Jonathan's Space Report No. 168 1993 Sep 16 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shuttle ------- Discovery was launched at 1145 UTC on Sep 12. Mission STS-51 is the 57th Shuttle launch. The Transfer Orbit Stage was deployed at 2113 on Sep 12 and ignited at 2158 to place its ACTS (Advanced Communications Technology Satellite) payload in geostationary transfer orbit. The German ASTRO-SPAS carrier with the ORFEUS telescope was deployed on Sep 13 at 1506 into a 297 x 327 km orbit inclined 28.5 deg. ORFEUS-SPAS carries an ultraviolet telescope with high spectral resolution for absorption line studies. It is due to be retrieved before the end of the mission. Cameras on ORFEUS-SPAS got beautiful views of Discovery as it separated (well, *I* thought they were great). Carl Walz and Jim Newman carried out a 7 hour 5 minute spacewalk on Sep 16 to test tools scheduled for use in the HST repair later this year. Meanwhile, Columbia is due to be rolled out to pad 39B on Sep 17. Mir --- The Expedition 14 crew of Vasiliy Tsibliev and Aleksandr Serebrov continue in orbit aboard the Mir complex. Launches -------- Kosmos-2262, launched on Sep 7, appears from its orbit to be the fifth in a new series of imaging satellites which fly two-month long missions. After a day in a 172 x 290 km x 65 degree parking orbit, the satellite moved to an operational orbit of 207 x 323 km x 65 degrees. Previous satellites in the series, which have flown one a year since 1989, were Kosmos-2031, 2101, 2163, and 2225. Date Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Aug 24 1050? Resurs-F1 Soyuz Plesetsk Remote s. 53A Aug 30 1238 Navstar GPS 35 Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17 Navigation 54A Aug 31 0450? Meteor-2 ) Tsiklon Plesetsk Weather 55A Temisat ) 55C Sep 3 1117 UHF F2 Atlas I AC-75 Canaveral LC36 Comsat 56A Sep 7 1330? Kosmos-2262 Soyuz Baykonur Recon 57A Sep 12 1145 Discovery Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 58A Sep 12 2113 ACTS TOS Discovery, LEO Comsat 58B Sep 13 1506 ORFEUS-SPAS - Discovery, LEO Astronomy 58C Reentries --------- Aug 5 Kosmos-2260 Landed Aug 18 Molniya-3 (22) Reentered Aug 28 Meteor-Priroda (77-57A) Reentered Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission OV-102 Columbia VAB Bay 3 STS-58 OV-103 Discovery LEO 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/OV-102 VAB Bay 3 STS-58 ML2/RSRM-23/ VAB Bay 1 STS-61 ML3/ Refurb STS-51 Shuttle Processing Explanation (or, what are all these acronyms anyway?): The Shuttle consists of an Orbiter (OV), an expendable External Tank (ET), and a reusable pair of Redesigned Solid Rocket Motors (RSRM), also knownas SRBs (Solid Rocket Boosters). The OV is prepared for flight in the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) which consists of three bays (one of which is actually a separate building) after which it is towed to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and `mated to the stack' or joined to the ET and RSRM. First, the segments of the RSRM are stacked up on a Mobile Launch Platform (ML) and then the ET is connected to it. After the OV is mated, a Crawler-Transporter is moved underneath the ML and carries the ML/RSRM/ET/OV stack to one of the two pads (A or B) at launch complex 39 (LC39) where it is eventually launched on a Space Transportation System (STS) mission. Occasionally an OV is returned to the Rockwell International plant in Palmdale, California for refit - an Orbiter Maintenance Down Period or OMDP. After launch the ML is returned to a refurbishment area near the VAB and then is used for stacking a new set of RSRMs. .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'