Jonathan's Space Report No. 521 2004 Feb 27, Somerville, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Astronauts Foale and Kaleri made a spacewalk on Feb 26. The Pirs docking module on the International Space Station was depressurized to below 50 mbar by about 2055 UTC. After going to internal suit power at 2105 UTC, the astronauts opened the hatch at 2117 UTC. The spacewalk installed experiments on the exterior of Zvezda. The walk was cut short when the sublimator of Kaleri's Orlan-M No. 23 suit malfunctioned and caused water to condense inside the suit, probably due to a crimped fluid line. This was the 8th use of suit M-23 since its launch aboard Zvezda in 2000; Foale's suit, Orlan-M No. 14, was launched aboard Pirs and this was its 5th use. Although four of the Orlan suits on Mir were used as many as 14 times, the longest time between launch and last use was 3yr 3months for Orlan-DMA No. 25 (14 uses 1993-1996). M-23 is now at 3yr 7months, a record service life for an EVA spacesuit. Two new suits were recently delivered aboard the Progress M1-11 cargo ship. The Pirs hatch was closed at 0112 UTC and repressurization of the airlock began at 0115 UTC, giving a depressurized duration of 4h20m and a hatch open/close duration of 3h55m. Kaleri seems to have had some problem reading the airlock control panel due to the condensation on his faceplate. The US Air Force launched a DSP (Defense Support Program) early warning satellite on a Lockheed Martin Titan 4B from Cape Canaveral on Feb 14. Titan 4B-39 placed the IUS-10 upper stage in parking orbit; two IUS solid motor burns put DSP-22 into geostationary drift orbit. The Titan second stage remains in low orbit, the IUS SRM-1 motor in geostationary transfer orbit, SRM-2 in geostationary drift orbit. The DSP satellite's infrared telescope cover was presumably ejected a few days later, and the satellite is being placed on station to observe missile launches. This was the 24th and last use of the Boeing IUS upper stage since the first IUS launch in 1982; a 25th stage, IUS-23, was never flown. The final DSP will be launched on a Boeing Delta 4. DSP satellites are built by Northrop Grumman's Redondo Beach operation (formerly TRW). No official orbital data have been released for DSP-22, although the IUS SRM-2 apogee burn was seen as a bright cloud by amateur astronomers at several locations in the USA. Russia launched a Molniya-M rocket from Plesetsk on Feb 18, with President Vladimir Putin in attendance. The rocket entered low parking orbit and then half an orbit later fired to put its payload in a 12-hour ellliptical orbit. The payload was given the name Kosmos-2405. Novosti Kosmonavtiki, normally reliable, reports that this launch is a Molniya-1T military communications satellite; other sources indicate that the payload is an Oko early warning satellite. The orbit has an argument of perigee of 287 deg, similar to the Molniyas and the last two Oko launches but different from pre-2002 Okos. Molniya-1T's normally are not given Kosmos codenames, but this is not definitive proof; still, I lean towards the Oko explanation pending further information. The Molniya launch was part of the Bezopasnost'-2004 military exercise. Also launched as part of the same exercise was a Topol' solid-fuel ICBM from Plesetsk toward the Kura (Kamchatka) target range; a UR-100NU (15A35) liquid-fuel ICBM from Baykonur; and an R-29RM Sineva submarine missile launched from the K-18 Karelia sub in the Barents Sea. The Sineva, a minor upgrade of the R-29RM Shtil', was destroyed 98 seconds after launch. ESA's SMART-1 lunar probe turned off its ion engine on Jan 30 for a period of payload commissioning. Launched into geostationary transfer orbit of 672 x 35828 km x 6.9 deg on Sep 27, its orbital period surpassed 23 hours in late January putting it in the geosynchronous region; the orbit is now 14312 x 59491 km x 6.9 deg with a period of 24h 53min. The probe is scheduled to reach lunar orbit in December 2004. ESA's Mars Express probe is now in a 260 x 11607 km x 86.59 deg orbit around Mars with perapsis around latitude 25 deg S. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jan 11 0413 Estrela do Sul Zenit-3SL Odyssey Comms 01A Jan 29 1158 Progress M1-11 Soyuz-U Baykonur Cargo 02A Feb 5 2346 AMC-10 Atlas IIAS Canaveral SLC36A Comms 03A Feb 14 1850 DSP 22 Titan 4B/IUS Canaveral SLC40 Early Warn 04A Feb 18 0705 Kosmos-2405 Molniya-M Plesetsk Comms 05A .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Somerville MA 02143 | inter : jcm@host.planet4589.org | | USA | jcm@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html | | Back issues: http://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: mail majordomo@host.planet4589.org, (un)subscribe jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'