Jonathan's Space Report No. 337 1997 Oct 6 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Mir --------------- Titov and Parazynski entered the Shuttle payload bay on Oct 1 while Atlantis was docked to Mir. The airlock was depressurized at around 1725 UTC and the astronauts emerged from the hatch on the tunnel adapter at around 1735 UTC. They retrieved the four MEEP exposure packages from Mir's SO module and installed the Spektr solar array cap there. The airlock was repressurized at 2231 UTC. Atlantis undocked from Mir at 1728 UTC on Oct 3, leaving Dave Wolf aboard the station and bringing Mike Foale home. The crew fired the engines to deorbit at 2047 UTC on Oct 6 and landed at Kennedy Space Center at 2155. The Progress 7K-TGM No. 237 cargo ship was launched from 5 GIK (Baykonur) on Oct 5 and named Progress M-36. An attempt to undock Progress M-35 from the Kvant module failed when some latches did not open. (This is the first ever undocking failure that I am aware of; any counterexamples, anyone? I guess the failure to jettison the KRT-10 radio antenna in 1979 may count, although that was more a separation failure than an undocking... of course cataloging events that failed to occur is always philosophically a little tricky!) Once M-35 has been undocked, M-36 will link up at that port. Recent Launches --------------- Echostar 3 was launched by Lockheed Martin Astronautics Atlas 2AS on Oct 5. AC-135 was launched from Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 36. The payload is a Lockheed Martin Telecommunications A2100 satellite, and was the first to be built in LMT's new Sunnyvale, California factory instead of the old RCA location at East Windsor, New Jersey. It will be used by Echostar Communications Corp. This is the 4th A2100 series satellite, following GE 1 to GE 3 for GE Americom. News reports confirm that the Indian PSLV rocket entered the wrong orbit. Apparently the liquid-propellant fourth stage, PS-4, may have had a fuel leak causing a premature shutdown. The IRS-1D satellite does have a small amount of fuel for precise orbit control which will be used to raise the perigee, but this will shorten its operational life considerably. Meanwhile, India's Insat 2D geostationary comsat has failed on orbit after only a few months of life. NASA's Lewis satellite reentered on Sep 28. Controllers were unable to rescue the mission after it lost attitude a few days after launch. Observers from the Kettering Group report speculation that Kosmos-2346, which I had identified as a Parus military navigation satellite, may in fact be a test flight of the Tsikada-M-UTTH nav/comms payload first described by the Russians in 1994. I'm inclined to keep listing it as a Parus until we get more definitive info. The Mars Global Surveyor continues aerobraking. As of Oct 3 it was in a 110 x 48770 km x 93.3 deg orbit around Mars. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Sep 1 1400 Iridium MFS ) CZ-2C Taiyuan Inert 48A Iridium MFS ) Inert 48B Sep 2 2221 Hot Bird 3 ) Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Comsat 49A Meteosat 7 ) Weather 49B Sep 4 1203 GE-3 Atlas IIAS Canaveral LC36A Comsat 50A Sep 14 0136 Iridium SV027 ) Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur LC81L Comsat 51D Iridium SV028 ) Comsat 51E Iridium SV029 ) Comsat 51A Iridium SV030 ) Comsat 51F Iridium SV031 ) Comsat 51G Iridium SV032 ) Comsat 51B Iridium SV033 ) Comsat 51C Sep 23 1644 Kosmos-2346 ) Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Navsat 52A FAISAT-2V ) Comsat 52B Sep 23 2358 Intelsat 803 Ariane 42L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 53A Sep 24 2132 Molniya-1T Molniya-M Plesetsk LC43 Comsat 54A Sep 26 0234 Atlantis Shuttle Kennedy LC39 Spaceship 55A Sep 27 0123 Iridium SV019 ) Delta 7920 Vandenberg SLC2W Comsat 56A Iridium SV034 ) 56E Iridium SV035 ) 56D Iridium SV036 ) 56C Iridium SV037 ) 56B Sep 29 0447 IRS-1D PSLV Sriharikota Rem sens. 57A Oct 5 1508 Progress M-36 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo Oct 5 2101 Echostar III Atlas IIAS Canaveral LC36B Comsat Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 2 STS-87 Nov 19 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 3 STS-91 May 28 OV-104 Atlantis KSC SLF STS-86 OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-89 Jan 15 MLP/SRB/ET/OV stacks MLP1/RSRM63/ET-89 VAB STS-87 MLP2/ MLP3/RSRM64? VAB STS-89 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'