Jonathan's Space Report No. 389 1999 Feb 18 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Station ------------------------ The Mir space station remains in orbit with Gennady Padalka and Sergey Avdeev aboard. Columbia is being stored in the VAB till April; Atlantis will soon be moved to OPF Bay 3 for processing. Recent Launches --------------- International Launch Services delivered Loral Skynet's Telstar 6 to orbit on a Krunichev Proton-K with an Energiya DM3 upper stage on Feb 15. Telstar 6 is an FS-1300 class satellite built by Space Systems/Loral, and has a Marquardt R-4D liquid apogee engine and a mixed C and Ku band communications payload. Launch mass of Telstar 6 is around 3700 kg. The Blok DM3 stage entered a 6638 x 35756 km x 17.4 deg orbit. On Feb 18 Telstar 6 was in a 15037 x 35800 km x 7.9 deg transfer orbit after the first R-4D burn. Loral Skynet inherited AT&T's Telstar comsat line in 1997. The Telstar 3 series of the 1980s was the first of the current sequence of GEO domestic comms satellites, named in honor of the two famous early 1960s AT&T Telstar transatlantic relay satellites in MEO. Satellite Type Launch date Launch vehicle Telstar 1 Bell Labs Telstar 1962 Jul 10 Delta Telstar 2 Bell Labs Telstar 1963 May 7 Delta B Telstar 301 Hughes HS-376 1983 Jul 28 Delta 3920/PAM Telstar 302 Hughes HS-376 1984 Sep 1 STS/PAM Telstar 303 Hughes HS-376 1985 Jun 19 STS/PAM Telstar 401 GE AS7000 1993 Dec 16 Atlas IIAS Telstar 402 MM AS7000 1994 Sep 9 Ariane 42L Telstar 402R LMAS AS7000 1995 Sep 24 Ariane 42L Telstar 5 Loral FS-1300 1997 May 24 Proton-K/DM4 Telstar 6 Loral FS-1300 1999 Feb 15 Proton-K/DM3 Another ILS launch on Feb 16 placed JCSAT-6 in orbit. A Lockheed Martin Atlas 2AS, serial AC-152, took off from pad 36A at Cape Canaveral and after two burns of the Centaur upper stage entered supersynchronous transfer orbit of 258 x 96736 km x 24.1 deg. JCSAT-6 is a Hughes HS-601 satellite, also with an R-4D apogee engine, carrying a Ku-band relay payload. It is operated by JSAT (Japan Satellite Systems, Inc., Tokyo) and will provide communications and data relay for Japan and the Pacific Rim. Launch mass is 2900 kg, dry mass is 1230 kg. Satellite Type Launch date Launch vehicle JCSAT 1 Hughes HS-393 1989 Mar 6 Ariane 44LP JCSAT 2 Hughes HS-393 1990 Jan 1 Titan 3 JCSAT 3 Hughes HS-601 1995 Aug 29 Atlas IIAS JCSAT 4 Hughes HS-601 1997 Feb 17 Atlas IIAS JCSAT 5 Hughes HS-601 1997 Dec 2 Ariane 44P JCSAT 6 Hughes HS-601 1999 Feb 16 Atlas IIAS Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jan 3 2021 Mars Polar Lander) Delta 7425 Canaveral SLC17B Mars probe 01A MPL Cruise Stage ) DS2 Microprobe 1 ) DS2 Microprobe 2 ) Jan 27 0034 ROCSAT-1 Athena-1 Canaveral SLC46 Science 02A Feb 7 2104 Stardust Delta 7426 Canaveral SLC17A Probe 03A Feb 9 0354 Globalstar FM23 ) Soyuz-U/Ikar Baykonur Comsat 04B Globalstar FM36 ) Comsat 04A Globalstar FM38 ) Comsat 04C Globalstar FM40 ) Comsat 04D Feb 15 0512 Telstar 6 Proton-K/DM3 Baykonur LC81 Comsat 05A Feb 16 0145 JCSAT-6 Atlas 2AS Canaveral SLC36A Comsat 06A Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia VAB Bay 2 STS-93 Jul 9 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1 STS-96 May 20 OV-104 Atlantis VAB Aisle STS-101 Oct 14 OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 2 STS-99 Sep 18 MLP1/RSRM-69/ET-99 VAB Bay 1 STS-93? MLP2/ MLP3/ .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS6 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@cfa.harvard.edu | | USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html | | Back issues: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: mail majordomo@head-cfa.harvard.edu, (un)subscribe jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'