Jonathan's Space Report No. 167 1993 Sep 10 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shuttle ------- Launch of Discovery on mission STS-51 is now due for Sep 12. Meanwhile, several new crews have been selected for 1994 missions. Of particular interest is the crew for STS-63: it includes the first woman to fly as a pilot on an American space mission, Eileen Collins. She is thus likely to become the first woman ever to command a spaceflight crew on a later mission (pilot astronauts usually fly one or two missions in the pilot seat before being given the command seat). Also on the crew is Vladimir Titov, who will become the second Russian to fly on the Shuttle, and the first serving Russian military officer to do so. Mir --- The Expedition 14 crew of Vasiliy Tsibliev and Aleksandr Serebrov continue in orbit aboard the Mir complex. Aviation Week reports that a Perseid left a visible hole in one of the solar panels. There was no damage to the pressurized sections of the station. The Progress M-19 cargo ferry and the Soyuz TM-17 transport ship remain docked to the station. On Sep 2, Progress M-17 was still in orbit almost a month after its undocking from the station, in a test of the longevity of its onboard systems. Other Missions ------------------ Mars Observer remains silent, probably in solar orbit as it now seems unlikely that the MOI burn happened. The Galileo probe flew 2400 km from minor planet (243) Ida at 1622 UTC on Aug 28. To add to the loss in recent weeks of Mars Observer, NOAA-13, Hipparcos, and the Titan 4, I omitted to report on the loss of ESA's Olympus comsat. The satellite lost attitude control during the Perseid shower. It was later recovered, but had used up so much fuel it had to be moved out of geostationary orbit and turned off. Also, the Alexis satellite went silent again in August, but, thank goodness, they now have it back and returning data (phew!). Launches -------- Two successful US expendable launches happened recently: McDonnell Douglas launched a Delta 2 with another Navstar navigation satellite for the USAF; and General Dynamics launched an Atlas I Centaur with a Hughes HS-601 communications satellite (UHF Follow On) for the US Navy. The first UHF Follow On (UFO) satellite was left in the wrong orbit earlier in the year; the last two successful Atlas launches are a hopeful sign for General Dynamics after a less than ideal launch record in recent years. Delta 2's launch record remains perfect. A Ukranian-built Tsiklon launch vehicle was launched from the Russian Plesetsk spaceport on Aug 31. The rocket's main payload was a Meteor-2 weather satellite, built by VNII Elektromekhaniki. Aboard as a piggyback payload is the Temisat (Telespazio Micro Satellite) built by the German company Kayser-Threde for the Italian company Telespazio. The 30 kg microsatellite will relay environmental data from field sites. Date Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Aug 2 1959 Adv NOSS 3? Titan 403 Vandenberg Recon FTO Aug 4 0052 Molniya-3 Molniya Plesetsk Comsat 49A Aug 8 1002 NOAA 13 Atlas 34E Vandenberg Weather 50A Aug 10 1500? Kosmos-2261 Molniya Plesetsk Early Warn 51A Aug 10 2224 Progress M-19 Soyuz Baykonur Cargo 52A Aug 24 1050? Resurs-F Soyuz Plesetsk Remote s. 53A Aug 30 1238 Navstar GPS 35 Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17 Navigation 54A Aug 31 0450? Meteor-2 ) Tsiklon Plesetsk Weather 55A Temisat ) 55C Sep 3 1117 UHF F2 Atlas I Canaveral LC36 Comsat Reentries --------- Aug 5 Kosmos-2260 Landed Aug 18 Molniya-3 (22) Reentered Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission OV-102 Columbia VAB Bay 3 STS-58 OV-103 Discovery LC39B STS-51 OV-104 Atlantis Palmdale OMDP OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-61 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-34/ET-57/OV-102 VAB Bay 3 STS-58 ML2/RSRM-23/ VAB Bay 1 STS-61 ML3/RSRM-33/ET-59/OV-103 LC39B STS-51 .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'