Jonathan's Space Report Mar 29, 1989 (No. 9) The third US satellite launch of the year was carried out successfully on Mar 24. The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) Delta Star satellite was orbited by a Delta 3920 launch vehicle from Kennedy Space Center. Delta Star's mission is to detect and observe rocket launches, in order to develop antimissile weapons. Space Shuttle Mission STS-30 is on Pad 39B and due for launch at the end of April. The Magellan probe to Venus will be deployed from orbiter OV-104 Atlantis on its fourth mission. Crew are David Walker, Ron Grabe, and mission specialists Dr. Norman Thagard, Dr. Mary Cleave and Mark Lee. Dr. Cleave will be the first woman to fly in space since the Challenger accident. The Soviet Union lost contact with its Phobos-2 probe on Mar 27. Attempts continue to contact the probe, but it is not likely to be recovered. Another orbital manever had been made on Mar 15 to continue the rendezvous with the Martian moon Phobos. It had been planned to attempt a landing on Phobos in the coming weeks. Other news: Kosmos-2006, launched on Mar 14, is a medium resolution spy satellite operated by the GRU (Soviet Military Intelligence). Kosmos-2007 was launched on Mar 23. No data yet. Kosmos-2008,2009,2010,2011,2012,2013,2014, and 2015 were launched by a single Kosmos booster on Mar 24. They are believed to be small communications relay satellites used by the Soviet Navy. Space Services Inc carried out its first commercial launch of a suborbital Starfire sounding rocket on Mar 29. The payload was Consort 1, a set of materials processing experiments. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- (c) 1989 Jonathan McDowell, all rights reserved ---------------------------------------------------------------------------