Jonathan's Space Report No. 461 2001 Sep 16-17 New York, NY and Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Editorial - Off topic (but what other topic is there this week?) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Best wishes to all those in NYC and Washington affected by the terrorist attacks. I just returned from two days in New York visiting a friend, and write some of these words as the Acela train speeds me back to Boston; it was incredible and harrowing, but actually being there helped me to absorb the reality. Nevertheless, only a few blocks from the WTC, things are surprisingly normal now - they're already selling tasteless commemorative t-shirts, and the cafes and restaurants and shops were quite busy only a day after the evacuation zone was moved from 14th to Canal St (I strenuously obeyed the mayor's command to help revitalize the NYC economy by spending lots of money). We stood by the checkpoint at the end of Canal St and cheered the recovery workers coming off shift, and walked round to Gold St which is a few blocks from Liberty Plaza. I was surprised that although there was still a lot of smoke rising in the air from the smoldering fires, there was no problem with dust or smell from where we were. It's grim, but it could have been orders of magnitude worse - all kudos to the structural engineers who built WTC well enough to let all those thousands escape. Shuttle and Station -------------------- The Station has a new Russian docking and airlock module. The Stikovochniy Otsek No. 1 (SO1, Docking Module 1), article 240GK No. 1L, was built by Energiya and derived from Soyuz hardware. It has a mass of around 3900 kg and is a 4.1m long, 2.6m dia ellipsoid. The SO1 was named Pirs (Russian for "pier"). It was launched attached to the GKM (cargo ship-module) Progress-M No. 301, named Progress M-SO1 after launch. Progress M-SO1 is the service module section of a Progress M; Pirs replaces the normal cargo and fuel sections. Mass of the GKM is probably around 3000 kg. Pirs and Progress M-SO1 were launched from Baykonur at 2335 UTC on Sep 14 aboard a Soyuz-U launch vehicle into around a 180 km circular orbit. By Sep 16 the combination had manuevered into a 238 x 264 km orbit; at 0038 UTC on Sep 17, now in a 385 x 395 km x 51.6 deg orbit, Pirs/Progress began a flyaround of the ISS and lined up with the nadir port on Zvezda. Docking of Pirs with Zvezda came at 0105 UTC on Sep 17. The Progress M-SO1 will later undock from the Pirs nadir port to leave it free for further dockings. Pirs gives extra clearance from the Station for ships docking underneath Zvezda, and will be used as an airlock for spacewalks using the Russian Orlan EVA suits. Recent Launches --------------- A Lockheed Martin Atlas IIAS was launched from Space Launch Complex 3-East at Vandenberg AFB on Sep 8. The payload was for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and is believed to be the first of a new series of naval electronic intelligence satellites. The first burn of Centaur AC-160 put the vehicle in a transfer orbit. The phrasing of the launch commentary implied that the the second burn left the payload in 'transfer orbit', but Ted Molczan reports visual observations from several observers indicating the bright Centaur is in the final deployment orbit of the NOSS satellites. I therefore conclude that the first burn was to a transfer orbit of around 180 x 1100 km x 63 deg. The second burn at 1629 UTC put Centaur and payload in an 1100 x 1100 km x 63 deg orbit. The payload then began dispensing the NOSS subsatellites (only one object, however, has so far been reported, so it is possible the satellite design is different). The only problem with this reconstruction is that the commentary confirmed the payload separated from Centaur shortly after the second burn. If it's like the old NOSS and the payload is basically just a dispenser for the main satellites, it's not obvious why it would separate at all. Perhaps like the Titan dispenser it uses small thrusters for precise positioning of the deployed satellites, although they are also believed to have some onboard propulsion so I don't see why that would really be needed. I remain somewhat open to the possibility that the observations of a bright Centaur-like object in the final orbit are actually of the dispenser and that the Centaur was deorbited from elliptical transfer orbit. Following experiments with small satellites by NRL in the 1960s, the PARCAE system was launched beginning in 1976 using Atlas F (and later Atlas H) launch vehicles with Star 20 kick motors. Each PARCAE launch comprised three satellites which flew in formation and used interferometry to locate surface vessels. The PARCAE system, developed by NRL and then built in production by Martin Marietta/Denver, was superseded by an improved generation of triplets, four sets of which were launched between 1990 and 1996. Both generations flew in 1100 km, 63 deg orbits. The second generation used the Titan 4 launch vehicle; it is believed that the excess capacity on these vehicles was used to carry SLDCOM communications satellite payloads. The new generation uses an intermediate Atlas-Centaur vehicle, so there is probably no extra payload this time. Prime contractor for the new satellites is again believed to be the same Denver group, now called Lockheed Martin Astronautics, and I speculate that NRL probably continues to have a management and technical role in the program under overall NRO auspices. The two Aerospace Corp. tethered Picosats, Picosat 7/Picosat 8, were ejected from the Mightysat II.1 satellite on Sep 7 at 1939 UTC into a 511 x 539 km x 97.8 deg orbit. The 0.25 kg satellites are connected by a small tether (probably 30m long like the previous picosat pair) and are cataloged as a single object. Mightysat II.1 (Sindri) was launched in Jul 2000, and the deployment of the picosats was planned for a year after launch. The Picosat 21/23 pair was launched from the Opal satellite in Feb 2000. A TsSKB-Progress Blok-E final stage from a Vostok 8A92M launch vehicle launched on 1975 Aug 22 reentered on Sep 6. The reentry was seen by many people along the eastern seaboard of the USA. The 8A92M rocket placed a Tselina-D electronic intelligence satellite, codenamed Kosmos-756, in orbit; that satellite reentered in 1992. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Aug 6 0728 DSP 21 Titan 4B/IUS Canaveral SLC40 Early Warn 33A Aug 8 1613 Genesis Delta 7326 Canaveral SLC17A Space probe 34A Aug 10 2110 Discovery ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39 Spaceship 35A Leonardo ) Aug 20 1830 Simplesat - Discovery, LEO Astronomy 35B Aug 21 0924 Progress M-45 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 36A Aug 24 2034 Kosmos-2379 Proton-K/DM2M? Baykonur LC81R Early Warn? 37A Aug 29 0700 VEP-2 ) H-2A Tanegashima Technology 38B LRE ) Geodesy 38A Aug 30 0646 Intelsat 902 Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 C/Ku telecom 39A Sep 7 1939 Picosat 7/8 - Sindri, LEO Technology 00-42C Sep 8 1525 USA 160 Atlas IIAS Vandenberg SLC3E Sigint 40A Sep 14 2335 Pirs ) Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Station module Progress M-SO1 ) Cargo 41A Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-109 2002 Jan 17 HST SM-3B OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 Maintenance OV-104 Atlantis VAB STS-110 2002 Feb 28 ISS 8A OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-108 2001 Nov 29 ISS UF-1 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'