Jonathan's Space Report No. 178 1993 Dec 17 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shuttle ------- STS-61: The fifth and final spacewalk was carried out on Dec 9, with depressurization at 0326 UT and repress at 1050 UT for a duration of 7h 24 m. During the EVA, Musgrave (on the robot arm) and Hoffmann (free-floating) changed out the Solar Array Drive Electronics (SADE) and manually deployed the solar array masts from the side of the telescope. They next repaired the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph and added covers to the magnetometers. Finally, the astronauts removed the MFR (Manipulator Foot Restraint) from the robot RMS arm. As the astronauts were preparing to enter the airlock, the solar panels were unrolled from the array masts. The next day, at 0744 UT on Dec 10, the RMS arm grappled the Hubble Space Telescope and at 0756 it was lifted off the Berthing and Positioning System on the Flight Support Station in the cargo bay. At 0937 the HST aperture door was opened and at 1026.50 UT the arm released HST into orbit again. Separation burns were carried out at 1027 and 1057 and the RMS arm was berthed. The deorbit burn came at 0414 UT on Dec 13, with reentry at 0454 and main gear touchdown on runway 33 at Kennedy Space Center at 0525.33. The active NASA astronauts with the most flight hours are now: Story Musgrave (858 hr in 5 flights), Shannon Lucid (838 hr in 4 flights), Jeff Hoffmann (834 hr in 4), John Blaha (789 hr in 4), and Bonnie Dunbar (761 hr in 3 flights). The next flight is STS-60, scheduled for launch on Feb 3. Discovery will carry Spacehab 2 and the Wake Shield Facility, and will include Russian cosmonaut Sergey Krikalyov on the crew. Trivia ------ On Dec 11 at Sotheby's in New York a number of items from the Soviet space program were auctioned. Ivan Ivanovich, the dummy launched aboard a Vostok test flight, went for $170k; Sergey Korolev's slide rule went for $21k; a few grains of moonrock went for $400k. Among the more interesting items were the Merkur-TKS descent module from the Kosmos-1443 military spaceship, and the film return capsule from Salyut-5. Alas, everything turned out to be beyond the reach of my credit card, but it was a fun trip anyway... Launches -------- The first Atlas Centaur IIAS, AC-108, with four Castor IVA strap on solid boosters, was launched from Cape Canaveral on Dec 16. This is the first time strap on solid rockets have been used on the Atlas, although the technique has been used on Thor and Thor Delta vehicles since 1963. The Thiokol Castor IVA rockets were used on Delta 6925 rockets launched from 1989 to 1992; the current Delta 7925 uses GEM strapons made by Hercules Aerospace. The Atlas IIAS is otherwise the same as the Atlas IIA, and has the same Centaur IIA second stage. All 7 Atlas II series launches have been successful, despite recent problems with the older Atlas I. The payload of AC-108 was AT&T Skynet Satellite Services' Telstar 401. This satellite is the first GE 7000 series satellite, built by Martin Marietta Astro Space (formerly GE, formerly RCA...). The satellite carries 24 C-band and 16 Ku-band communications transponders. AT&T was the first commerical company to launch its own satellite, the Telstar I satellite in 1962. Telstar satellite launches: Telstar I 1962 Jul 10 Telstar II 1963 May 7 Telstar 301 1983 Jul 28 Telstar 302 1984 Sep 1 Telstar 303 1985 Jun 17 Telstar 401 1993 Dec 16 Date Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Nov 2 1210 Kosmos-2266 Kosmos Plesetsk LC132 Navsat 70A Nov 5 0825 Kosmos-2267 Soyuz Baykonur LC1 Recon 71A Nov 18 1355 Rimsat/Gorizont Proton Baykonur LC81 Comsat 72A Nov 20 0117 Solidaridad 1 ) Ariane Kourou ELA2 Comsat 73A Meteosat 6 ) Weather 73B Nov 28 2340 DSCS III Atlas Centaur Canaveral LC36 Comsat 74A Dec 2 0927 Endeavour Shuttle Kennedy LC39 Spaceship 75A Dec 8 0048 NATO IVB Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17 Comsat 76A Dec 16 0040 Telstar 401 Atlas Centaur Canaveral LC36 Comsat 77A Reentries --------- Nov 20 Kosmos-808 Reentered Nov 21 Progress M-20 Deorbited Dec 13 Endeavour Landed Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 2 STS-62 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 3 STS-60 OV-104 Atlantis Palmdale OMDP OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-59 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-36? VAB Bay 1 STS-62 ML2/ ML3/RSRM-35?/ET? VAB Bay 3 STS-60 .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS4 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | | '-----------------------------------------------------------------------------'