Jonathan's Space Report No. 330 1997 Aug 17 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Mir --------------- The Mir crew handover was formally completed at some point around Aug 8-11. Mike Foale transferred to become a member of the new Mir EO-24 crew with Anatoliy Solov'yov and Pavel Vinogradov. The EO-23 crew of Vasiliy Tsibliev and Aleksandr Lazutkin handed over the station and on Aug 14 entered their Soyuz TM-25 transport ship, closing the hatches at 0550 UTC. Soyuz TM-25 undocked from the Mir forward port on Aug 14 at 0855 UTC and at 1122 UTC fired the deorbit engine on the PAO (priborno-agregatniy otsek, equipment-service module). The PAO and the BO (bitovoy otsek, living module) separated from the SA (spuskaemiy apparat, descent craft) a few minutes later. The PAO and BO burned up in the atmosphere. The SA reentered, and landed in Kazakstan at 1217 UTC, 170 km SE of Dzezkazgan. The Soyuz landing rockets failed to fire on touchdown, giving one of the roughest landings experienced by a returning Mir crew. The new EO-24 crew of Solov'yov, Vinogradov and Foale undocked from the Kvant module in Soyuz TM-26 on Aug 15 at 1329 UTC, and redocked with the forward Mir port at 1413 UTC. The Progress M-35 cargo ship remains in orbit and is expected to redock with the Mir station soon at the Kvant port. A docking attempt was called off on Aug 17 because the wrong instructions were sent to the Progress. Meanwhile, the crew have repaired the Elektron oxygen generator. (Thanks to Chris van den Berg, Igor Lissov and Vladimir Agapov for some of these details). The CRISTA-SPAS satellite was recaptured by Discovery's RMS arm at 1514 UTC on Aug 16. Landing is due for Aug 18. Errata on Shuttle crewing: Wendy Lawrence is still on the STS-86 crew, but has been pulled off the Mir EO-24 long-stay crew. She will fly on the Shuttle to Mir, but will come down again on the same mission. David Wolf is an addition to the STS-86 crew and will replace Foale on the EO-24 crew. Also, Tryggvason has the rank of Payload Specialist on STS-85, not Mission Specialist as I suggested. Recent Launches --------------- A Proton-K launch vehicle took off from Baykonur on Aug 14 and entered a 164 x 190 km x 53.2 deg parking orbit. The Blok DM-2 upper stage then fired to place the Kosmos-2345 payload in a 232 x 35292 km x 50.0 deg transfer orbit. It is expected that the DM-2 will reignite to lower inclination and enter a near-geosynchronous orbit. This launch profile is unusual; a 51.6 degree parking orbit has been used for other Proton geostationary launches, with a 47 degree transfer orbit. Igor Lissov reports a rumour that the Proton was incorrectly targeted and would have gone to the regular 51.6 degree orbit but for an error by the launch crew. The payload is probably either an early warning satellite or a military communications satellite. Orbimage's OrbView-2 satellite began to raise its orbit on Aug 12. The initial orbit was only 300 km in altitude, and a hydrazine propulsion system raises it in stages to 700 km. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jul 1 1802 Columbia ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 32A Spacelab MSL-1R ) Jul 5 0411 Progress M-35 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 33A Jul 6 0600 Sojourner - Sagan Station, Mars Rover Jul 9 1304 Iridium SV015 ) Delta 7920 Vandenberg SLC2W Comsat 34A Iridium SV017 ) Comsat 34B Iridium SV018 ) Comsat 34C Iridium SV020 ) Comsat 34D Iridium SV021 ) Comsat 34E Jul 23 0343 GPS SVN 43 Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17A Navsat 35A Jul 28 0115 Superbird C Atlas IIAS Canaveral LC36B Comsat 36A Aug 1 2020 OrbView 2 Pegasus XL Vandenberg Remote sen.37A Aug 5 1536 Soyuz TM-26 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 38A Aug 7 1441 Discovery Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 39A Aug 7 2227 CRISTA-SPAS OV-103,LEO Remote sen.39B Aug 8 0646 PAS 6 Ariane 4 Kourou ELA2 Comsat 40A Aug 14 2049 Kosmos-2345 Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur ? 41A Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 2 STS-87 Nov 19 OV-103 Discovery LEO STS-85 On orbit OV-104 Atlantis VAB STS-86 Sep 22 OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-89 Jan 15 MLP/SRB/ET/OV stacks MLP1/ MLP2/RSRM-61/ET/OV-104 VAB Bay 1? STS-86 MLP3/ .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS6 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/QEDT/jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html | | Back issues: ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'