feb 11 0855 Discovery STS-82 Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 04A Feb 12 0450 Haruka M-V Kagoshima Astronomy 05A Feb 14 0347 Kosmos-2337 Tsiklon-3 Plesetsk LC32/1 Comsat 06A Kosmos-2338 Comsat 06B Kosmos-2339 Comsat 06C Gonets-D1 No. 4 Comsat 06D Gonets-D1 No. 5 Comsat 06E Gonets-D1 No. 6 Comsat 06F Feb 17 0142 JCSAT 4 Atlas IIAS Canaveral LC36B Comsat 07A Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 1 STS-83 Apr 3 OV-103 Discovery RW15 KSC STS-82 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-84 May 15 OV-105 Endeavour Palmdale OMDP ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/ ML2/RSRM-60 VAB Bay 3 STS-84 ML3/RSRM-59/ET-84 VAB Bay 1 STS-83 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 | | Back issues: ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'