Jonathan's Space Report No. 255 1995 Sep 5 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle ------- Launch date for Endeavour on mission STS-69 has been set for Sep 7 following a scrub on Aug 31 nine hours before launch because of a faulty fuel cell. Endeavour is on pad 39A. Meanwhile, Columbia has been moved to launch pad 39B (probably around Aug 28) from the Vehicle Assembly Building. Mir ---- The EO-20 crew were launched on Soyuz TM-22 from Baykonur on Sep 3 at 0900:23 UTC. They will spend 135 days in space. Crew commander is Yuriy Pavlovich Gidzenko of the Russian Air Force. Flight engineer is Sergey Vasil'evich Avdeev of RKK Energiya, and cosmonaut-researcher is Thomas Reiter of the European Space Agency. Soyuz TM-22 docked with Mir's front (-X) port at 1029:54 UT on Sep 5 and the hatch was opened at 1101:23. The EO-19 crew, Anatoli Solov'yov and Nikolai Budarin, have been on the station since June's STS-71 mission and will return to Earth in the Soyuz TM-21 ferry. The Progress M-28 cargo ship probably undocked from Mir on Sep 4. Following up my query last week, I now confirm that there was no EVA from Mir on Aug 18. Sorry about the confusion. Recent Launches -------------- The National Space Agency of Ukraine (NKAU) has launched its first satellite, Sich. Sich is based on the Okean remote sensing satellites built by the Ukrainian company NPO Yuzhnoe for the USSR and subsequently the Russian Space Agency. Carried into orbit with Sich was the FASat Alfa microsatellite, with imaging and communications experiments for the Chilean Air Force. Reports indicate that FASat-Alfa failed to separate from the Sich main payload. FASat-Alfa uses the Surrey Satellite Technology Uosat bus. A Kosmos satellite was launched by Proton from Baykonur on Aug 30 into geostationary orbit. On Sep 1, Kosmos-2319 was at 89 deg E drifting 1 deg W per day. JCSAT 3, launched on Aug 29, was placed in an initial orbit of 248 x 80682 km x 23.1 deg, with a period of 1681.65 min. N-Star a was launched into a standard transfer orbit of 172 x 35775 km x 7.0 deg. On Aug 30 the orbit was raised to 7384 x 35755 km x 3.7 deg and then again to 34090 x 35732 km x 0.1 deg. The Mugunghwa-ho (Koreasat) satellite is now in near-geostationary orbit; on Aug 31 it was at 116.0E drifting 0.1 deg per day. Optus B3 is now on station at 156.0E, replacing Optus A3 which is drifting west at 0.2 deg per day; Intelsat VA F13 is at 177.0W; Brasilsat 2 is at 92.0W. The Strategic Rocket Forces launched a Topol' ICBM from Plesetsk at 0750 UT on Sep 5. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Aug 2 2359 Prognoz-M2 ) Molniya-M Plesetsk LC43/3 Science 39A Magion 4 ) Science 39F Aug 3 2358 PAS 4 Ariane 4 Kourou ELA2 Comsat 40A Aug 5 1110 Mugunghwa-ho Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17B Comsat 41A Aug 9 0121 Molniya-3 Molniya-M Plesetsk LC43 Comsat 42A Aug 15 2230 Gemstar 1 LLV-1 Vandenberg SLC6 Comsat FTO Aug 29 0053 JCSAT 3 Atlas IIAS Canaveral LC36B Comsat 43A Aug 29 0641 N-STAR a Ariane 44P Kourou ELA2 Comsat 44A Aug 30 1933? Kosmos-2319 Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur Comsat? 45A Aug 31 0650 Sich-1 Tsiklon-3 Plesetsk LC32 Rem.sensing 46A FASat-Alfa Comsat 46A Sep 3 0900 Soyuz TM-22 Soyuz-U2 Baykonur LC1 Spaceship Reentries --------- Jul 7 Atlantis Landed at KSC Jul 22 Discovery Landed at KSC Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia LC39B STS-73 Sep OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1 OMDP OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 2 STS-74 Oct 26 OV-105 Endeavour LC39A STS-69 Sep 7 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-48/ET-72/OV-105 LC39A STS-69 ML2/RSRM-51 VAB Bay 1? STS-74 ML3/RSRM-50/ET-73/OV-102 LC39B STS-73 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'