Jonathan's Space Report No. 491 2002 Dec 2, Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Station -------------------- Endeavour was launched at 0049 UTC on Nov 24 on Shuttle mission STS-113. I observed MECO with the naked eye from the roof of the Harvard Observatory as the Orbiter and ET arced over the Boston skyline. STS-113 delivered the Expedition 6 crew and the P1 truss segment to the International Space Station. Two Endeavour astronauts, Mike Lopez-Alegria and John Herrington, carried out three spacewalks from the Station's Quest airlock module. The SRBs separated 2 min after launch. The OMS engines fired in the now-standard OMS assist burn during the early part of the ascent; a valve in the right OMS engine did not completely open during the burn, and it was decided to use only the left OMS engine for later burns. The main engines cut off 8 min after launch at 0058 UTC and the ET separated, with both ET and orbiter in a 59 x 232 km x 51.6 deg orbit. At 0127 UTC the ET and Endeavour reached apogee and Endeavour fired the left OMS engine for 5 minutes to raise its perigee. The ET fell back down for reentry over the Pacific. Endeavour docked with the International Space Station on Nov 25 at 2159 UTC. The Orbiter RMS grappled the P1 truss in its cargo bay at 1501 UTC on Nov 26 and unberthed it at 1522 UTC. The Station SSRMS grappled P1 at 1641 UTC and the Orbiter RMS released it at 1650 UTC, completing the first robot arm handover of a station segment. The SSRMS moved P1 to the end of the S0 truss and connected it between 1836 and 1848 UTC. Lopez-Alegria and Herrington made the first spacewalk on Nov 26 from the Quest airlock. Depressurization was around 1945 UTC, with hatch open at 1947 UTC and egress of Lopez-Alegria at 2000 UTC, with Herrington following a few minutes later. The astronauts attached the P1/S0 umbilicals, removed the P1 drag links and the CETA-B cart's launch restraints. They also installed more SPD disconnects on the ammonia lines, and attached a TV camera to the truss. The astronauts reentered the airlock between 0206 and 0216 UTC on Nov 27 and closed the hatch at 0229 UTC. Repressurization was at 0235 UTC for a duration of 6h50m (depress/repress), 6h42m (hatch open/close), or 6h45m (by NASA rules). EVA-2 began on Nov 28 with depressurization at about 1831 UTC and hatch open around 1833 UTC. The astronauts went to EMU battery power at 1836 UTC and emerged from Quest at about 1845 UTC. They removed P1 keel pins and installed TV cameras, and moved the CETA-2 cart from P1 to S1. Hatch was closed at 0041 UTC with repress at 0046 UTC for a duration of about 6h15m (depress/repress), 6h08m (hatch open/close) or 6h10m (NASA rules). On Nov 30 the Mobile Transporter was moved from worksite 4 on S0 to worksite 7 at the end of P1. Motion began at 1621 UTC but the MT got stuck a few meters short of its goal, foiling plans to use it as a base for the SSRMS arm during the spacewalk. EVA-3 began with depressurization at 1921 UTC and hatch open at 1924 UTC. The astronauts went to battery power at 1925 UTC. Herrington deployed the P1 UHF antenna which was blocking the MT's path and the MT finally reached its destination at 0011 UTC. The astronauts returned to Quest at 0215 UTC, closing the hatch at 0222 UTC and beginning repressurization at 0225 UTC for a duration of 7h04m (depress/repress), 6h58m (hatch open/close), or 7h00m (NASA rules). During the spacewalk, the astronauts installed more fixes to the Station's ammonia line connectors. Recent Launches --------------- The Astra 1K satellite was launched on an International Launch Services/Krunichev Proton-K with an Energiya Blok DM3 upper stage on Nov 25. The Proton-K entered a -744 x 183 km x 51.6 deg suborbital trajectory and separated from the DM3. The DM3 made an orbit insertion burn to reach a 175 km circular orbit at 2321 UTC. A further two burns were planned, but the Blok DM3 failed to reignite and Astra 1K was stranded in the parking orbit. USAF Space Command/US Strategic Command is reporting two objects in low orbit, which it is calling "Astra 1K" and "Block DM-SL R/B". In fact, the upper stage is not a Block DM-SL (Sea Launch variant), it is a Block DM-2M in its commercial DM3 variant. Based on the Space Command data, Astra 1K maneuvered from a 156 x 171 km orbit to a 146 x 299 km orbit at about 2200 UTC on Nov 26 (according to analysis by B. Gimle); then another orbit raise to 218 x 307 km. A further burn at 1332 UTC on Nov 27 put it in a 217 x 362 km orbit, and by Dec 1 the orbit was 257 x 308 km. This will keep the satellite in orbit for a few more days while its owners develop a plan to use onboard propulsion to deorbit the satellite in a safe way over an empty bit of ocean. The 2500 kg Blok DM reentered over the Washington/Oregon area at 1415 UTC on Nov 28; its fuel was vented on the day of launch. Astra 1K is an Alcatel Spacebus 3000B3S satellite (SB4000 bus but with older SB 3000B3 avionics). Launch mass was 5250 kg; it has 52 Ku-band and 2 Ka-band channels. The craft uses an Astrium S400 liquid apogee engine. Astra 1K was to replace Astra 1B, and provide extra capacity for eastern Europe. It also carries Ka-band capacity to back up Astra 1H. The Ku-band 10.7-11.7 GHz payload provides pan-European coverage. Beams were designed to cover UK/Ireland, continental Europe, and European CIS. The Astra satellites are operated by SES, based in Luxembourg. Three small payloads, AlSAT-1, Mozhaets, and Rubin-3-DSI, were launched at 0607 UTC on Nov 28 by a Kosmos-3M rocket from pad 132/1 at Plesetsk. They were placed in a northbound marginally suborbital transfer trajectory of about -60 x 805 km x 98 deg at 0614 UTC and then coasted up to about 700 km where the Kosmos-3M second stage reignited to circularize the orbit at 681 x 742 km x 98.2 deg. The AlSAT-1 and Mozhaets satellites separated from the second stage at 0641 UTC; Rubin-3-DSI remains attached to the second stage. This is the second sun-synchronous launch by the Kosmos-3M. According to M. Meerman of SSTL, the trajectory involves a dog-leg to avoid flying towards Alaska while still using their standard first stage drop zone, and an earlier than usual fairing separation which causes higher heating loads than a normal launch. AlSAT-1 is a 90 kg Earth observation satellite built by Surrey Satellite for the CNTS (Centre National des Techniques Spatiales) in Algiers. It is the first satellite in an international Disaster Monitoring Constellation which will provide space imaging support to disaster relief agencies. It carries a 32-m resolution 3-band imager, a 100 mN resistojet thruster for small orbit corrections, and a GPS receiver. The SSTL Microsat-100 class satellite is a 0.60m cube with a 6m gravity gradient boom. As well as gravity gradient stabilization, it uses a momentum wheel to improve stability for imaging. The 64 kg Mozhaets, a successor to the Zeya and Radio-ROSTO satellites, is built by NPO Prikladnoi Mekhaniki of Zheleznogorsk with a payload developed by students of the Mozhaisky military academy in Sankt-Peterburg. It may be based on the Strela-1M small communications satellite bus. It includes a GLONASS/GPS receiver, a particle detector, and an amateur radio payload. Rubin-3-DSI, with a mass of 45 kg, was built by PO Polyot of Omsk (builders of the Kosmos-3M) and OHB System of Bremen. It measures the launch vehicle environment and performance (Some of this information was taken from the web site www.cosmoworld.ru/spaceencyclopedia/hotnews; thanks to Audrey Nice of SSTL for info on AlSAT). Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Oct 7 1946 Atlantis ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 47A S1 ) Station module Oct 15 1820 Foton-M Soyuz-U Plesetsk LC43/3 Micrograv F02 Oct 17 0441 Integral Proton-K Baykonur LC81/23 Astronomy 48A Oct 27 0317 ZY-2 CZ-4B Taiyuan Imaging 49A Oct 30 0311 Soyuz TMA-1 Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 50A Nov 20 2239 Eutelsat W5 Delta 4M+(4,2) Canaveral SLC37B Comms 51A Nov 24 0049 Endeavour ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 52A P1 ) Station module Nov 25 2304 Astra 1K Proton-K Baykonur LC81/23 Comms 53A Nov 28 0607 AlSAT-1 ) Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132/1 Imaging 54A Mozhaets ) Technology 54B Rubin-3-DSI ) Technology 54C Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF STS-107 2003 Jan 16 Spacehab OV-103 Discovery OPF Maintenance OV-104 Atlantis OPF STS-114 2003 Mar 1 ISS ULF1 OV-105 Endeavour LEO/ISS STS-113 2002 Nov 24 ISS 11A .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS6 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@cfa.harvard.edu | | USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html | | Back issues: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: mail majordomo@head-cfa.harvard.edu, (un)subscribe jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'