Jonathan's Space Report No. 411 1999 Nov 16 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Erroneously sent out as "draft") Web Site Updated ----------------- My web site, http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/space.html has undergone a significant update. A major new feature is the index of geostationary launches. In addition to my usual list of current orbital postions, I've added a historical listing of which longitudes the various satellites have ever been stationed at, an estimate of the time each satellite first entered the near-geostationary region (which I define to be orbital periods between 23 and 25 hours), and an estimate of the time the satellite ceased operating. I hope readers who have geostationary satellites of their own will help me correct and improve this listing, which is at http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/logs/geo.date Recent Launches --------------- Plans are to launch Discovery on STS-103 in early December. Discovery has been mated to external tank ET-101 and solid boosters RSRM-73, and was rolled out from VAB bay 1 to the pad on Nov 13. GE 4 was launched by Ariane on Nov 13. The GE 4 satellite will provide C and Ku-band communications services for GE Americom, replacing the older Spacenet 4 satellite. It is an A2100AX type spacecraft built by Lockheed Martin/Sunnyvale. Arianespace used an Ariane 44LP rocket to place GE 4 in geostationary transfer orbit. Below I list all the satellites in GE Americom (formerly RCA Americom)'s fleet. The early satellites were built by RCA/GE/Lockheed Martin's East Windsor operation; the A2100s were built by LM/Sunnyvale; and GE 5 was built by Alcatel/Cannes. Historical list of GE Americom satellites Type Launch Retired RCA Satcom 1 Satcom 1975 Dec 13 1984 Jun RCA Satcom 2 Satcom 1976 Mar 26 1985 Jan RCA Satcom 3 Satcom 1979 Dec 7 Launch failure, in GTO RCA Satcom 3R Satcom 1981 Nov 20 1991 Apr RCA Satcom 4 Satcom 1982 Jan 16 1991 Dec RCA Satcom 5 Adv.Satcom 1982 Oct 27 1991 Apr?; at 105W (Alascom Aurora 1) RCA Satcom 1R Adv.Satcom 1983 Apr 11 1992 Dec RCA Satcom 2R Adv.Satcom 1983 Sep 8 1995 Mar Satcom K-2 Series 4000 1985 Nov 27 At 81W Satcom K-1 Series 4000 1986 Jan 12 1997 Jul Satcom K-3 Series 5000 cancelled, became Astra 1B Satcom K-4 Series 5000 cancelled, became Intelsat K Satcom C-1 Series 3000 1990 Nov 20 At 137W Satcom C-5 Series 3000 1991 May 29 At 139W (Alascom Aurora 2) Satcom C-4 Series 3000 1992 Aug 31 At 135W Satcom C-3 Series 3000 1992 Sep 10 At 131W Satcom C-2 Series 3000 not launched, status unknown GE 1 A2100 1996 Sep 8 At 103W GE 2 A2100 1997 Jan 30 At 85W GE 3 A2100 1997 Sep 4 At 87W GE 5 Spacebus 2000 1998 Oct 28 At 79W GE 4 A2100AX 1999 Nov 13 - NASDA's H-2 rocket failed four minutes after launch from Tanegashima on Nov 15. The H-2 jettisoned its two large solid boosters 1.5 min after launch, but toward the end of the burn of the large first stage something went wrong - details so far unknown - and the rocket was lost. This H-2 carried the 5S type fairing and a new second stage with the LE-5B engine being developed for the H-2A program, but the accident happened before second stage ignition. The payload was the Multi-functional Transportation Satellite, with a communications and air traffic control payload for the Japanese transportation ministry and a meteorological payload for the Japanese Meteorological Agency. MTSAT was built by Space Systems/Loral and based on their FS-1300 series comsat bus. MTSAT had a mass of 1223 kg dry, 2900 kg at launch. The spacecraft was a follow-on to the GMS (Himawari) weather satellite series. The AP report on the launch failure includes Japan's repeated erroneous claim that it was the first nation to dock two satellites under remote control. In fact, the ETS-7 experiment last year came 30 years after the first remote control docking by the USSR's Kosmos-186 and Kosmos-188. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Oct 7 1251 Navstar SVN 46 Delta 7925 Canaveral SLC17A Navsat 55A Oct 10 0328 DirecTV 1R Zenit-3SL Odyssey, POR Comsat 56A Oct 14 0315 Zi Yuan 1 ) Chang Zheng 4B Taiyuan Imaging 57A SACI 1 ) Science 57B Oct 18 1322 Globalstar 31) Soyuz-Ikar Baykonur LC1 Comsat 58A Globalstar 56) Comsat 58B Globalstar 57) Comsat 58C Globalstar 59) Comsat 58D Oct 19 0622 Orion 2 Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Comsat 59A Oct 27 1616 Ekspress-A1 Proton-K Baykonur Comsat F03 Nov 13 2255 GE 4 Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Comsat 60A Nov 15 0729 MTSAT H-2 Tanegashima Comsat F04 Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia Palmdale OMDP OV-103 Discovery LC39B STS-103 1999 Dec 6 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-101 2000 Mar 16 OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 2 STS-99 2000 Jan 13 MLP1/ MLP2/RSRM-73/ET-101/OV-103 LC39B MLP3/RSRM-71?/ET? VAB Bay 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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'