Jonathan's Space Report No. 439 2000 Nov 26, Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Pedants' Millenium ---------------------- As I'm sure you're all aware, the new century and the new millenium are only a few weeks away. In the spirit of true pedantry, I note that Millenium Eve, by the Julian calendar in use at the last millenium - i.e., prid. Kal. Ian. A.D. 2001 (O.S.), or 31 Dec 2000 (O.S.) in modern notation, - occurs on Saturday 2001 Jan 13 (N.S.) on the modern Gregorian calendar. Any readers in the Boston area are invited to my Millenium Eve party on that date, email for details. To all the other pedants out there, very best wishes for the coming new century. Shuttle and Stations -------------------- The Expedition One crew remains aboard Space Station Alpha. The Progress M1-4 cargo ship was launched at 0132:36 UTC on Nov 16. The vehicle is probably spacecraft Progress M1 No. 253. Progress M1-4 made rendezvous with the Station on Nov 18. After problems with the automatic system, Gidzenko took over manual control with the remote TORU system at 0302 UTC. After one failed attempt when M1-4 got to only 5m from docking at 0309 UTC, docking was successfully achieved at 0348 UTC at Zarya's nadir port. The problem with the TORU system is that the TV camera on the Progress, which Gidzenko uses to steer the vehicle with, is not that great and tends to ice up quickly when the Progress is in shadow. Issue 9/2000 of Novosti Kosmonavtiki, which just arrived here, has an interesting article on the history of the Zvezda Service Module which reports that the main hull of the Service Module was built as early as 1985, when it was thought that the vehicle - DOS-7K No. 8 - would form the core of a Mir-2 space station. Zvezda's forward section is the PKhO (Perekhodniy Otsek, transfer compartment) with three passive SSVP-M G8000 docking ports, one on the axis (docked to Zarya), one zenith and one nadir, plus a side airlock hatch for spacewalks. Behind PKhO is the RO (Rabochiy Otsek, working compartment) with 2.9m and 4.1m diameter sections. The small section carries the two large solar arrays. Further back is the AO (Agregatniy Otsek, equipment module) with the main ODU twin S5.79 engines. Inside the AO is is the smaller cylinder of the PK, (Promezhutochnaya kamera), the tunnel leading to the SSVP G4000 aft passive docking port used for Soyuz and Progress. The next Shuttle launch, STS-97, will carry the P6 truss element to the Station. P6 consists of a solar array wing, an Integrated Electronics Assembly (IEA) section with a thermal radiator for the solar wing, and the Long Spacer (LS) truss segment with two thermal radiators for the Destiny module (which will follow on a later flight). P6 will be installed on the +Z end of the Z1 truss; later in assembly it will be moved to the end of the port truss. Current Launches ---------------- Arianespace launched an Ariane 5, vehicle 507, flight V135, on Nov 16 at 0107 UTC. The PAS 1R, STRV 1c/1d, and AMSAT Phase 3D satellites were placed in orbit. The EPS stage entered geostationary transfer orbit at 0134 UTC, followed by separation of the PAS 1R main payload. The two small STRV cubes were then ejected from the ASAP-5 secondary payload structure at 0141 UTC. At 0149 UTC the SBS cylindrical adapter which connected PAS-1R to AMSAT was jettisoned; 50 seconds later AMSAT separated from the EPS. I believe the ASAP-5 remains attached to the EPS, but Space Command has cataloged an object they identify as the ASAP. PAS 1R will be stationed over the Atlantic. It is a large Boeing Model 702 satellite with a dry mass of about 3000 kg (launch mass 4793 kg) and a solar panel span of 45m. It carries 36 C and 48 Ku-band transponders. PAS 1R is operated by Panamsat, whose fleet includes the former Hughes Galaxy system. Meanwhile, the Model 601 Galaxy 7 satellite failed on Nov 22, the third such satellite to fall victim to a design flaw in the on-board computers. STRV-1c and 1d are small satellites built by the DERA (former Royal Aircraft Establishment), Farnborough, England. Mass around 95 kg each. STRV-1c performs accelerated life testing of new components and materials in the high radiation environment of GTO. STRV-1d carries an NRL Space Test Program experiment (S97-2), a camera, and technology and computer experiments. The long-delayed Phase 3D amateur radio satellite, built by AMSAT-DL (Germany), was renamed AMSAT-Oscar-40 (AO-40) once launched. It carries an MBB S400 liquid engine (actually the backup engine for the Galileo Jupiter probe) and a variety of amateur radio payloads in L, S, C, X, V, U and K bands, as well as an ammonia arcjet thruster and a laser communications experiment. The satellite is the largest amateur satellite yet and the first to feature deployable solar panels. Mass is 397 kg dry. Just a few days later Arianespace launched an Ariane 44L with Anik F1, a new Telesat Canada communications satellite. Anik F1 is a Boeing model 702 satellite. Launch mass is 4852 kg and dry mass is 2950 kg; it carries 36 C-band and 48 Ku-band transponders. Telesat Canada became the first domestic comsat operator with the launch of Anik A1 in 1972. Navstar GPS SVN41, the sixth Block IIR navigation satellite, was launched on Nov 10 into transfer orbit by a Boeing Delta 7925. The Delta stage 2 entered a 153 x 418 km x 37 deg parking orbit followed by a 172 x 1144 km second orbit; the PAM-D solid upper stage then fired to give SVN 41 a 20457 km apogee. The GPS Block 2R satellites are built by Lockheed Martin and use a Thiokol Star 37FM solid kick motor. The kick motor was fired prior to Nov 13 to enter a circular 20000 km orbit. Another Delta launch on Nov 21 was a model 7320-10 from the West Coast pad, complex 2-West at Vandenberg. The main payload was the Earth Orbiter 1 satellite for NASA's New Millenium Program. Complementing the New Millenium's Deep Space series, EO-1 is a NASA-Goddard satellite which demonstrates technology for the next generation Landsat. It flies in formation with Landsat-7 for comparisons, using a hydrazine thruster to adjust its orbit. The satellite uses a MIDEX-derived bus built by Swales Aerospace; dry mass is 566 kg. The main instruments are ALI (Advanced Land Imager) and the Hyperion 220-band imaging spectrometer. The second main payload launched with EO-1 is SAC-C, the Satelite de Aplicaciones Cientificas C developed by the Argentine space agency CONAE and built by the Argentine company INVAP. The 467 kg satellite carries a battery of earth observing instruments and will focus on Argentine forestry and agriculture studies. SAC-C carries a NASA experiment which uses the distortion of GPS signals observed near the horizon to derive atmospheric conditions. The Delta took off from SLC-2W at 1824 UTC on Nov 21. At 1835 the Delta second stage completed its first burn and entered a 185 x 713 km x 98.2 deg transfer orbit. At 1920 UTC the orbit was circularized and EO-1 separated at 1925 UTC into a 682 x 729 km x 98.2 deg orbit. The DPAF dual payload support structure, derived from Ariane's SPELDA, was then ejected to reveal SAC-C. After a further Delta burn SAC-C was ejected at 1955 UTC into a 687 x 707 km x 98.3 deg. A fourth burn put the Delta second stage in a 697 x 1800 km x 95.4 deg; the small 6 kg Munin nanosatellite was then ejected from the side of the stage. Munin was built by Swedish students in collaboration with the Swedish Insitute for Space Physics (IRF) and carries a particle detector, a spectrometer, and an auroral camera. A Kosmos-3M launch failed on Nov 20, with the loss of the QuickBird 1 satellite. This is a heavy blow to EarthWatch Inc. whose other satellite, EarlyBird, failed after a few days in orbit in Dec 1997. EarthWatch's rival, SpaceImaging, lost one satellite too but its second Ikonos is operating in orbit. QuickBird1 was a 1-m resolution imaging satellite using a Ball Aerospace BCP-2000 bus. The Kosmos-3M second stage placed QuickBird 1 in a 81 x 614 km x 65.8 deg orbit but apparently failed to restart at apogee, and reentered at the next perigee over S America. Launch was around 2300 UTC. Kosmos-2306 reentered on Oct 30; all the objects released from it reentered by Oct 29. Kosmos-2373, the Kometa mapping satellite, landed on Nov 14. Deorbit burn was probably around 2230 UTC; the Vostok/Zenit-style sphere landed near Orenburg in Russia at 2253 UTC. The Chinese Beidou 1 navigation satellite has entered geostationary orbit, possibly at around 0500 UTC on Nov 6, and is now on station at 140 deg E. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Oct 1 2200 GE-1A Proton-K/DM3 Baykonur LC81L Commsat 59A Oct 6 2300 N-SAT-110 Ariane 42L Kourou ELA2 Commsat 60A Oct 9 0538 HETE-2 Pegasus Kwajalein RW06/24 Astronomy 61A Oct 11 2317 Discovery Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 62A Oct 13 1412 Kosmos-2374 ) Proton-K/DM-2 Baykonur Navsat 63A Kosmos-2375 ) Navsat 63B Kosmos-2376 ) Navsat 63C Oct 16 2127 Progress M-43 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 64A Oct 20 0039 DSCS III B11 Atlas IIA Canaveral SLC36A Commsat 65A Oct 20? K-2306 subsat 7 ) Kosmos-2306, LEO Calib 95-08N K-2306 subsat 8 ) Calib 95-08P K-2306 subsat 9 ) Calib 95-08Q K-2306 subsat 10) Calib 95-08R K-2306 subsat 11) Calib 95-08S K-2306 subsat 12) Calib 95-08T K-2306 subsat 13) Calib 95-08U K-2306 subsat 14) Calib 95-08V K-2306 subsat 15) Calib 95-08W K-2306 subsat 16) Calib 95-08X K-2306 subsat 17) Calib 95-08Y K-2306 subsat 18) Calib 95-08Z K-2306 subsat 19) Calib 95-08AA Oct 21 0552 Thuraya 1 Zenit-3SL Odyssey, POR Commsat 66A Oct 21 2200 GE 6 Proton-K/DM3 Baykonur LC81L Commsat 67A Oct 29 0559 Europe*Star FM1 Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Commsat 68A Oct 30 1602 Beidou Chang Zheng 3A Xichang LC1 Navsat 69A Oct 31 0753 Soyuz TM-31 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 70A Nov 10 1714 GPS SVN 41 Delta 7925 Canaveral SLC17A Navsat 71A Nov 16 0107 PAS 1R ) Ariane 5 Kourou ELA3 Commsat 72A AMSAT-Oscar-40) Commsat 72B STRV-1c ) Tech 72C STRV-1d ) Tech 72D Nov 16 0132 Progress M1-4 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 73A Nov 20 2300 QuickBird 1 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Imaging 74A Nov 21 1824 EO-1 ) Delta 7320 Vandenberg SLC2W Imaging 75A SAC-C ) Imaging 75B Munin ) Science 75C Nov 21 2356 Anik F-1 Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Commsat 76A Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia Palmdale OMDP OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1 STS-102 2001 Feb 15 ISS 5A.1 OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-98 2001 Jan 18 ISS 5A OV-105 Endeavour VAB Bay 1 STS-97 2000 Nov 30 ISS 4A .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS6 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@cfa.harvard.edu | | USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html | | Back issues: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/back | | Subscribe/unsub: mail majordomo@head-cfa.harvard.edu, (un)subscribe jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'