Jonathan's Space Report No. 212 1994 Sep 29 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle ------- Launch of Endeavour on mission STS-68 is due on Sep 30. Payload is a Spacelab pallet with the Shuttle Radar Lab's SIR-C and X-SAR radars; an MPESS pallet with the MAPS ozone monitor; and five GAS Beam Adapter mounted GAS cans: G-316, G-503, G-541, and two unnumbered cans with US Postal Service commemorative stamps. Discovery left Edwards AFB aboard Shuttle Carrier Aircraft 905 on Sep 26 and arrived at the Cape on Sep 27 after a stop at Kelly AFB, Texas. Its next flight is STS-63, the Mir rendezvous mission. Columbia is scheduled to fly to Palmdale next week for refurbishment at the Rockwell plant. Mir --- Launch of the EO-17 crew to Mir is scheduled for Oct 3 at 2242 UT. Crew commander is veteran cosmonaut Alexander Viktorenko of the Russian air force. Flight engineer is Elena Kondakova of NPO Energiya. Cosmonaut-research is Ulf Merbold of the European Space Agency. The crew will be launched aboard Soyuz TM-20. The flight will mark the first time that a Russian woman has formed part of a regular space crew (as opposed to being flown on a special propaganda flight as 'the first woman to do x'.) Launches -------- Kosmos-2291 was launched on Sep 21. It is a geostationary satellite, probably one of the Geyzer series for military communications. On Sep 29 it was drifting west at 1 deg per day past 80 deg E longitude, after a small braking maneuver on Sep 28. Orbit was 35853x 35886 km x 1.3 deg. Kosmos-2292 was launched on Sep 27. The satellite is one of a series launched infrequently into ellipical orbits, possibly for radar calibration purposes. The launch vehicle was the Kosmos-3M 11K65M, built by PO Polyot of Omsk and based on the Ukranian Yangel' bureau's R-14 IRBM missile. Kosmos-2292 class satellites Satellite Launched Orbit (km x km x deg) Kosmos-660 1974 Jun 18 397x1972 x 83.0 Kosmos-807 1976 Mar 12 398x1973 x 83.0 Kosmos-1238 1981 Jan 16 406x1958 x 83.0 Kosmos-1263 1981 Apr 9 397x1970 x 83.0 Kosmos-1508 1983 Nov 11 400x1966 x 83.0 Kosmos-2098 1990 Aug 28 396x1976 x 83.0 Kosmos-2292 1994 Sep 27 400x1953 x 83.0 Recent Launches --------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Aug 10 2305 Brasilsat B1 ) Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Comsat 49A Turksat 1B ) Comsat 49B Aug 11 1527 Kosmos-2287 ) Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur LC81 Navsat 50A Kosmos-2288 ) Navsat 50B Kosmos-2289 ) Navsat 50C Aug 23 1431 Molniya-3 Molniya Plesetsk LC43 Comsat 51A Aug 25 1425 Progress M-24 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 52A Aug 26 1200 Kosmos-2290 Zenit-2 Baykonur LC45 Recon 53A Aug 27 0858 USA-105 Titan Centaur Canaveral LC41 SIGINT 54A Aug 27 2310 Optus B3 CZ-2E Xichang Comsat 55A Aug 28 0750 Kiku 6 H-II Tanegashima Comsat 56A Aug 29 1738 DMSP 23545 Atlas 20E Vandenberg Weather 57A Sep 9 0029 Telstar 402 Ariane 42L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 58A Sep 9 2222 Discovery Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 59A Sep 13 2130 Spartan 201 - Discovery, LEO Astronomy 59B Sep 16 1516 SAFER/M. Lee - Discovery, LEO Sep 16 1740? SAFER/C. Meade - Discovery, LEO Sep 21 1753 Kosmos-2291 Proton-K/DM-2 Baykonur LC200 Comsat? 60A Sep 27 1400 Kosmos-2292 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Calibration 61A Reentries --------- Sep 11 Kosmos-2284 Landed Sep 13 FSW-2 service module Reentered Sep 20 Discovery Landed at Edwards AFB Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 1 OMDP - OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-63 Feb OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-66 Oct 27 OV-105 Endeavour LC39A STS-68 Sep 30 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-40/ET-65/OV-105 LC39A STS-68 ML2/RSRM-43 VAB Bay 1 STS-67 ML3/RSRM-42/ET-67 VAB Bay 3 STS-66 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'