Jonathan's Space Report No. 218 1994 Nov 11 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle ------- STS-66 payload commander Ellen Ochoa grappled the CRISTA-SPAS payload with the RMS arm at 2154 on Nov 3, but left it berthed in the payload bay overnight. On Nov 4 Atlantis was in a 296 x 310 km x 57.0 deg orbit. CRISTA-SPAS was deployed from Atlantis on Nov 4 at 1250UT, and Atlantis moved away to a distance of 90 km from the satellite. The orbit was lowered on Nov 5 to 291 x 310 km, and again on Nov 6 to 290 x 307 km. By Nov 11 Atlantis was in a 287 x 301 km orbit and beginning its return to the vicinity of SPAS. The external tank for STS-63 was mated to the solid rocket boosters on Nov 8 in the vehicle assembly building. Mir --- Soyuz TM-19 undocked from Mir at 0729 UT on Nov 4. The Soyuz instrument module (PAO, priborno-agregatniy otsek) fired its deorbit engine, and was jettisoned together with the orbital module (BO, bitovoy otsek) at 1051 UT, with entry interface for the descent module (SA, spuskaemiy apparat) at 1054. It landed 170 km north-east of Arkalyk in Kazakhstan on 1994 Nov 4 at 1118 UT. Cosmonauts Yuriy Malenchenko, Talgat Musabaev and Ulf Merbold were aboard. Progress M-25 was launched on Nov 11 at 0722 carrying supplies and experiments toward the station. The EO-17 crew aboard includes Valeriy Polyakov, who on Nov 5 passed the cumulative duration record (total career time in space) of 541 days set by Musa Manarov. Polyakov's current spaceflight has lasted 306 days so far, longer than all but three expeditions: Sergey Krikalyov in 1991 (311 days), Yuri Romanenko in 1987 (326 days), and Titov and Manarov in 1988 (365 days). Meanwhile, Elena Kondakova broke the record for the duration of a single spaceflight by a woman (of 14 days, held by NASA's Rhea Seddon and Shannon Lucid) and Shannon Lucid's cumulative duration record of 34 days - Kondakova has now been in space for 38 days. Ulf Merbold broke Jean-Loup Chretien's record for spaceflights by a non-Soviet, non-American, with a 31 day mission and a career total of 49 days 21h 38min (more than any currently active US astronaut). Recent Launches --------------- The third Resurs-O1 spacecraft was launched on Nov 4. The two previous spacecraft, codenamed Kosmos-1689 and Kosmos-1939, were launched by the obsolete Vostok booster, and this was the first to use the newer, Ukranian-built, Zenit launch vehicle. Positions of recent geostationary launches: Oct 24: Intelsat 703 over 120.4 deg E drifting 0.1 deg per day Oct 29: Solidaridad 2 at 112.9 deg W, on station. Nov 3: Thaicom 2 at 86.3E drifting 0.04 deg per day Nov 9: Ekspress at 70.8E drifting 0.05 deg per day. Nov 6: Elektro was over 82 E drifting 1.4 deg per day. Nov 9: Astra 1D over 14.4E drifting 0.15 deg per day Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Sep 30 1116 Endeavour Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 62A Oct 3 2242 Soyuz TM-20 Soyuz-U2 Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 63A Oct 6 0635 Intelsat 703 Atlas Centaur Canaveral LC36B Comsat 64A Oct 8 0107 Solidaridad 2 ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 65A Thaicom 2 ) Comsat 65B Oct 11 1430 Okean-O1 No. 7 Tsiklon-3 Plesetsk LC32 Rem.sensing 66A Oct 13 1619 Ekspress Proton-K/DM-2-1 Baykonur LC200 Comsat 67A Oct 15 0505 IRS-P2 PSLV Sriharikota Rem.sensing 68A Oct 31 1430 Elektro Proton-K/DM-2-1 Baykonur LC81 Weather 69A Nov 1 0037 Astra 1D Ariane 42P Kourou ELA2 Comsat 70A Nov 1 0931 Wind Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17B Science 71A Nov 2 0104 Kosmos-2293 Tsiklon-2 Baykonur LC90 EORSAT 72A Nov 3 1700 Atlantis Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 73A Nov 4 0547 Resurs-O1 No. 3 Zenit-2 Baykonur LC45 Rem.sensing 74A Nov 4 1250 CRISTA-SPAS - Atlantis, LEO Science 73B Nov 11 0722 Progress M-25 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1? Cargo 75A Reentries --------- Oct 11 Endeavour Landed at Edwards AFB Oct 12 Magellan Entered Venus atmosphere Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia Palmdale OMDP - OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-63 Feb 2 OV-104 Atlantis LEO STS-66 Nov 3 OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-67 Feb 23 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM/ET VAB Bay 3 STS-63 ML2/RSRM-43 VAB Bay 1 STS-67 ML3/ LC-39B STS-66 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http:/hea-www.harvard.edu/QEDT/jcm/jsr.html | ! ftp:/sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'