Jonathan's Space Report No. 358 1998 May 3 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Mir --------------- The STS-90/Neurolab life sciences research mission continued after repair of the CO2 scrubber problem reported last week. The research mission was mostly carried out as planned, but an unexpectedly large number of the baby rats died. Columbia landed at 1609 UTC on May 3, at Kennedy Space Center's Runway 33. Mission duration was 15 days 21 h 49min 59 sec. The human crew of STS-90 was Richard Searfoss (Commander), Scott Altman (Pilot), Richard Linnehan (Payload Commander), Kay Hire (Mission Specialist 2), all of NASA; Dafydd Rhys Williams (Mission Specialist 3, Canadian Space Agency); Jay Clark Buckey, Payload Specialist 1, from Dartmouth Medical School, and James Pawelczyk, Payload Specialist 2, from Penn State University. Neurolab mission scientists are now studying the readaptation of both the rats and humans to gravity. The remaining rats will be dissected soon after landing to study these changes; the human crewmembers, in contrast, are being saved for a possible reflight of the mission as early as August. Recent Launches --------------- The former Asiasat 3 satellite, placed in incorrect orbit last December, is undergoing an unprecedented manuever. The Blok-DM3 upper stage placed Asiasat 3 in a geostationary transfer orbit of 365 x 35989 km x 51.6 deg instead of a geostationary circular orbit at 35780 x 35800 km x 0 deg. The satellite has now become the property of Hughes Global Services, and has been informally renamed HGS-1. The Hughes HS-601 class satellite is now using its Marquardt R-4D-11-300 liquid propulsion system at perigee to raise its apogee to lunar distance, and use lunar gravity to maneuver it toward a final orbit. Apogee was raised to 88000 km on Apr 16, 108000 km on Apr 18, 148000 km on Apr 23, 207000 km on Apr 26, and 319785 km on Apr 30, according to Space Command tracking data. Final translunar injection on May 7 will lead to HGS-1 making a circumlunar pass on May 13 followed by a return to geosynchronous altitudes. The lunar flyby will be made with the satellite in spin-stabilized mode, with the two main antennas deployed to give it extra stability. The Cassini probe made a flyby of Venus on Apr 26. This gravity assist maneuver is the first in a series Cassini will make in the inner solar system before heading out to Saturn. Cassini came to 284 km above the surface of Venus at about 1345:41 UTC. Egypt's first satellite, Nilesat 101, was launched on Apr 28. An Ariane 44P launch vehicle placed it and Japan's BSAT 1b into geostationary transfer orbit. Nilesat 101 is a Matra Marconi Space Eurostar 2000 communications satellite with 12 Ku-band transponders. BSAT 1b is a Hughes HS-376 spin-stabilized satellite. A Russian military satellite was launched into geostationary orbit on Apr 29 using a Krunichev Proton-K rocket with an Energiya upper stage, probably the Blok DM-2. The payload, Kosmos-2350, is either a Geizer communications satellite built by NPO PM or an early warning satellite built by Lavochkin. A Chinese CZ-2C with a Smart Dispenser upper stage placed two more Motorola Iridium satellites in orbit on May 2. This was the fourth launch of the CZ-2C from the new Taiyuan space center. The SD stage placed the satellites in a 625 x 640 km orbit and then lowered itself to a 200 km perigee orbit to ensure its rapid decay. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Apr 2 0242 TRACE Pegasus XL Vandenberg Solar obs. 20A Apr 7 0213 Iridium 62 Proton-K Baykonur Comsat 21A Iridium 63 Comsat 21B Iridium 64 Comsat 21C Iridium 65 Comsat 21D Iridium 66 Comsat 21E Iridium 67 Comsat 21F Iridium 68 Comsat 21G Apr 17 1819 Columbia ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 22A Neurolab ) Apr 24 2238 Globalstar FM5) Delta 7420 Canaveral LC17 Comsat 23A Globalstar FM6) 23B Globalstar FM7) 23C Globalstar FM8) 23D Apr 28 2253 Nilesat 1 ) Ariane 44P Kourou ELA2 Comsat 24A BSAT 1B ) Comsat 24B Apr 29 0440? Kosmos-2350 Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur Comsat? 25A May 2 0916 Iridium 69 CZ-2C/SD Taiyuan Comsat 26A Iridium 71 Comsat 26B Current Shuttle Processing Status __________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia KSC RW33 STS-90 OV-103 Discovery LC39A STS-91 Jun 2 OV-104 Atlantis Palmdale OMDP OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-88 ? MLP/SRB/ET/OV stacks MLP1/RSRM66/ET-96/OV-103 LC39A STS-91 MLP2/ MLP3/ .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS6 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html | | Back issues: ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | | Subscribe/unsub: mail majordomo@head-cfa.harvard.edu, (un)subscribe jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'