Jonathan's Space Report No. 238 1995 Apr 24 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle ------- Atlantis was rolled to the VAB on Apr 20 and was mated with the external tank and SRBs on Apr 21. Launch is to be no earlier than Jun 19. Atlantis should be on pad 39A by Apr 26; Discovery could be on pad 39B by May 11. The SCA 905 carrier aircraft returned Columbia to Kennedy Space Center on Apr 14. It was stored in Vehicle Assembly Building Bay 2 pending availability of a parking space in the Orbiter Processing Facility. On Apr 21 it was towed to OPF Bay 3 after that bay was vacated by Atlantis. Mir --- The docking time of Progress M-27 was 2100 UT on Apr 11, not 2300 UT as I reported last week. Included in Progress M-27's cargo was a small geodetic satellite built by Kayser-Threde for the Geoforschungszentrum Potsdam, Germany. GFZ-1 is a 21 cm diameter, 20 kg sphere covered with laser retroreflectors. It was ejected from Mir's science airlock on Apr 19 and given the international designation 1986-17JE. I don't have the time of ejection yet. GFZ-1's orbit was 92.34 min, 383 x 394 km x 51.6 deg on Apr 20. Recent Launches -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ESA's ERS-2 Earth Resources Satellite was launched on Apr 21 by Ariane flight V72. The spacecraft, built by Dornier for the European Space Agency, will be operated in tandem with ERS-1. It is based on Matra's SPOT bus, and carries a hydrazine engine for precise orbit control. ERS-2 has a 10-m long SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) for C-band radar imaging of the Earth. Its primary mission is to study the sea surface and polar ice. The SAR is linked to an Active Microwave Imager instrument; also carried are a radar altimeter for wave heights, the ATSR Along Track Scanning Radiometer for sea surface temperatures, and the PRARE orbit determination experiment. These are all similar to experiments aboard ERS-1; ERS-2 also carries a new GOME global ozone monitoring experiment. ERS-2 entered a 100.56 min, 783 x 786 km x 98.6 deg orbit. According to Michelle Lyle of Arianespace, this V72 launch and the preceding V71 launch both used the H-10+ third stage. An enhanced third stage, the H-10-3, was first used on V70 and will be phased in to eventually replace the H-10+. The Ariane is usually flown to geostationary transfer orbit; flights to sun-synchronous orbits are rarer, and usually carry secondary microsatellite payloads. No secondary payloads were carried on this latest mission. Ariane Polar Flights Date Flight Model Payload Secondary Orbit km x km x deg 1986 Feb 22 V16 AR1 Spot Viking 824 x 825 x 98.8 1990 Jan 22 V35 AR40 Spot 2 ASAP 1 825 x 825 x 98.7 1991 Jul 17 V44 AR40 ERS-1 ASAP 2 776 x 782 x 98.5 1992 Aug 10 V52 AR42P Topex ASAP 3 1316 x1331 x 66.1 1993 Sep 26 V59 AR40 Spot 3 ASAP 4 816 x 818 x 98.7 1995 Apr 21 V72 AR40 ERS-2 783 x 786 x 98.6 Geostationary satellite movements --------------------------------- EUTELSAT's Hot Bird 1 satellite has been on station at 12.5 deg E since Apr 9. Brasilsat B2, launched on the same Ariane flight, reached its 60.9 deg W station on Apr 7. Intelsat 705 is now at 56 deg W. Meanwhile, during April Intelsat 507 left its GEO position at 56.5 deg E and by Apr 21 was at 48E drifting 0.2 deg per day W. The AMSC-1 mobile communications satellite has reached geostationary altitude. On Apr 11 it raised its orbit from 367 x 40142 km x 25.6 deg to 10064 x 40165 km x 9.0 deg. By Apr 16 the orbit was 35666x 40110 km x 0.92 deg, and by Apr 19 it was circularized at 35759 x 35797 km x 0.1 deg, drifting 0.1 deg per day eastward over 102 deg W. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Mar 22 0409 Kosmos-2310 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Navigation 12A Mar 22 0618 Intelsat 705 Atlas IIAS Canaveral LC36B Comsat 13A Mar 22 1645 Kosmos-2311 Soyuz-U Plesetsk LC43 Recon 14A Mar 24 1405 DMSP 24547 Atlas E Vandenberg SLC3 Weather 15A Mar 28 1000 Gurwin-1 ) Start Plesetsk LC158 Technology FTO UNAMSAT ) Comsat FTO EKA-2 ) Dummy FTO Mar 28 0618 Eutelsat HB1 ) Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Comsat 16B Brasilsat B2 ) Comsat 16A Apr 3 1348 Orbcomm 1 ) Pegasus L1011 VAFB/PAWA Comsat 17A Orbcomm 2 ) Comsat 17B Microlab 1 ) Science 17C Apr 5 1116 'Ofeq-3 Shaviyt Palamchim Technol. 18A Apr 7 2347 AMSC-1 Atlas IIA Canaveral LC36A Comsat 19A Apr 9 1934 Progress M-27 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 20A Apr 19? GFZ-1 - Mir Geodesy 8617JE Apr 21 1344 ERS-2 Ariane 40 Kourou ELA2 Rem Sensing 21A Reentries --------- Mar 10 Kosmos-2280 Deorbited Mar 15 Progress M-26 Deorbited over Pacific Mar 18 Endeavour Landed at Edwards AFB Mar 18 Kosmos-2244 Deorbited Mar 22 Soyuz TM-20 Landed in Kazakhstan Apr 3 Kosmos-2137 Reentered Apr 4 Kosmos-2290 Deorbited over Pacific Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-73 Sep 21 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-70 Jun? Under review OV-104 Atlantis VAB Bay 1 STS-71 Jun? Under review OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-69 Jul 20 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/ ML2/RSRM-44/ET-71 VAB Bay 3 STS-70 ML3/RSRM-45/ET-70/OV-104 VAB Bay 1 STS-71 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'