Jonathan's Space Report No. 223 1994 Dec 15 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle ------- Discovery is nearly ready for transfer from the Orbiter Processing Facility to the Vehicle Assembly Building in preparation for mission STS-63. The External Tank for mission STS-67 was due to be connected to the Solid Rocket Boosters in the VAB this week. Recent Launches --------------- The next Titan 4 launch is scheduled for Dec 17 from LC40 at Cape Canaveral. Thanks to Mike Kenny and Roy Parnell for giving me the launch time of the Chinese DFH-3 satellite. The DFH-3 satellite has begun to raise its orbit; on Dec 14 it was in a 6389 x 36064 km x 12.4 deg orbit. The Orion-1 satellite has reached near-synchronous orbit. Around Dec 10 it lowered apogee from 35686 x 65286 km and by Dec 14 it was in a 35620 x 36021 km x 0.03 deg orbit, over 43.5 deg W drifting 0.4 deg per day. A Molniya-1T satellite was launched from Plesetsk on Dec 14 into a 426 x 39091 km x 63.1 deg orbit with a period of 700.88 minutes. The orbit will later be raised until the period is 717.8 minutes (half a sidereal day). This is reportedly the 48th Molniya-1T to be launched from Plesetsk, which implies that the Molniya-1T variant must have replaced the original Molniya-1 around 1975. Until recently, official statements continued to use the 'Molniya-1' name. The Molniya satellites relay C-band (6/4 GHz) and 1 GHz communications to ground stations in the former USSR's Orbita network. 13 Molniya-1, 48 Molniya-T, 19 Molniya-2 satellites, and 48 Molniya-3 satellites have been launched from Plesetsk since Feb 1970 toward elliptical 12 hour orbits (two of the Molniya-2 and two of the Molniya-3 had upper stage failures). The orbits have a 62.8 degree (65 deg before 1973) inclination which minimizes orbital precession; their perigees are in the Southern hemisphere so that the apogees (where a satellite spends most of its time in an elliptical orbit) are high above the northern hemisphere, providing good visibility from the high latitude parts of the Soviet Union. 33 Molniya-1 and Molniya-1T satellites were launched from the Baykonur cosmodrome into similar orbits between 1964 and 1989, and one Molniya-1S satellite was launched from Baykonur into geostationary orbit. All Molniya launches used the Molniya-M launch vehicle, except for the first few test flights which used the original Molniya rocket, and Molniya-1S which used the Proton. Molniya-M consists of the standard Soyuz launch vehicle with an extra Blok-L fourth stage. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Nov 1 0037 Astra 1D Ariane 42P Kourou ELA2 Comsat 70A Nov 1 0931 Wind Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17B Science 71A Nov 2 0104 Kosmos-2293 Tsiklon-2 Baykonur LC90 EORSAT 72A Nov 3 1700 Atlantis Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 73A Nov 4 0547 Resurs-O1 No. 3 Zenit-2 Baykonur LC45 Rem.sensing 74A Nov 4 1250 CRISTA-SPAS - Atlantis, LEO Science 73B Nov 11 0722 Progress M-25 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 75A Nov 20 0039 Kosmos-2294 ) Proton-K/DM-2 Baykonur LC200 Navsat 76A Kosmos-2295 ) Navsat 76B Kosmos-2296 ) Navsat 76C Nov 24 0916 Kosmos-2297 Zenit-2 Baykonur LC45 SIGINT 77A Nov 29 0254 Geo-IK Tsiklon-3 Plesetsk LC32 Geodetic 78A Nov 29 1021 Orion 1 Atlas IIA Canaveral LC36A Comsat 79A Nov 29 1702 DFH-3 Chang Zheng 3A Xichang Comsat 80A Dec 1 2255 Panamsat K2 Ariane 42P Kourou ELA2 Comsat FTO Dec 14 1421 Molniya-1T Molniya-M Plesetsk LC43 Comsat 81A Reentries --------- Nov 4 Molniya-1 Reentered (1984-29A) Nov 4 Soyuz TM-19 Landed in Kazakhstan Nov 14 Atlantis Landed at Edwards AFB Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia Palmdale OMDP - OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-63 Feb 2 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-71 May OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-67 Mar ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-42/ET-68 VAB Bay 3 STS-63 ML2/RSRM-43 VAB Bay 1 STS-67 ML3/ .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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/jsr.html | ! ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'