Jonathan's Space Report No. 313 1997 Feb 12 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Mir --------------- The crew swap on the Mir station is underway amid much reparking of spaceships. The Progress M-33 robot cargo ship undocked from the +X axis of Mir at 1213:56 UTC on Feb 6 and began independent orbital flight in a 377 x 395 km x 51.65 deg orbit. On Feb 7 at 1628:01 the Mir crew of Korzun, Kaleri and Linenger undocked the Soyuz TM-24 ferry from the front docking port (-X), flew it around to the far side of the complex and redocked at the +X port at 1651:27 UTC. The new ferry ship Soyuz TM-25 was launched from Kazakstan on Feb 10 at 1409:30 UTC. The 11A511U launch vehicle placed the spacecraft in a 51.6 degree orbit. On Feb 11 the orbit was 262 x 311 km x 51.65 deg, while Mir is in a 378 x 394 km x 51.65 deg orbit. Crew of Soyuz TM-25 are Vasiliy Tsibliev (callsign 'Sirius'), Aleksandr Lazutkin, and Reinhold Ewald. After several more rendezvous burns, Soyuz TM-25 docked with Mir at the -X port on Feb 12 at 1551:13 UTC. (Thanks for detailed info from Chris van den Berg and Vladimir Agapov). Space Shuttle Orbiter OV-103 Discovery was launched on Feb 11 at 0855:17 UTC on mission STS-82. It will rendezvous with the Hubble Space Telescope on Feb 13, and astronauts will spacewalk to install the NICMOS and STIS science instruments. After the OMS 2 burn Discovery was in a 350 x 579 km x 28.5 deg orbit; later on Feb 11 perigee was raised to 480 km and on Feb 12 it was in a 576 x 584 km orbit. HST is in a 589 x 598 km x 28.5 deg orbit. The Discovery astronauts have checked out operation of the robot arm and are closing in on their target. Recent Launches --------------- The Japanese Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) has launched the MUSES B satellite early on Feb 12. (1350 JST or 1358 JST according to different reports). It has been renamed 'Haruka', which means 'far-away'. Congratulations to the ISAS team! Haruka is the space segment of the VSOP (VLBI Space Observatory Programme), and will unfurl an 8-meter radiotelescope antenna to make joint observations with ground based radio observatories, simulating a telescope larger than the Earth. Haruka carries detectors operating at 1.6, 5 and 22 GHz, and will be able to make radio images with very high spatial resolution, permitting precise measurements of quasar jets and galactic maser sources. MUSES B is the second Mu Space Engineering Satellite; the first was the MUSES A (Hiten) probe which pioneered use of advanced orbital dynamics and aerobraking. This was the first launch of the Japanese ISAS agency's three stage solid fuel M-V (Mu-5) rocket. M-V-1 was launched from the Kagoshima Space Center (I don't know if the launch pad has a specific designation). The M-14 first stage separated 25s after launch, followed by the M-24 second stage at T+3min:33s. The M-34 third stage continued the ascent, separating at 5min 39sec after spinning up the payload section. The KM-V1 solid kick motor ignited to raise apogee, and separated 8 minutes after launch to leave Haruka in a 233 x 21527 km x 31.2 deg orbit. On-board RCS burns will raise the perigee over the next week. The KM-V1 motor (1997-05B) is in a 230 x 21452 km x 31.3 deg orbit. The M-34 stage may have reached orbit with a similar perigee and a lower apogee, but it has not yet been cataloged by Space Command. All four of the stages involved in this launch had never flown before, so this was a crucial test for the ISAS launch vehicle group. The Haruka satellite is also given the English acronym HALCA (Highly Advanced Laboratory for Communications and Astronomy). Each ISAS satellite has had a prelaunch English name (like MUSES B) and a postlaunch Japanese name (like Haruka). Unfortunately, starting with ASTRO D, ISAS also began to assign homophonic 'English equivalents' of the Japanese name and use only these in English publications, thus ASTRO D is widely known as ASCA (Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics) rather than Asuka, its Japanese equivalent. This is presumably because ISAS scientists got quite reasonably fed up with Americans completely mangling the Japanese names of their satellites. However, I find the English homophones ugly, and HALCA in particular is kind of dumb - so I plan to use the Haruka name. The GPS satellite lost on Jan 17 was SVN (Space Vehicle No.) 42, the second GPS IIR production satellite. It would have used the identifier PRN 12 if it had been successful. (Info from Richard Langley). Prior to the accident, the schedule foresaw the next launch as SVN 38, the last Block IIA satellite, followed by SVN 43 (GPS IIR No. 3). Despite my comment last week, the GE 2 orbit I quoted was a true orbital measurement, according to my sources. Ariane V93's final stage entered a 210 x 35800 km x 7.0 deg orbit before deploying the two satellites and the Mini-Spelda adapter cover, and then performed an avoidance maneuver to enter a 236 x 36066 km orbit. GE Americom's GE 2 is now on station at 82.4W and Nahuelsat's Nahuel 1A is stationary at 72.2W. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jan 12 0928 Atlantis Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 01A Jan 17 1628 GPS 42 Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17A Navsat FTO Jan 30 2204 GE 2 ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 02A Nahuel 1A) Comsat 02B Feb 10 1409 Soyuz TM-25 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 03A Feb 11 0855 Discovery STS-82 Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 04A Feb 12 0450 Haruka M-V Kagoshima Astronomy 05A Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 1 STS-83 Apr 3 OV-103 Discovery LEO STS-82 Feb 11 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-84 May 15 OV-105 Endeavour Palmdale OMDP ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/ ML2/ ML3/RSRM-59/ET-84 VAB Bay 1 STS-83 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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/QEDT/jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html | | Back issues: ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'