Jonathan's Space Report No. 172 1993 Oct 12 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shuttle ------- Columbia/STS-58 is due for launch on Oct 14. The payload is Spacelab Life Sciences 2; the orbiter will carry the Extended Duration Orbiter kit in the payload bay for the second time. Crew are John Blaha (Commander), Richard Searfoss (Pilot), Rhea Seddon, William McArthur, David Wolf, and Shannon Lucid (Mission Specialists) and Martin Fettman (Payload Specialist) plus 48 rats. Mir --- The Progress M-20 cargo spaceship was launched on Oct 11 from Baykonur. It was due to link up with the Mir station on Oct 13. Launches -------- Another bad day for the US space program - the long awaited Landsat 6 remote sensing satellite is on the bottom of the Pacific. The Martin Marietta Titan 23G launch vehicle lifted off successfully from Space Launch Complex 4-West at Vandenberg AFB at 1756 UTC on Oct 5; the two stage launch vehicle delivered the payload to the planned suborbital trajectory and separated at 1802 UTC an altitude of 724 km. The Thiokol Star 37XFP apogee motor was meant to fire at 1810 UTC to place Landsat in a circular orbit, but the burn was not monitored and there has been no sign of Landsat since. (Thanks to Joel Runes for getting these details for me). The apogee motor is considered to be part of the payload, although earlier Landsats, which were all launched on Deltas, didn't need one. The first Landsat was launched in 1972 and was then called Earth Resources Technology Satellite 1. The first three Landsats used the Nimbus weather satellite bus, while the last three have used the Multimission Spacecraft (MMS) bus first used for Solar Max. Landsat program --------------- ERTS 1 1972 Jul 23 903x921 km x 99 deg Landsat 2 1975 Jan 22 907x918 km x 99 deg Landsat 3 1978 Mar 5 900x918 km x 99 deg Landsat 4 1982 Jul 16 683x700 km x 98 deg Landsat 5 1984 Mar 1 699x700 km x 98 deg Landsat 6 1993 Oct 5 0x724 km x 98 deg Unclassified MMS buses ---------------------- Solar Max 1980 Feb 14 566x569 km x 29 deg Landsat 4 1982 Jul 16 683x700 km x 98 deg Landsat 5 1984 Mar 1 699x700 km x 98 deg UARS 1991 Sep 12 574x581 km x 57 deg EUVE 1992 Jun 9 514x528 km x 28 deg TOPEX/Poseidon 1992 Aug 10 1331x1343 km x 66 deg Landsat 6 1993 Oct 5 0x724 km x 98 deg The Star 37 motor has a long and illustrious history, descending from the retro-rockets used to land the Surveyor probes on the Moon in the 1960s. The 37XF was used as an apogee motor on Intelsat V, and the new 37XFP version was used successfully on the Satcom K1 and K2, Astra 1A and ACTS satellites. A recoverable satellite was launched from Jiuquan space center in the Gobi desert on Oct 8. The Chinese FSW-1 (Fanhui Shi Weixing) satellite was placed in a 207 x 295 km orbit inclined 57 degrees to the equator. The Galileo probe made a TCM (Trajectory Correction Maneuver) last week (in five daily segments from Oct 4 to Oct 8). The reboost of the Compton Observatory's orbit is proceeding; after the first two burns the orbit had been raised from 337 km to 355 km; the original orbit was 452 km high. Date Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Sep 16 0736 Kosmos-2263 Zenit Baykonur LC45 SIGINT 59A Sep 17 0043 Kosmos-2264 Tsiklon-M Baykonur LC90 EORSAT 60A Sep 20 0012 IRS-1E PSLV Sriharikota Remote s. FTO Sep 26 0145 SPOT 3 ) Ariane 40 Kourou ELA 2 Remote s. 61A Stella ) Geodesy 61B KITSAT-OSCAR 25 Remote s,com 61C ITAmsat/OSCAR 26 Comsat 61F Eyesat 1/OSCAR 27 Comsat 61G Posat 1 ) Test 61D Healthsat 1 ) Comsat 61E Sep 30 1706 Raduga Proton/Blok DM Baykonur LC81 Comsat 62A Oct 5 1756 Landsat 6 Titan 23G Vandenberg SLC4W Remote s. FTO Oct 8 0800 FSW-1 Chang Zheng 2C Jiuquan Remote s. 63A Oct 11 2133 Progress M-20 Soyuz Baykonur Cargo 64A Reentries --------- Sep 22 Discovery Landed at KSC Sep 28 Molniya-1 (1977-82A) reentered Erratum ------- The first KITSAT was renamed Uribyol 1 after launch. I haven't managed to confirm that the new one was also renamed, so I'm returning to the KITSAT name in this week's listing. Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission OV-102 Columbia LC39B STS-58 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 3 STS-60 OV-104 Atlantis Palmdale OMDP OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-61 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-34/ET-57/OV-102 LC39B STS-58 ML2/RSRM-23/ VAB Bay 1 STS-61 ML3/RSRM-35? VAB Bay 3 STS-60 .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'