The following is the most recent news release relating to the next few Space Shuttle missions. Those interested can subscribe to these regular e-mail status reports by following the directions at the bottom of this post. The STS-99 mission will launch northeastward at a 57 degree inclination -- the highest inclination safely possible from the Kennedy Space Center (and hence by the Space Shuttle since KSC is its only launch site). All Shuttle-Mir missions were launched at a 51.6 degree orbital inclination to the northeast as will all Shuttle-ISS missions in the foreseeable future. (Archives of information about past Space Shuttle missions may be found at: http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/missions.html). Higher inclination orbits by other spacecraft launched from the United States are usually achieved by either launching southward from Vandenburg Air Force Base or by making fuel intensive orbital plane changing maneuvers if launched from other sites. Joey Fagan ***Below is a copy of the status report from NASA: From: "Buckingham-1, Bruce" <Bruce.Buckingham-1@kmail.ksc.nasa.gov> To: "'1 SHUTTLE-STATUS@news.ksc.nasa.gov'" <shuttle-status@news.ksc.nasa.gov> Subject: 1-14-00 status Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000 14:19:28 -0500 Sender: owner-shuttle-status@niven.ksc.nasa.gov KENNEDY SPACE CENTER SPACE SHUTTLE STATUS REPORT______________ Friday, Jan. 14, 2000 (2 p.m. EST) MISSION: STS-99 - Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) VEHICLE: Endeavour/OV-105 LOCATION: Pad 39A TARGET KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: Jan. 31, 2000 at 12:47 p.m. EST TARGET KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: Feb. 11, 2000 at 4:55 p.m. EST LAUNCH WINDOW: 2 hours and 2 minutes MISSION DURATION: 11 days and 4 hours CREW: Kregel, Gorie, Kavandi, Voss, Mohri, Thiele ORBITAL ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 126 nautical miles/57 degrees <----*** Work in progress: Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test activities concluded today at about 11 a.m. A planned Y2K end-to-end test was conducted in parallel with TCDT activities and concludes later today. The test will confirm that all ground, flight and vehicle systems performed as expected. The six-member flight crew departs KSC at about 2:35 p.m. today headed for Ellington Field in Houston, TX. At the launch pad, workers are preparing for Saturday's prelaunch fuel loading operations. Endeavour's aft compartment close-outs began yesterday and will proceed into next week. Endeavour's payload bay doors will be opened Monday to accommodate cable rerouting for an onboard orbiter camera. Also, spacesuit checks are scheduled early next week. Processing Milestones (target dates only): Prelaunch propellant loading concludes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(Jan.15) Flight Readiness Review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(Jan. 18) Ordnance installation begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(Jan. 24) Flight crew equipment stowage begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Jan. 25) Launch Coundown begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Jan. 28 at 5:30 p.m.) MISSION: STS-101 - 3rd ISS Flight (2A.2) - SPACEHAB DM VEHICLE: Atlantis/OV-104 LOCATION: Orbiter Processing Facility bay 3 TARGET KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: no earlier than April 13, 2000 TARGET KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: April 24, 2000 LAUNCH WINDOW: 5-10 minutes MISSION DURATION: 10 days and 19 hours CREW: Halsell, Horowitz, Weber, Lu, Williams, Malenchenko and Morukov ORBITAL ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 173 nautical miles/51.6 degrees Work in progress: Yesterday, Shuttle managers announced that the launch of Shuttle Atlantis will occur no earlier than April 13. The additional time allows ground crews at KSC to complete routine processing milestones, and accommodates extensive wiring inspections and repair. Main landing gear wheel and tire assembly installation concludes today. MISSION: STS-92 - 4th ISS Flight (3A) - Z-1 Truss, PMA-3 VEHICLE: Discovery /OV-103 LOCATION: OPF bay 1 TARGET KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: No earlier than June 14, 2000 at 8:42 p.m. EDT TARGET KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: June 24, 2000 at 5:10 p.m. EDT LAUNCH WINDOW: 10 minutes MISSION DURATION: 10 days CREW: Duffy, Melroy, Wakata, Chiao, Wisoff, Lopez-Alegria and McArthur ORBITAL ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 173 nautical miles/51.6 degrees Work in progress: Hypergolic deservicing of the orbiter maneuvering system is ongoing. Inspection of Discovery's nose landing gear is complete and main landing gear work begins next week. -- end -- For automatic e-mail subscriptions to this Shuttle status report or KSC originated press releases, send an Internet electronic mail message to domo@news.ksc.nasa.gov . In the body of the message (not the subject line) type the words "subscribe shuttle-status", or "subscribe ksc-press-release" (do not use quotation marks). The system will reply with a confirmation via e-mail of each subscription. Status reports and other NASA publications are available on the World Wide Web at: http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/kscpao.htm . Information about the countdown and mission can be accessed electronically via the Internet at: http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/countdown/ and at http://shuttle.nasa.gov/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Jan 15 2000 - 09:38:03 PST