Jonathan's Space Report No. 497 2003 Apr 14, Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Station -------------------- On the International Space Station, the Progress M-47 cargo craft is docked to the aft Zvezda port and the Soyuz TMA-1 transport ship is docked to the Pirs module. Soyuz TMA-2 will be launched in April or May carrying the new Expedition 7 crew of Yuriy Malenchenko and Edward Lu. Expedition 6 astronauts Bowersox and Pettit carried out a spacewalk on Apr 8. The Quest airlock was depressurized to below 50 mbar by around 1236 UTC with the hatch open at 1240 UTC. The hatch was closed at 1901 UTC and the airlock was repressurized at 1906 UTC. The astronauts reconfigured some connectors and power cables and deployed a boom on one of the CETA transport carts. The Columbia investigation continues; many of the carrier panels from the left wing have now been found in the debris, so it's not at all clear what the small object that separated on day 2 was. It's now retrospectively been given designation 2003-003B and catalog number 27713; the object reentered before Columbia did. Recent Launches --------------- Arianespace returned the EADS-built Ariane 5 rocket to flight with vehicle L514G successfully launched from Kourou on Apr 9. (Note: the Ariane 5ECA launch failure was L517, and previous launches were L501G to L513G in sequential order.) The two payloads were Galaxy 12 and Insat 3A. Galaxy 12 is an Orbital Star-2 small class communications satellite with a Japanese-developed liquid apogee engine (reported to have a thrust of 100N by the EADS launch documentation, but other reports suggest 500N). It carries 24 C-band transponders for domestic US communications and is owned by Panamsat. Launch mass is 1760 kg and dry mass is 800 kg; bus size is 1.5 x 3.3 x 1.9m with 12.6m solar panel span. Insat 3A is built by ISRO, the Indian Space Research Organization, and carries a communications, weather imaging, and search-and-rescue payload together with a bipropellant liquid apogee engine. The Insat 3A bus is 2.8 x 2.0 x 1.8m in size with a 13m solar panel span; the satellite has a dry mass of 1350 kg and a launch mass of 2958 kg. Launch was at 2252 UTC and the EPC core stage shut down at 2301 UTC with separation at 2302 UTC into a -41 x 1562 km x 6.0 deg suborbital trajectory. EPC 514 reentered over the Pacific at around 0022 UTC on Apr 10, while the EPS 514 upper stage began its burn to geostationary transfer orbit. Engine shutdown was at 2319 UTC. The Insat 3A satellite separated first, followed by the 5.8m high 4.6m dia Sylda 5C adapter with its ACU 1194V5 adapter; then at 2330 UTC Galaxy 12 was ejected from the ACU 937VB5 adapter on top of the EPS final stage into an 868 x 35961 km x 2.1 deg transfer orbit. Congratulations to EADS for an excellent technical dossier publication for this mission. Lockheed Martin launched a Titan Centaur on Apr 8 carrying the US Air Force Milstar 6 communications satellite to geosynchronous orbit. Titan 4 core vehicle B-35 with a 76-foot fairing was used to place Centaur TC-23 on a suborbital trajectory with an apogee of around 170 km. TC-23's first burn went to a 169 x 179 km x 28.6 deg parking orbit at 1354 UTC; the second burn ended at 1453 UTC in an approximately 206 x 35782 km x 26.7 deg orbit and the third burn was completed at 2008 UTC in an approximately 35730 x 35740 km x 4.5 deg sub-synchronous drift orbit. TC-23 separated from Milstar at 2018 UTC. Milstar DFS-6 is the fourth of the Milstar II series carrying both LDR (low data rate) and MDR (medium data rate) payloads and will be used for global communications capacity by the US armed forces. The satellite was built by Lockheed Martin/Sunnyvale. International Launch Services launched a Lockheed Martin Atlas IIIB, AC-205, into geostationary transfer orbit on Apr 12. The upper stage was a single-engine Centaur and the payload was Asiasat 4. The Centaur reached a 166 x 1837 km parking orbit 15 min after launch then reignited to reach a 201 x 47920 km x 27.0 deg transfer orbit. Asiasat 4 is 4042 kg at launch and probably around 1900 kg dry; the Boeing 601HP satellite with a C-band and Ku-band communications payload will be operated by Hong Kong based Asiasat to replace Asiasat 1 and provide direct TV broadcast to east Asia and Australia. The AC-205 flight featured the Atlas IIIB/SEC (single engine Common Centaur variant). The Atlas IIIB and Atlas V share the stretched Common Centaur which comes in DEC and SEC (dual and single engine) variants. Flights so far are: 2002 Feb 21 Atlas IIIB AC-204 DEC 2002 Aug 21 Atlas V/401 AV-001 SEC 2003 Apr 12 Atlas IIIB AC-205 SEC The Atlas IIIA uses a shorter single engine version of the dual-engine Centaur used on Atlas II. The landing sites for the Mars Exploration Rovers have been announced: the centers of the target ellipses are 14.640S, 184.702W in Gusev Crater and 2.060S 5.992W in Meridiani Planum (according to JPL; another source gives 14.64S 184.94W and 2.06S 6.23W; these all appear to be on the IAU 1991 coordinate system. There are longitude differences of about 0.24 deg between this and the IAU 2000 system, as well as a religious war between those Martians who prefer the traditional west longitude planetographic system and those who prefer the new east longitude planetocentric system). US Space Command is no longer releasing orbital data for the two Japanese spy satellites IGS Optical-1 and IGS Radar-1. I gather that the Japanese defense establishment is under the illusion that this will stop the North Koreans locating these low altitude, rather bright satellites; it will be interesting to see how easily the amateur observers can track them. Launch of the SIRTF space observatory has been delayed, 8 days before the scheduled liftoff. The Delta II Heavy (7920H) is a new and untested launch vehicle, and the latest issue is reportedly concern about the GEM-46 solids, which have a longer burn time than the GEM-40 used on the standard Delta II. 18 of the GEM-46 motors have flown successfully (on two Delta III missions (a further 6 GEM-46 burned for almost full duration on the first Delta III before it blew up). SIRTF is a major science mission, the last of NASA's Great Observatories, and the astronomical community is eagerly awaiting its debut. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Mar 11 0059 DSCS III A-3 Delta IVM Canaveral SLC37B Comms 08A Mar 28 0127 IGS Optical-1 ) H2A 2024 Tanegashima Imaging 09A IGS Radar-1 ) Radar 09B Mar 31 2209 GPS SVN 45 Delta 7925 Canaveral SLC17A Navigation 10A Apr 2 0153 Molniya-1T Molniya-M Plesetsk Comms 11A Apr 8 1343 Milstar 6 Titan 4 Centaur Canaveral SLC40 Comms 12A Apr 9 2252 Galaxy 12 ) Ariane 5G Kourou ELA3 Comms 13B Insat 3A ) Comms 13A Apr 12 0047 Asiasat 4 Atlas 3B/SEC Canaveral SLC36B Comms 14A Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-103 Discovery OPF Maintenance OV-104 Atlantis VAB STS-114 Unknown ISS ULF1 OV-105 Endeavour OPF STS-115 Unknown ISS 12A .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'