Jonathan's Space Report No. 368 1998 Aug 12 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Mir --------------- The next Shuttle mission is STS-95, in October. Although I am still sceptical of the proposed launch dates for STS-88 and STS-93, things seem stable enough at the moment that I've started listing them again below. Recent Launches --------------- Titan 4A-20 exploded 42 seconds after launch from Cape Canaveral on Aug 12. The vehicle was a Lockheed Martin Titan 4A-Centaur model, the last 4A and the last with the UTC/CSD solid rocket boosters to be launched; all future Titan 4s will be Titan 4Bs and will have Alliant SRMU solid rocket boosters. The payload is thought to have been a signals intelligence satellite, one of the follow-ons to the VORTEX series. Earlier payloads in the series were launched in Aug 1994 and Apr 1996. The Titan 4 seems to have pitched over 40s after launch, implying a probable guidance failure. The vehicle would then have exploded due to structural failure, as it is not designed to survive flying sideways. Kosmos-2360 was launched on Jul 28 by a Zenit-2 launch vehicle from Baykonur. Kosmos-2360 is a Tselina-2 electronic intelligence satellite built by the Yuzhnoe company in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. 8 small Orbcomm communications satellites were launched on Aug 2. The L-1011 carrier aircraft took off from Wallops Island with a Pegasus XL/HAPS rocket aboard. The rocket was launched 100 km E of the Virginia coast (I have been unable to find out the latitude and longitude, if anyone knows them please let me know). The Pegasus XL has three solid stages which delivered the Orbcomm/HAPS stack to a suborbital trajectory. The first burn of the HAPS hydrazine engine placed the stack in an elliptical transfer orbit, and a second burn circularized the orbit at apogee, followed shortly by deployment of the eight disk-shaped payloads. Orbcomm is a subsdiary of Orbital Sciences Corp., which builds the Pegasus rocket. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jun 2 2206 Discovery ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 34A Spacehab ) Jun 10 0035 Thor 3 Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17A Comsat 35A Jun 15 2258 Kosmos-2352 ) Tsiklon-3 Plesetsk LC32/1 Comsat 36A Kosmos-2353 ) Comsat 36B Kosmos-2354 ) Comsat 36C Kosmos-2355 ) Comsat 36D Kosmos-2356 ) Comsat 36E Kosmos-2357 ) Comsat 36F Jun 18 2248 Intelsat 805 Atlas 2AS Canaveral LC36A Comsat 37A Jun 24 1830 Kosmos-2358 Soyuz-U Plesetsk Recon 38A Jun 25 1400 Kosmos-2359 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC31 Recon 39A Jul 1 0048 Molniya-3 Molniya-M Plesetsk Comsat 40A Jul 3 1812 Nozomi M-5 Kagoshima Mars probe 41A Jul 7 0315 Tubsat-N ) Shtil'-1 K-407,Barents Comsat 42A Tubsat-N1 ) Comsat 42B Jul 10 0630 Resurs-O1 No. 4 ) Zenit-2 Baykonur LC45 Rem. Sens. 43A Fasat-Bravo ) Exptl. 43B TMSAT ) Exptl. 43C Gurwin Techsat 1B) Exptl. 43D WESTPAC ) Geodesy 43E SAFIR-2 ) Comsat 43F Jul 18 0920 Sinosat CZ-3B Xichang LC2 Comsat 44A Jul 28 0915 Kosmos-2360 Zenit-2 Baykonur LC45 Sigint 45A Aug 2 1624 Orbcomm FM13 ) Pegasus XL Wallops Comsat 46A Orbcomm FM14 ) Comsat 46B Orbcomm FM15 ) Comsat 46C Orbcomm FM16 ) Comsat 46D Orbcomm FM17 ) Comsat 46E Orbcomm FM18 ) Comsat 46F Orbcomm FM19 ) Comsat 46G Orbcomm FM20 ) Comsat 46H Aug 12 1130 USA Titan 4A Canaveral SLC41 Sigint FTO Current Shuttle Processing Status __________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-93 Jan 28 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-95 Oct 29 OV-104 Atlantis Palmdale OMDP OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-88 Dec 3 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS6 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@cfa.harvard.edu | | USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html | | Back issues: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: mail majordomo@head-cfa.harvard.edu, (un)subscribe jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'