Jonathan's Space Report Nov 3 1990 (no.58) ---------------------------------------------------- Atlantis and Columbia have passed their tanking tests, but the Atlantis launch has been delayed until at least late November because of problems with the AFP-658 recon satellite. Meanwhile, European observers have recovered the AFP-731 recon satellite launched on Atlantis' last mission. It is now in an 800 km high orbit at 65 degrees inclination. (Thanks to Ted Molczan for this information). Gennadiy Manakov and Gennadiy Strekalov continue in orbit aboard the Mir/Kvant/Kvant-2/Kristall/Soyuz TM-10/Progress M-5 complex. The spacewalk has been delayed because Strekalov has a cold. INMARSAT (the International Maritime Satellite Organization) launched the Inmarsat II F-1 communications satellite on a Delta 6925 from Canaveral on Oct 30. The satellite will be used for communications by ships and airplanes. This is the first Inmarsat II satellite; there were no Inmarsat I satellites, since Inmarsat leased sats from other organizations in the first phase of its existence (the Marisat satellites from Comsat General Corp, USA, and the MARECS satellites from the European Space Agency). The final stage of the Chang Zheng 4 launch vehicle used to orbit the Feng Yun 1B weather satellite has exploded into over 50 fragments. ___________________________________ |Current STS status: | |Orbiters | | | |OV-102 Columbia LC39B | |OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1 | |OV-104 Atlantis LC39A | | | |ML/ET/SRB stacks | | | |ML1/STS-38/ET/OV104 LC39A | |ML2 VAB | |ML3/STS-35/ET/OV102 LC39B | ----------------------------------- (c) 1990 Jonathan McDowell