Jonathan's Space Report No. 234 1995 Mar 19 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle -------- Endeavour landed on the concrete Edwards runway 22 at 2147:00 on 1995 Mar 18, ending the longest Shuttle mission yet. Duration was 16 days 15 hr 8 min 47 sec. The deorbit burn was at 2039:13 and lasted an unusually long 5 min 0 sec, placing Endeavour in a 33 x 357 km descent orbit. OV-105's next flight is STS-69 in the summer; first comes the Atlantis docking with Mir and Discovery's deployment of a TDRS comsat. The External Tank, ET-70, for mission STS-71 was mated to the solid rocket boosters on Mar 16. Mir --- Soyuz TM-21 (spacecraft 11F732 no. 70) was launched at 0611:34 on 1995 Mar 14 carrying the EO-18 Mir crew, Vladimir Dezhurov, Gennadiy Strekalov and Norman Thagard. According to Vladimir Agapov, orbit insertion and separation of the 7170 kg spaceship from the Blok-I third stage was at 0620:23. Soyuz TM-21 entered an 88.61 min, 190 x 220 km x 51.65 deg orbit; (Note: this is based on a spherical Earth and the Space Command elements; Agapov reports a 201 x 247 km orbit based on an oblate Earth and Russian elements. I haven't attempted to reconcile the data.) Two burns at 0946 and 1045 UTC raised the orbit to 89.89 min, 231 x 306 km. A small phasing burn was carried out the following day at 0709, and then two final rendezvous burns raised the orbit to 92.43 min, 390 x 396 km, matching that of the Mir station. Soyuz docked with Mir at 0745:26 UTC on Mar 16 and the crew entered Mir at around 0930. Launch of TM-21 meant that there were 13 people in space at once for the first time ever: Dezhurov, Strekalov, Thagard on Soyuz; Viktorenko, Kondakova and Polyakov on Mir; and Oswald, Gregory, Lawrence, Jernigan, Grunsfeld, Parise, and Durrance on Endeavour. The Soyuz TM spaceship is made up of three sections: the priborno-agregatniy otsek (service-equipment module), 3057 kg, which contains the engine and carries the solar panel wings; the spuskaemiy apparat (descent vehicle), 2835 kg, with heat shield, command and control cabin, and the three cosmonaut couches; and the bitovoi otsek (living module) of 1278 kg with the docking unit. Thagard is the first American to be launched in a Soyuz, although the ASTP crew flew in one while their Apollo craft was docked to it in 1975. Soyuz TM-21 was launched by the Soyuz-U2 (11A511U2) variant of Energiya's standard R-7 based launch vehicle. The Progress M-26 cargo craft undocked on Mar 15 at 0226:38 and deorbited itself over the Pacific at 0528 UT. Recent Launches -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Japan's NASDA space agency launched the third H-II launch vehicle from Tanegashima on Mar 17. Launch was at 2001 UTC; the first stage flew a suborbital trajectory, and the LE-5A second stage completed its first burn to enter a 322 x 336 km x 28.5 deg orbit, deploying the SFU (Space Flyer Unit) satellite at 2014. The LE-5A then ignited again to enter geostationary transfer orbit, and at 2028 the second payload, Geostationary Meteorological Satellite 5, separated into a 329 x 36669 x 28.5 deg orbit. The SFU will carry out materials processing, technology and astronomy experiments, and will be retrieved by the STS-72 mission in December. It carries the 0.15m liquid helium cooled IR Telescope in Space (IRTS), with near and mid infrared spectrometers; a biology experiment studying salamander eggs; an electron density experiment; materials processing furnaces; and technology experiments with solar arrays and an electric thruster. It also carries an experimental platform to test technology for the JEM Exposed Facility planned for the Space Station, and as such it is the first flight element of Japan's Station program. GMS-5 carries a Star 27 solid motor which is intended to place it in geostationary orbit. The satellite has visible and IR radiometers and will continue the Japanese Meteorological Agency's operational weather satellite system. Foton 10 landed on Mar 3, 135 km SE of Orenburg in Russia. The descent cabin was later severely damaged when it was dropped from the helicopter carrying it back for deintegration; many of the experiments were destroyed. Telemetry has been received from the Clementine probe in solar orbit, last heard from in Jul 1994. Further attempts will be made to restore comms with the probe. Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Feb 3 0522 Discovery ) Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 04A Spacehab SH03) Feb 4 0457 ODERACS II A ) Discovery, LEO Calibration 04C ODERACS II D ) Calibration 04F ODERACS II C ) Calibration 04E ODERACS II B ) Calibration 04D ODERACS II F ) Calibration 04H ODERACS II E ) Calibration 04G Feb 7 1226 Spartan 204 Discovery, LEO Astronomy 04B Feb 15 1648 Progress M-26 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 05A Feb 16 1740 Foton No. 10 Soyuz-U Plesetsk LC43 Materials 06A Mar 2 0638 Endeavour ) Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 07A Astro 2 ) Mar 2 1300 Kosmos-2306 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Calibration 08A Mar 7 0923 Kosmos-2307 ) Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur LC200 Navigation 09A Kosmos-2308 ) Navigation 09B Kosmos-2309 ) Navigation 09C Mar 14 0611 Soyuz TM-21 Soyuz-U2 Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 10A Mar 17 2001 SFU ) H-II Tanegashima Science GMS-5 ) Weather Reentries --------- Jan 15 EXPRESS Reentered Feb 11 Discovery Landed at KSC Feb 12 BREMSAT Reentered Feb 16 Progress M-25 Deorbited Feb 23 Molniya-1 (58) Reentered Feb 24 ODERACS F Reentered Feb 27 ODERACS II E Reentered Mar 2 ODERACS II D Reentered Mar 3 ODERACS E Reentered Mar 3 Foton 10 Landed in Russia Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia Palmdale OMDP - OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-70 Jun 22 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-71 Jun OV-105 Endeavour EAFB RW22 STS-67 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/ STS-70 ML2/ STS-67 ML3/RSRM-45/ET-70 VAB Bay 1 STS-71 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'