trial posting of Jonathan's
Walter Nissen (dk058@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)
Fri, 30 Dec 1994 13:25:17 -0500
Appended is the latest issue of a weekly which is posted on the Usenet
newsgroup sci.space.news.
I am sending it to you to solicit your opinions as to whether it should be
distributed by this list:
1) in toto
2) in part
3) weekly
4) occasionally
5) never again.
(Jonathan, please feel free to correct me if my impression that you would
welcome/tolerate/facilitate distribution here is in any way mistaken.)
Speaking personally, I found this week's issue as compared with other
recent reports neither especially interesting nor especially weak.
Obviously some reports will be of greater interest than others. I would
anticipate that reports of space operations that have been or will be
observed and reported here would be of the greatest interest, but what do
I know?
If you have access to this report elsewise, but would prefer to receive it
here, please bear in mind that there is a theoretical possibility that
some others would decide not to subscribe to SeeSat-L because of heavy
volume (a concept of a highly personal nature).
Please express your opinions.
Cheers.
---
Jonathan's Space Report
No. 225 1994 Dec 27 Cambridge, MA
Mir
On Dec 26 the Mir complex was in a 390 x 393 km x 51.6 deg orbit.
The EO-17 crew of Viktorenko, Kondakova and Polyakov continue
their mission.
Shuttle
1995 will see Phase I of ISSA (International Space Station Alpha):
the joint flights of Shuttle and Mir. The first few Shuttle/Mir flights are:
STS-63 (Feb): Adapter, Transition, Spacehab, Spartan (Rendezvous only)
STS-71 (May): Adapter, Tunnel, Docking Assembly, Spacelab Long Module
STS-74 (Oct): Adapter?, Docking Assembly, ?
STS-76 ('96): Adapter?, Transition, Spacehab.
Later flights will see docking missions involving Spacehab
modules instead of Spacelab. I'm a little confused about the
exact configuration of the hardware in the payload bay for
STS-74 and later Mir docking flights, so if anyone has a good description,
please pass it on! My *impression* from what little I have read is that
the APDA (Androgynous Peripheral Docking Assembly) will be mounted on
the Spacelab Tunnel Adapter for STS-71, but on STS-74 it will be left on
the Kristall module at Mir and later flights will just carry the
Spacelab Tunnel Adapter, which will dock directly to the APDA on
Kristall. Clarification will hopefully be forthcoming.
Errata
Ta to Russell Eberst for pointing out that the RAF test base should be
spelt Boscombe Down. Thanks also to Mark Matossian for catching another
slip - the 63.4 degree critical inclination I discussed in the piece on
Molniya stops the advance of perigee around the orbit, not the
longitudinal precession of the orbital plane as I loosely implied.
New Launches
A new launch vehicle, the Rokot, made its debut on Dec 26. The first two
stages of Rokot are the RS-18 ICBM (known in the West as the SS-19, and
developed from the Chelomei bureau's original UR-100 missile). Rokot
carries a new Briz third stage, which entered orbit with the RS-15
amateur radio satellite. The 1-m diameter, 70 kg payload uses a similar
bus to the RS-3 to RS-8 satellites, and ended up in a 1884 x 2165 km x
64.8 deg orbit. Two suborbital tests of Rokot were carried out on 1990
Nov 20 and 1991 Dec 20. 1994 saw the first successful launch of four
new launch vehicles: Japan's H-II, the US Taurus, India's PSLV and
Russia's Rokot, and several upgraded ones: the US Titan 4 Centaur,
China's Chang Zheng-3A, and the US Pegasus XL (which failed).
Martin Marietta's Titan 4 number K-14 was launched from pad 40 at Cape
Canaveral on Dec 22. The vehicle was a Titan 402 model with an Inertial
Upper Stage (IUS), and placed a TRW Defense Support Program satellite
into geostationary orbit. DSP F17 carries a wide field infrared
telescope to provide real-time warning of missile launches. It is the
fourth advanced DSP to be launched; two others went up on Titan and
another on the Shuttle. The Titan 4 places the DSP/IUS in low parking
orbit; the SRM-1 IUS first stage goes to geostationary transfer orbit;
and finally the SRM-2 fires to place itself and the DSP in
near-synchronous orbit, eliminating the need for an internal apogee
engine. This was the 4th Titan 4 mission this year, and the 11th
since 1989; one launch in 1993 was a failure.
(Thanks to Lt. Archer of Patrick AFB Public Affairs for the
Titan serial number. Serial number F17 of the DSP is conjectural;
the last three were F14, 15 and 16.)
Six small communications satellites were launched by a Ukranian-built
Tsiklon-3 launch vehicle on Dec 26 into 1400 x 1415 km x 82.5 deg
orbits. Kosmos-2299 to Kosmos-2304 will supplement the Russian Defense
Ministry's store-dump comsat network.
Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
Nov 24 0916 Kosmos-2297 Zenit-2 Baykonur LC45 SIGINT 77A
Nov 29 0254 Geo-IK Tsiklon-3 Plesetsk LC32 Geodetic 78A
Nov 29 1021 Orion 1 Atlas IIA Canaveral LC36A Comsat 79A
Nov 29 1702 DFH-3 Chang Zheng 3A Xichang Comsat 80A
Dec 1 2255 Panamsat K2 Ariane 42P Kourou ELA2 Comsat FTO
Dec 14 1421 Molniya-1T Molniya-M Plesetsk LC43 Comsat 81A
Dec 16 1200 Luch Proton-K/DM-2 Baykonur LC81 Comsat 82A
Dec 20 0511 Kosmos-2298 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Comsat 83A
Dec 22 2219 DSP F17 Titan 4/IUS Canaveral LC40 Early Warn 84A
Dec 26 0300 RS-15 Rokot Baykonur Comsat 85A
Dec 26 2227? Kosmos-2299 ) Tsiklon-3 Plesetsk LC32 Comsat 86A
Kosmos-2300 ) Comsat 86B
Kosmos-2301 ) Comsat 86C
Kosmos-2302 ) Comsat 86D
Kosmos-2303 ) Comsat 86E
Kosmos-2304 ) Comsat 86F
Reentries
Nov 14 Atlantis Landed at Edwards AFB
Dec 9 Kosmos-2238 Reentered
Current Shuttle Processing Status
Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due
OV-102 Columbia Palmdale OMDP -
OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-63 Feb 2
OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-71 May
OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-67 Mar 2
ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks
ML1/RSRM-42/ET-68 VAB Bay 3 STS-63
ML2/RSRM-43 VAB Bay 1 STS-67
ML3/
| Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 |
| Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | |
| Astrophysics | |
| 60 Garden St, MS4 | |
| Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu |
| USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu |
| JSR: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/QEDT/jcm/jsr.html |
! ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* |
---
How many pieces of humble pie should an Intel PR flack eat before
breakfast to gird himself for the day?
Answer: 3.1418
Aim for a 586, build a 586. Aim for a Pentium, build a 585.96.