Jonathan's Space Report Apr 19, 1990 (no.35) ---------------------------------------------------- The launch of orbiter Discovery and the Hubble Space Telescope has been rescheduled for Tuesday, Apr 24. Anatoli Solov'yov (Komandir) and Aleksandr Balandin (Bortinzhener) continue in orbit aboard the Mir complex. The Soyuz TM-9 transport and the Progress M-3 freighter are currently at the station. Solov'yov and Balandin have been in space for 67 days. The launch of the Kristall module has been delayed until June. The second of the two satellites retrieved by Discovery in 1984, Palapa B-2, was relaunched into orbit on Apr 13 by a Delta 6925 rocket from Cape Canaveral. (The first was Asiasat, formerly Westar 6, relaunched last week from China.) Palapa is owned by the Indonesian telecommunications agency Perumtel and will be used to relay communications and TV between the islands of the Indonesian archipelago. It is a Hughes HS-376 class comsat, and is the third Palapa B to reach stationary orbit. Palapa was owner by the insurers after recovery, and then sold to Sattel, Inc. which later sold it back to the Indonesians. (If anyone can shed light on the complicated ownership history of Westar, please let me know.) Three small DoD research satellites were launched by an Atlas E from Vandenberg on Apr 11. The Atlas carried an Altair III upper stage left over from the Scout program. (Reports that the vehicle was an "Atlas-Scout" are rather an overstatement; the Altair is the fourth stage of the Scout vehicle.) The three satellites are: Polar Orbiting Geomagnetic Survey, Transceiver Experiment, and Selective Communications Experiment. The first will map the Earth's magnetic field, while the other two will study radio communications through the ionosphere. NASA's Pegsat released its first barium canister on Apr 15. The barium spreads along the magnetic field lines, allowing the field to be traced. The Kosmos-2062 recon satellite landed on Apr 5. Eight small Soviet Navy communications relays, Kosmos-2064 to Kosmos-2071, were launched on a single Kosmos rocket on Apr 6. This is the 43rd launch of this type since the program began in 1970. A new program began in 1985, with 6 satellites at a time launched on the newer Tsiklon vehicle, and this may eventually supersede the 8-satellite program. Kosmos-2072 was launched on Apr 13. No details yet. Glavkosmos launched a Foton materials processing satellite on a two week mission on Apr 11. This is the seventh launch of a Foton (the 3rd to be officially named) and carries a French experiment among its payload. The Foton uses a Vostok spacecraft bus and carries several processing furnaces to process crystals and pharmaceutical materials. There is one flight per year, each April. Launches are from Plesetsk aboard a Soyuz rocket. Summary of previous Foton flights: ID Name Date Dur(d) Orbit (km, deg) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FotA1 Kosmos-1645 1985 Apr 16-29 13 215x390x62.8 FotA2 Kosmos-1744 1986 May 21-Jun 4 14 219x373x62.8 FotA3 Kosmos-1841 1987 Apr 24-May 8 14 218x381x62.8 FotA4 Foton 1988 Apr 14-28 14 219x374x62.8 FotA5 Foton 1989 Apr 26-May 12 16 222x378x62.8 FotA6 Foton 1990 Apr 11-* (c) 1990 Jonathan McDowell .----------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617)495-7144 | | Center for Astrophysics | uucp: husc6!harvard!cfa200!mcdowell | | 60 Garden Street | bitnet : mcdowell@cfa.bitnet | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : mcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | USA | span : cfa::mcdowell (6699::) | | | telex : 92148 SATELLITE CAM | | | FAX : (617)495-7356 | '----------------------------------------------------------------'