Jonathan's Space Report No. 277 1996 Feb 21 Cambridge, MA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Editorial --------- I'll be away on travel until Mar 3, and won't be able to follow the details of the Soyuz TM-23 flight and the forthcoming STS-75 flight. Normal service will resume after I return - in the meantime I solicit help in recording times of events such as TM-23 docking and STS-75 tether deploy. Shuttle ------- The next Shuttle mission is STS-75/Columbia, due on Feb 22. Mir --- Launch of the EO-21 crew, Yuriy Ivanovich Onufrienko and Yuriy Vladimirovich Usachyov (callsign Skif-1 and Skif-2) took place on Feb 21. At 1300 UTC Soyuz TM-23 was in a 200 x 233 km x 51.6 deg orbit. It was expected to dock with Mir on Feb 23. The new crew will replace Gidzenko, Avdeev and Reiter who are due to return to Earth on Feb 29. Recent Launches -------------- A Raduga comsat built by NPO Prikladnoi Mekhaniki was launched using a Proton rocket from Baykonur on Feb 19. The three-stage Proton-K launch vehicle entered a 185 km circular orbit inclined at 51.6 deg to the equator. The Raduga and the Blok-DM2 upper stage separated from the Proton-K's third stage, and the Blok-DM2 ignited for its first burn, placing the spacecraft in a 241 x 36502 km x 48.6 deg transfer orbit. The Blok-DM2 should have restarted six hours later at apogee to circularize the orbit at geostationary altitude, but this did not occur, and the payload separated in transfer orbit. This is the first failure of a Blok-DM2 stage since Feb 1988, when three Glonass/Uragan satellites were stranded in low orbit. Six small comsats were launched by a Tsiklon-3 rocket from Plesetsk on Feb 19. Three of the satellites replenished the existing Strela military network, while three were the new Gonets civilian variant. The satellites were placed in 1400 km circular orbits with an inclination of 82.6 deg. Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jan 11 0941 Endeavour Shuttle Kennedy LC39 Spaceship 01A Jan 12 2310 Panamsat 3R ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 02A Measat 1 ) Comsat 02B Jan 14 1111 Koreasat 2 Delta 7925 Canaveral LC17B Comsat 03A Jan 14 1132 OAST-Flyer OV105, LEO Science 01B Jan 16 1533 Kosmos-2327 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Navsat 04A Jan 25 0956 Gorizont Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur LC200 Comsat 05A Feb 1 0115 Palapa C-1 Atlas IIAS Canaveral LC36B Comsat 06A Feb 5 0719 N-STAR b Ariane 44P Kourou ELA2 Comsat 07A Feb 14 1901 Intelsat 708 Chang Zheng 3B Xichang Comsat FTO Feb 17 2043 NEAR Delta 7925-8 Canaveral LC17B Space probe 08A Feb 19 0100? Gonets-D1 ) 09A? Gonets-D1 ) 09B? Gonets-D1 ) Tsiklon-3 Plesetsk Comsats 09C? Kosmos-2328) 09D? Kosmos-2329) 09E? Kosmos-2330) 09F? Feb 19 0830? Raduga Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur Comsat 10A Feb 21 1234 Soyuz TM-23 Soyuz-U2 Baykonur Spaceship 11A Payloads no longer in orbit -------------------------- Jan 20 Endeavour Landed at KSC Current Shuttle Processing Status ____________________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia LC39B STS-75 Feb 22 OV-103 Discovery Palmdale OMDP OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 1 STS-76 Mar 21 OV-105 Endeavour KSC RW15 STS-77 May 16 ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks ML1/RSRM-54/ VAB Bay 1 STS-77 ML2/RSRM-46/ET-77 VAB Bay 3 STS-76 ML3/RSRM-53/ET-76/OV-102 LC39B STS-75 .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS6 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/QEDT/jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html | | ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'