Jonathan's Space Report No. 356 1998 Apr 19 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Mir --------------- The current commander of Mir is of course Talgat Musabaev, and not Anatoliy Solov'yov as I foolishly stated last week. Musabaev and Budarin carried out another 6 hour spacewalk on Apr 17, preparing for installation of the new VDU engine. Hatch open was 0740 UTC and hatch closed at 1412 UTC. Two truss structures on the Kvant module were retracted and stored on the module exterior; the new VDU was unlatched from its carrier in the Progress cargo ship. It will be installed on the next EVA. Space Shuttle OV-102 Columbia was launched into orbit on Apr 17 on an extended duration Spacelab long module mission using Long Module Unit 2. The STS-90 cargo bay sidewall canisters are: Bay 4P forward: G-744 Sierra College, ozone measurements aft: G-772 Colorado, COLLIDE dust collision experiment Bay 4S forward: SVF JPL Shuttle Vibration Forces experiment aft: G-197 Lockheed Martin, Pulse Tube Refrigerator cryocooler In addition, the OARE acceleration experiment is mounted on the payload bay floor in bay 11. STS-90/Neurolab experiments include tests on the astronauts' adaptation to free fall, and studies on rat development and neurobiology. The life sciences payload includes 132 rats (Rattus norvegii), four oyster toadfish (Opsanus tau), freshwater snails (Biomphlaria glabrata), swordtail fish (Xiphophorus helleri), and crickets (Acheta domesticus). The Spacelab module includes the Vestibular Function Experiment Unit, the BOTEX botany experiment incubator (used for the crickets), the CEBAS aquatic enclosure, and various rat animal enclosures. It also includes the VVIS centrifuge, the VCF visuo-motor coordination facility, and the VEG virtual reality headset, all of which are used on the human subjects. A special suit and cap to monitor astronauts while asleep is also carried. Unfortunately, in contrast to earlier Spacelab flight press kits, this mission's public release doesn't give details of the layout of the Spacelab module racks. Columbia was launched at 1819 UTC on Apr 17. The solid rocket boosters (RSRM-65) separated at 1821 UTC, and a few seconds later the OMS engines ignited for a 1min 43s burn, the first OMS assist maneuver. This adds extra thrust to that provided by the SSME main engines, and will be needed for Space Station launches. The maneuver appears to have gone fine. Transfer orbit insertion at main engine cutoff, 1827 UTC, was followed by separation of external tank ET-91 and a second OMS burn at 1902 UTC to circularize the orbit at 257 x 286 km x 39.0 deg. Meanwhile, the Shuttle launch schedule for the next year is completely up in the air pending decisions on Space Station delays. STS-93/AXAF ----------- NASA and the AXAF Science Center are sponsoring a contest to name the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), a 4-tonne X-ray telescope to be launched on Space Shuttle Columbia in December 1998. The winner will get a free trip to see the launch, and everyone who enters will get a free AXAF poster. The winning entry can be the name of a place or a thing symbolizing exploration of the universe, or a mythological or fictional character, or a historical person (but not someone alive today). Previous X-ray satellites have been named after physicists Albert Einstein, Wilhelm Rontgen, and Bruno Rossi; the first X-ray satellite, launched from Kenya, was named Uhuru after the Swahili word for freedom. You can get details of the contest at http://asc.harvard.edu/contest.html Entries are due by June 30 and the winner will be announced later in the year. Recent Launches --------------- Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Mar 14 2246 Progress M-38 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 15A Mar 16 2132 UHF F/O F8 Atlas II Canaveral SLC36A Comsat 16A Mar 24 0146 SPOT 4 Ariane 40 Kourou ELA2 Imaging 17A Mar 25 1701 Iridium 51 ) CZ-2C/SD Taiyuan Comsat 18A Iridium 61 ) Comsat 18B Mar 30 0602 Iridium 55 Delta 7920 Vandenberg SLC2 Comsat 19A Iridium 57 Comsat 19B Iridium 58 Comsat 19C Iridium 59 Comsat 19D Iridium 60 Comsat 19E Apr 2 0242 TRACE Pegasus XL Vandenberg Solar obs. 20A Apr 7 0213 Iridium 62 Proton-K Baykonur Comsat 21A Iridium 63 Comsat 21B Iridium 64 Comsat 21C Iridium 65 Comsat 21D Iridium 66 Comsat 21E Iridium 67 Comsat 21F Iridium 68 Comsat 21G Apr 17 1819 Columbia ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 22A Neurolab ) Current Shuttle Processing Status __________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia LEO STS-90 Apr 17 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-91 May 28 OV-104 Atlantis Palmdale OMDP OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-88 ? MLP/SRB/ET/OV stacks MLP1/RSRM66/ET-96 VAB Bay 1 STS-91 MLP2/ MLP3/ .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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/~jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html | | Back issues: ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | | Subscribe/unsub: mail majordomo@head-cfa.harvard.edu, (un)subscribe jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'