Jonathan's Space Report No. 130 1992 Oct 14 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ STS-52 is due for launch on Oct 22. Russian cosmonauts Vladimir Titov of the Russian Air Force and Sergey Krikalyov of NPO Energiya have been selected to train to fly aboard Shuttle mission STS-60 next year. The US crew for STS-60 has not yet been announced. China launched its 13th FSW-1 recoverable satellite from Jiuqan Space Center with a Chang Zheng 2C launch vehicle on Oct 6 into a 214 x 311 km orbit inclined 63 degrees. The Swedish Space Corporation's Freja scientific satellite separated from the FSW-1 and used Thiokol Star 13 and Star 6B solid rocket motors to maneuver into a 548 km x 1759 km x 63 degree orbit. Freja will study the aurora and the magnetosphere; project manager for Freja is Sven Grahn, a longtime member of the famous Kettering Group, an independent satellite tracking group. Deutsche Bundespost Telekom's DFS 3 Kopernikus satellite was launched Oct 12 at 0947 UTC by a McDonnell Douglas Delta 7925 vehicle from Cape Canaveral LC17. The Delta second stage put the payload and third stage into a medium altitude earth orbit. This orbit is much higher than the corresponding one for any previous Delta launch: 1405 km x 3070 km inclined 25 degrees. The Delta's PAM-D third stage then placed the satellite in geostationary transfer orbit. An MBB S400 thruster will be used to raise the perigee on several burns to reach geostationary orbit. The DFS 3 satellite is Aerospatiale's seventh Spacebus 100 class satellite to be launched. A Russian satellite was launched on Oct 8 around 1900 UTC by Soyuz launch vehicle from Plesetsk. I don't have any information yet on the satellite's name, but the orbital elements indicate that it is a recoverable Vostok class satellite built by the TsSKB (Central Specialized Design Bureau) in Samara. Most likely it is a Foton materials processing flight, although the apogee is a bit low compared to previous flights. Other possibilities are that it is a Bion life sciences flight or a Kosmos spy satellite. Meanwhile, Russian military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda (24 Sep p.4, 3 Oct p.3) reports that the TsSKB is planning an unusual launch on November 16 from Plesetsk. The satellite is called 'Zvezda Kolumba' (Columbus Star) or alternatively 'Resurs-500' and is part of project 'Europa-Amerika 500'. The spacecraft is a Resurs-F type spacecraft but instead of the usual landing in Kazakhstan, it will land in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Seattle. The idea is to drum up support for American commercial use of the Russian space program. Molniya-3 (12), launched in 1979, reentered on Sep 26. The two Pion air density satellites deployed on Sep 1 reentered on Sep 24 and Sep 25. Thanks to Dean Adams, Phillip Clark and Sergey Voevodin for information in this report. Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission OV-102 Columbia LC39B STS-52 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 3 STS-53 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 2 OMDP OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-54 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/STS-53 VAB Bay 3 ML2/ VAB Bay 1 ML3/STS-52/ET/OV-102 LC39B .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : mcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'