Jonathan's Space Report No. 479 2002 May 29 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Station -------------------- The next launch is STS-111, which will swap the Expedition 4 and 5 crews and deliver the MBS and some interior experiment racks. Orbiter 105 Endeavour will use solid motors RSRM-84 and external tank ET-113 to reach orbit; it will dock with PMA-2 on the Station and carry out the UF-2 utilization flight. Here is my payload manifest estimate for STS-111 (congratulations to the USA team for putting together a much better press kit this time around). Mass/kg Bay 1-2 Orbiter Docking System 1800 2 EMU spacesuits? 240? Bay 4 Mobile Base System (MBS) 1600 Bay 6P Adapter Beam / Wrist Roll Joint 150? Bay 7-12 MPLM FM1 "Leonardo" 10557 Bay 13P ICAPC Beam / PGDF 75 Bay 13S Adapter Beam / SMDP 200? --------------------------------------------------------------- Total 14622? The Mobile Base System is made by MD Robotics of Brampton, Ontario. It will be attached to the Mobile Transporter and is used to mount the SSRMS Canadarm-2 arm and heavy payloads. The Leonardo module carries 8 Resupply Stowage Racks and 4 Resupply Stowage Plaftorms, with equipment to be transferred to the station. It also carries two science racks: the MSG (Microgravity Science Glovebox) and Express-3, which will be installed on Destiny. Leonardo, built by Alenia Spazio in Torino, also flew on STS-102 and STS-105. The PGDF (Power-Data Grapple Fixture) will be installed on the P6 truss. The WRJ (Wrist Roll Joint) will be swapped with the broken one on the SSRMS arm. The Service Module Debris Panels (SMDP) package contains 6 panels which will be stowed on PMA-1 until a later spacewalk attaches them to the Zvezda module to protect it from space debris hits. The STS-111 crew are Ken 'Taco' Cockrell, Paul Lockhart, Franklin Chang-Diaz, and Phillipe Perrin. The Ex-5 crew are Valery Korzun, Peggy Whitson and Sergey Treshchev. Recent Launches --------------- DirecTV-5 was launched on May 7 by Proton from Baykonur. The Krunichev Proton placed the payload in low orbit, and the Energiya DM3 upper stage then made two burns to put the DirecTV satellite in a 6568 x 35809 km x 17.7 deg transfer orbit. The Loral FS-1300 class satellite used its R-4D apogee engine to reach geostationary orbit at 129W by May 19. The DirecTV satellite broadcasting company is a subsidiary of GM/Hughes. DirecTV satellites in orbit: Launch Type GEO location DirecTV-1 1993 Dec 18 BSS-601 110W DirecTV-2 1994 Aug 3 BSS-601 101W DirecTV-3 1995 Jun 8 BSS-601 101W DirecTV-6 1997 Mar 8 FS-1300 119W DirecTV-1R 1999 Oct 10 BSS-601 101W DirecTV-4S 2001 Nov 27 BSS-601 101W DirecTV-5 2002 May 7 FS-1300 129W (Note: DirecTV-6 was formerly Tempo-2) Fengyun 1D and Haiyang 1 were launched on May 15 from Taiyuan. The Chinese CZ-4B launch vehicle took off at 0150 UTC and the second stage separated six minutes later on a suborbital trajectory. After a brief coast up to 860 km the third stage fired at around 0200 UTC to circularize the orbit. FY-1D, a 950 kg weather satellite with a 10-channel radiometer, separated from the stack followed by a small adapter. Then the HY-1 (Haiyang-1) marine observation satellite separated; the 360 kg HY-1 is based on the SJ-5 bus and carries an IR radiometer and CCD imager for oceanographic studies. Both satellites entered an 851 x 871 km x 98.8 deg orbit; the final stage was left in a slightly lower 812 x 883 km orbit. Between May 21 and May 26, FY-1D seems to have lowered its orbit to 793 x 799 km using on-board propulsion; this behaviour has not been seen in previous FY satellites. Fengyun weather satellites: Launch date Orbit FY-1A 1988 Sep 6 874 x 895 x 98.9 FY-1B 1990 Sep 3 875 x 898 x 99.0 FY-1C 1999 May 10 845 x 867 x 98.7 FY-1D 2002 May 15 851 x 871 x 98.8; 792 x 792 x 98.8 FY-2A 1997 Jun 10 35783 x 35795 x 1.9 GEO 85E FY-2B 2000 Jun 25 35780 x 35793 x 0.6 GEO 104E Note: the index letters 'A', 'B' etc are the standard Chinese translations of Chinese designations which are, of course, not precisely 'letters'. For instance, Shi Jian-2B was (according to one source of mine) really Shi Jian Er Hao Yi which is more like SJ-2/2. If any Chinese-speaking readers can give me Pinyin transliterations of what the FY satellites are actually called, I'd appreciate it. Israel launched the 'Ofeq-5 imaging satellite at 1525 UTC on May 28. The three-stage Shaviyt rocket took off from Palmachim Air Force Base and flew westward to put the satellite in a retrograde orbit. The AUS-51 third stage solid motor entered a 262 x 774 km x 143.5 deg orbit and separated from the 'Ofeq satellite. Both coasted up to apogee at around 1620 UTC when 'Ofeq made a burn to increase its velocity by 33 m/s, raising the orbit to 369 x 771 km x 143.5 deg. (Note: www.haaretzdaily.com gave a time of 1330 UTC but this is inconsistent with tracking data). 'Ofeq-5 has a mass of about 300 kg, and is 2.3m high and 1.2m dia. It was built by IAI/MBT for the Israeli Space Agency and carries an imaging reconnaissance camera. 'Ofeq-4, which was also EROS-A (a prototype for a civilian remote sensing satellite) failed to orbit in Jan 1998. Re JSR 478: My Quebecois friends inform me that the venting of the SPOT-5 Ariane third stage was also observed from other places, not just the US. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Apr 1 2207 Kosmos-2388 Molniya-M Plesetsk LC16/2 Early Warn 17A Apr 8 2019 Atlantis STS-110) Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 18A S0 ) Station piece Apr 16 2302 NSS 7 Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comms 19A Apr 25 0626 Soyuz TM-34 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 20A May 4 0131 SPOT 5 ) Ariane 42P Kourou ELA2 Imaging 21A Idefix ) Amateur radio 21B May 4 0954 Aqua Delta 7920-10L Vandenberg SLC2W Rem.sensing 22A May 7 1700 DirecTV-5 Proton-K/DM3 Baykonur LC81 Comms 23A May 15 0150 FY-1D ) Chang Zheng 4B Taiyuan Weather 24A HY-1 ) Rem.sensing 24B May 28 1525 'Ofeq-5 Shaviyt Palmachim Imaging 25A Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF STS-107 2002 Jul 19 Spacehab OV-103 Discovery OPF Maintenance OV-104 Atlantis OPF STS-112 2002 Aug 22 ISS 9A OV-105 Endeavour LC39A STS-111 2002 May 30 ISS UF-2 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'