Jonathan's Space Report No. 362 1998 Jun 2 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Mir --------------- Shuttle mission STS-91 was launched at 2206 UTC on Jun 2. This was the first test of the super lightweight Al-Li external tank, which seems to have worked fine. At 2215 UTC Discovery entered a temporary 74 x 324 km x 51.6 deg orbit, with the OMS-2 burn due within the hour. Discovery is scheduled to dock with the Mir space station, and pick up astronaut Andy Thomas, ending the final US long duration flight to Mir. It also carries a test flight of the AMS particle physics experiment. The Shuttle schedule continues in flux. Although NASA will probably announce an STS-88 target in December and a delay of STS-93 to January, Russian delays in funding the ISS Service Module lead to me expect STS-88 will continue to slip, which would mean STS-93 staying at its current December date. Recent Launches --------------- China launched a Chang Zheng 3B launch vehicle from Xichang on May 30. It orbited the Zhongwei 1 (Chinastar 1) satellite, an A2100 class comsat built by Lockheed Martin/Sunnyvale. Zhongwei 1 will serve China, India, Korea and southeast Asia with 18 C-band and 20 Ku-band transponders. It is operated by the China Orient Telecommunications Satellite Co, part of the Chinese telecoms ministry. Zhongwei 1 and the CZ-3B's final liquid hydrogen upper stage were placed in an initial supersynchronous 216 x 85035 km x 24.4 deg transfer orbit. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. May 2 0916 Iridium 69 CZ-2C/SD Taiyuan Comsat 26A Iridium 71 Comsat 26B May 7 0853 Kosmos-2351 Molniya-M Plesetsk Early Warn 27A May 7 2345 Echostar 4 Proton-K/DM3 Baykonur Comsat 28A May 9 0138 USA 139 Titan Centaur Canaveral SLC40 Sigint 29A May 13 1552 NOAA 15 Titan 2 Vandenberg SLC4W Weather 30A May 14 2212 Progress M-39 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 31A May 17 2116 Iridium 70) Delta 7920 Vandenberg SLC2W Comsat 32A Iridium 72) Comsat 32B Iridium 73) Comsat 32C Iridium 74) Comsat 32D Iridium 75) Comsat 32E May 30 1000 Zhongwei 1 CZ-3B Xichang Comsat 33A Jun 2 2206 Discovery ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship Spacehab ) Current Shuttle Processing Status __________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-93 Unknown OV-103 Discovery LEO STS-91 OV-104 Atlantis Palmdale OMDP OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-88 Unknown MLP/SRB/ET/OV stacks MLP1/ MLP2/ 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/~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 | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'