Jonathan's Birthday Space Report :-) No. 121 1992 Jul 6 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shuttle Mission STS-50 ------------------------ Columbia broke the Shuttle duration record at 1349 UTC today when it passed the 10 d 21 h mark. That previous record was also set by Columbia, on the STS-32R mission in 1990. Columbia is due to land on Jul 8 at Edwards AFB. Columbia has also recaptured the record for total Orbiter flight hours from Discovery; it has flown over 2060 hours in 12 missions, compared with 2005 hours by Discovery in 14 missions. Payload Commander Dr. Bonnie Dunbar is now the active US astronaut with the most flight hours, the first time a woman has held this record (Chief astronaut Dan Brandenstein has more flight hours and is still technically active, but since he has announced he will retire in October he will not be assigned to any more flights, so I've scratched him from my list already.) Dunbar also has gained the women's world cumulative duration record, previously held by Kathy Sullivan. Aleksandr Viktorenko and Aleksandr Kaleri continue their mission aboard the Mir complex; they have become the 23rd crew to pass the 100-day mark. The longest US flight ever was 84 days. Launches -------- The SAMPEX (Solar and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer) satellite was launched on Jul 3 at 1417 UTC by Scout S215C from Space Launch Complex 5 at Vandenberg AFB in California. The satellite is NASA's first Small Explorer, an attempt to return to the days when science satellite projects were completed in only a few years with limited budgets. The 150 kg satellite carries four experiments to study cosmic rays, the particle composition of solar flares, and precipitating electrons in the magnetosphere. Kosmos-2195 was launched on Jul 1. Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission OV-102 Columbia LEO STS-50 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 OMDP OV-104 Atlantis LC39B STS-46 OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 3 STS-47 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/STS-46/ET/OV-104 LC39B ML2/STS-47 VAB Bay 3 ML3/ LC39A .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : mcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'