Jonathan's Space Report No. 162 1993 Jul 27 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shuttle ------- Launch of STS-51 has been delayed until at least Aug 2. Meanwhile, the external tank and solid rocket boosters for STS-58 have been mated in the VAB. The STS-58 mission will be a Spacelab mission using orbiter Columbia. Mir --- Soyuz TM-16 landed at 0642 UTC on Jul 22, returning Gennadiy Manakov, Aleksandr Poleshchuk and Jean-Pierre Haignere to Earth. Vasiliy Tsibliev and Aleksandr Serebrov remain aboard the Mir complex. Correct docking time for Soyuz TM-17 is probably 1624 UTC on Jul 3. Launches -------- Kosmos-2259 was launched on Jul 14. Built by the Central Specialized Design Bureau, it is a fourth generation imaging spy satellite. Another Resurs-F remote sensing satellite built by the same organization went up on Jul 22. It is based on the Vostok spacecraft bus. The DSCS III F-7 comsat, built by Martin Marietta Astro Space for the USAF, was launched by Atlas II Centaur from pad 36 at Cape Canaveral on Jul 19. Following two straight Atlas I failures, this successful launch will go some way to restoring General Dynamics' reputation. All five Atlas II/IIA launches have been successful. An Ariane 44L put two communications satellites into orbit on Jul 22. Hispasat 1B is the fourth Eurostar 2000 satellite built by the European company Matra Marconi Space. Operated by the Spanish government-owned company Hispasat, it carries 11 Ku band transponders for communications and direct TV broadcast to the Iberian peninsula and the Canary Islands, and a further Ku band transponder for TV transmission to Latin America. It also carries 4 X-band military transponders. The second payload aboard Ariane was Insat 2B, built by and operated by the Indian Space Research Organization. It carries 18 C-band transponders and a meteorological instrument package. Date Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jul 1 1433 Soyuz TM-17 Soyuz 2 Baykonur Spaceship 43A Jul 8 0715 Kosmos-2258 Tsiklon-M Baykonur EORSAT 44A Jul 14 1640 Kosmos-2259 Soyuz Plesetsk Recon 45A Jul 19 2204 DSCS III Atlas AC-104 Canaveral Comsat 46A Jul 22 0830? Resurs-F Soyuz Plesetsk Remote sens. 47A Jul 22 2258 Hispasat 1B ) Ariane 44L Kourou Comsat 48A Insat 2B ) Comsat 48B Reentries --------- Jul 1 Endeavour Landed at Kennedy Space Center Jul 1 EURECA Returned to Earth aboard Endeavour Jul 4 Progress M-18 Deorbited Jul 4 Raduga capsule Landed in Russia Jul 12 Resurs-F1 Landed in Kazakhstan? Jul 18 MSTI-1 Reentered Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 2 STS-58 OV-103 Discovery LC39B STS-51 OV-104 Atlantis Palmdale OMDP OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-61 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-34/ET-57 VAB Bay 3 STS-58 ML3/RSRM-33/ET-59/OV-103 LC39B STS-51 .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'