Jonathan's Space Report No. 246 1995 Jul 4 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle ------- Atlantis fired its OMS engines for the first rendezvous burn, NC-1, at 2311 UTC on Jun 27, putting it in a 91.35 min, 293 x 387 km x 51.6 deg orbit. A second burn at 1048 UTC on Jun 28 raised the orbit to 91.47 min, 302 x 390 km. Further rendezvous burns were the NH burn at about 2157 on Jun 28; NC3 at about 0757 on Jun 29; and the TI (Terminal Initiation) burn at 0930 on Jun 29. By 1100 UTC on Jun 29 Atlantis was stationkeeping 100 metres from Mir; at 1240 it had approached to 10 metres from the Kristall port. Docking of Atlantis with Kristall was completed successfully on time at 1300 UTC. The docking ring was retracted to draw the spacecraft together and make a tight seal by 1306 UTC, and at around 1500 UTC the Atlantis crew entered Mir. The ten individuals on board the Mir/Atlantis complex were a record for the crew of a single space vehicle (although there have been as many as thirteen humans in space at once). The ten were: Robert 'Hoot' Gibson (STS-71 Commander), Charles Precourt (STS-71 Pilot), Ellen Baker (STS-71 Mission Specialist 1), Greg Harbaugh (STS-71 Mission Specialist 2), Bonnie Dunbar (STS-71 Mission Specialist 3), Vladimir Dezhurov (Mir EO-18 Komandir), Gennadiy Strekalov (Mir EO-18 Bortinzhener), Norman Thagard (Mir EO-18 Kosmonavt-issledovatel'), Anatoliy Solov'yov (Mir EO-19 Komandir), and Nikolai Budarin (Mir EO-19 Bortinzhener). The Mir/Atlantis complex was in a 393 x 399 km x 51.6 deg orbit with a period of 92.49 min on Jun 30. At 0218 UTC on Jun 29 Mir and Atlantis were easily observable from the Harvard campus, Atlantis following Mir by a few minutes and of comparable brightness. On Jul 3 the EO-18 and STS-71 crews returned to Atlantis, and the EO-19 crew (Solov'yov and Budarin) closed the Mir hatch at around 2000 UT. Early on Jul 4, the two EO-19 cosmonauts entered the Soyuz TM-21 ferry ship and prepared to undock for an exercise in joint manoeuvring and photography. Soyuz TM-21 undocked at 1055 UTC on Jul 4, and backed off to a distance of 100m. Atlantis then undocked at 1109:45 UTC and began to back away from the Mir station. As Atlantis began its flyaround at a distance of 210m, Soyuz redocked with the Kvant module at 1139 UTC. Redocking was about a minute early. Just prior to the redocking, one of Mir's attitude control computers crashed, putting Mir in free drift, although this was not considered a serious problem. This was Solov'yov's seventh docking with Mir over the course of four missions. At 1235 UTC, Atlantis completed its 360 degree flyaround and ignited its engines for the separation burn, while sending back spectacular TV of the Mir complex. There have been two previous occasions in which three Russian spacecraft have been flown in proximity operations. On 1969 Oct 15 the Soyuz-6, Soyuz-7 and Soyuz-8 spacecraft carried out a rendezvous, although the planned docking of Soyuz-7 and Soyuz-8 was not carried out. Details of this operation are still not available. All three spacecraft were occupied on that occasion. On 1993 Jul 3, the Progress M-18 cargo ship undocked from Mir while the Soyuz TM-17 ferry was stationkeeping a few hundred metres away, docking at the vacated port twenty minutes later. On that occasion the EO-13 crew were aboard Mir and the EO-14 crew aboard Soyuz, while the Progress does not carry a crew. The only occasions on which three US spacecraft have carried out proximity ops involved use of the Manned Manoeuvring Unit (MMU); I only count occasions when the spacecraft were not physically connected, which rules out most spacewalks. Triple Spacecraft Rendezvous History ------------------------------------ Date Spacecraft Crew (Duration) 1969 Oct 15 Soyuz 6 Shonin, Kubasov Soyuz 7 Filipchenko, Volkov, Gorbatko (Unknown) Soyuz 8 Shatalov, Yeliseev 1984 Apr 8 Challenger Crippen, Scobee, Hart, Van Hoften MMU 2 Nelson (42 min) Solar Maximum Mission None 1984 Nov 12 Discovery Hauck, Walker, Fisher, Allen MMU 3 Allen (Unknown) Palapa B2 None 1984 Nov 14 Discovery Hauck, Walker, Fisher, Gardner MMU 2 Gardner (Unknown) Westar 6 None 1993 Jul 3 Mir/Soy TM-16/Prg M-17 Manakov, Poleshchuk Soyuz TM-17 Tsibliev, Serebrov, Haignere (20 min) Progress M-18 None 1995 Jul 4 Mir None Soyuz TM-21 Solov'yov, Balandin (29 min) Atlantis Gibson, Precourt, Baker, Harbaugh, Dunbar, Dezhurov, Strekalov, Thagard The Atlantis crew will now spend a few days carrying out further medical research in the Spacelab module. The module aboard Atlantis is probably Long Module Unit 2, which has made four previous flights into space (Spacelab D1, International Microgravity Lab 1, Spacelab J, and Spacelab Life Sciences 2). There is one other Spacelab Long Module, Unit 1, which has made six flights in space (Spacelabs 1 and 3, Spacelab Life Sciences 1, US Microgravity Lab 1, Spacelab D2, and International Microgravity Lab 2). [Can anyone confirm that LM Unit 2 is indeed the module currently in orbit?] Mir ----- After the free flight and redocking, the EO-19 crew of Solov'yov and Budarin opened the Soyuz TM-21 hatch and were back aboard Mir by 1240 UTC on Jul 4. The Kristall module will be repositioned from the -X to the -Z port on Jul 17. Progress M-28 will be launched on Jul 20 and dock at the -X port on Jul 22. On Sep 1 the Soyuz TM-22 spaceship will be launched with the EO-20 crew of Yuri Gidzenko (RKA/Russian Air Force), Sergei Avdeev (RKA/Energia) and Thomas Reiter (ESA). Progress M-28 will undock on Sep 2 and TM-22 will replace it at -X on Sep 3. The EO-19 crew will undock from Kvant on Sep 9 and land in Kazakhstan. At the end of October, Atlantis will revisit Mir on the STS-74 mission, delivering the Stikovochnoy Modul' (Docking Module) to be attached to the Kristall port. This module, developed by RKK Energia and built by the Krunichev factory is around 2m in diameter and 5 m long, recently arrived in the US for prelaunch processing. (From the pictures, it doesn't seem to be related to the 37K Kvant or 77KS Kvant-2 class modules - if anyone can tell me about its design heritage or has any more details on this module, please email me.) Recent Launches -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kosmos-2314 was launched on Jun 28 from Plesetsk into an 89.6 min, 166 x 339 km x 67.1 deg orbit. The satellite is a Yantar' class spy satellite built by TsSKB (Central Specialized Design Bureau) of Samara, Russia and will operate for around two months obtaining images for the Russian GRU intelligence agency. 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 LC16 Early Warn 26A May 31 1527 UHF F/O F5 Atlas Centaur Canaveral LC36A Comsat 27A Jun 8 0443 Kosmos-2313 Tsiklon-2 Baykonur LC90 Recon 28A Jun 10 0024 DBS 3 Ariane 42P Kourou ELA2 Comsat 29A Jun 22 1958 STEP 3 Pegasus XL/L1011 PAWA Science FTO Jun 27 1932 Atlantis Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 30A Jun 28 1830? Kosmos-2314 Soyuz-U Plesetsk Recon 31A 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 LEO STS-71 OV-105 Endeavour VAB Bay 1 STS-69 Jul 30 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-48/ET-72/OV-105 VAB Bay 1 STS-69 ML2/RSRM-44/ET-71/OV-103 LC39B STS-70 ML3 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/space/jsr/jsr.html | | ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'