Jonathan's Space Report 4 Oct 1991 (no.90) ---------------------------------------------------- Atlantis is being prepared for mission STS-44. Cracks have been found on some seals on Atlantis' wing leading edge; they're being replaced, but there's no news on a possible delay to the November launch. Discovery has returned to the Kennedy Space Center and is in Orbiter Processing Facility Bay 3, formerly the OMRF (Orbiter Maintenance and Refurbishment Facility) and recently upgraded to the standards of the other two OPF bays. Its next mission is STS-42. Anatoliy Artsebarksiy and Sergey Krikalyov continue in orbit aboard the Mir/Kvant/Sofora/Kvant-2/Kristall/Soyuz TM-12 complex. Progress M-9 has been undocked and deorbited. Soyuz TM-13 was launched on Oct 2 from Kosmodrom Baykonur in the Republic of Kazakhstan. It will dock with Mir on Oct 4. Crew of TM-13 are Soviet Air Force cosmonaut Aleksandr Volkov, Kazakh Republic cosmonaut Tokhtar Aubakirov, and Austrian cosmonaut Franz Viehbock. Artsebarksiy, Aubakirov and Viehbock will return to Earth on Oct 10 in TM-12 leaving Volkov and Krikalyov in orbit. An alert reader has spotted my inability to add. Volkov has 216 days flight experience, not 185 as I erroneously claimed last week. The Canadian Anik E-1 communications satellite was launched on Sep 26 by Ariane 44P from Kourou. Kosmos-2156, launched Sep 19 by Soyuz from Plesetsk, is a high resolution imaging spy satellite for Soviet military intelligence. Kosmos-2157 to Kosmos-2162, six small communications relay satellites possibly for the Soviet Navy, were launched by 3-stage Tsiklon from Plesetsk on Sep 28. ___________________________________ |Current STS status: | |Orbiters | | | |OV-102 Columbia Palmdale | |OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 3 | |OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 2 | |OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 | | | |ML/ET/SRB stacks | | | |ML1/STS-44/ET VAB Bay 3 | |ML2 | |ML3?/STS-42 VAB Bay 1 | ----------------------------------- N.B. Information in this report is obtained from public sources and does not reflect the official views of NASA. .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (205)544-7724 | | Space Science Lab ES65 | | | NASA Marshall Space Flight Center | | | Huntsville AL 35812 | inter : mcdowell@xanth.msfc.nasa.gov | | USA | | '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'