Jonathan's Space Report No. 244 1995 Jun 20 Cambridge, MA * Happy birthday to the Special Theory of Relativity, 90 years old this week! * -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle ------- Launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-71 to the Mir station is scheduled for Jun 22 at 2108 UTC. Docking with Mir is scheduled for Jun 26 at 1430 UTC. Discovery was moved back to pad 39-B on Jun 15 after the completion of woodpecker hole repairs. It is now scheduled for launch on mission STS-70 on Jul 13. Mir --- The spacewalk scheduled to check the solar arrays has been cancelled. EO-18 cosmonaut-researcher Norman Thagard had spent 96 days 17 h 49 min in space at 0000h on Jun 19 (the Jun 13 number I gave last week should have been 90 days, apologies for the typo). Recent Launches -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There were no new orbital launches this week. The McDonnell Douglas DC-X reusable rocket made its seventh flight on Jun 12, reaching an apogee of 1.9 km and testing the reaction control system. The rocket angle of attack was pitched over in a preparatory test for the next flight, which includes a 180 degree pitchover simulating the attitude change needed after reentry from orbit. DirecTV's DBS 3 satellite was in a 35773 x 35830 km x 0.1 deg, 1436.9 min drift orbit over 110.3 deg W on Jun 19. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. May 14 1345 USA 110 Titan 4 Centaur Canaveral LC40 Sigint? 22A May 17 0634 Intelsat 706 Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Comsat 23A May 20 0333 Spektr Proton Baykonur LC81 Mir module 24A May 23 0552 GOES 9 Atlas Centaur Canaveral LC36B Weather 25A May 24 2010? Kosmos-2312 Molniya-M Plesetsk Early Warn 26A May 31 1527 UHF F/O F5 Atlas Centaur Canaveral LC36A Comsat 27A Jun 8 0430? Kosmos-2313 Tsiklon-2 Baykonur Recon 28A Jun 10 0024 DBS 3 Ariane 42P Kourou ELA2 Comsat 29A Reentries --------- May 23 Progress M-27 Deorbited May 31 Kosmos-2311 Landed? Jun 8 Kosmos-2258 Reentered Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-73 Sep 21 OV-103 Discovery LC39B STS-70 Jul 13 OV-104 Atlantis LC39A STS-71 Jun 23 OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-69 Jul 30 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-48/ET-72 VAB Bay 1 STS-69 ML2/RSRM-44/ET-71/OV-103 LC39B STS-70 ML3/RSRM-45/ET-70/OV-104 LC39A 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.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'