The Space Report ("JSR") is issued about once a week. It describes all space launches, including both piloted missions and automated satellites. Back issues are available by FTP from sao-ftp.harvard.edu in directory pub/jcm/space/news. To receive the JSR each week by direct email, send a message to the editor, Jonathan McDowell, at jcm@urania.harvard.edu. Feel free to reproduce the JSR as long as you're not doing it for profit. If you are doing so regularly, please inform Jonathan by email. Comments, suggestions, and corrections are encouraged.
Jonathan's Space Report
No. 206 1994 Aug 4 Cambridge, MA
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Shuttle
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Endeavour and the STS-68 stack was rolled out to pad 39A on Jul 27. In
the orbiter's payload bay is the Space Radar Lab, which first flew on
Endeavour's last flight (STS-59 in April). This is the first time that
the same main payload has flown on two successive flights of an orbiter.
(In 1991 and 1992 the Unit 1 Spacelab Long Module flew on successive
flights of Columbia, but the experiment payload was changed from
Spacelab Life Sciences to International Microgravity Lab). SRL-2
carries JPL's SIR-C Shuttle Imaging Radar and the German/Italian X-SAR
radar. Also aboard are an MPESS pallet carrying the MAPS (Measurement of
Air Pollution from Satellites) experiment on its fourth flight, and
Getaway Special payloads G-316 (North Carolina A&T Univ. student biology
and chemistry experiments), G-503 (U of Alabama Huntsville SEDS student
experiments) and G-541 (Swedish Space Corp. gradient furnace for crystal
growth experiment). US Postal Service commemorative Apollo 11
anniversary covers will also be carried in two GAS cans. Launch of
STS-68 is due on Aug 18 at 1054 UTC.
Launches
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Martin Marietta Commercial Launch Services (formerly the General Dynamics
team) successfully launched an Atlas IIA from Cape Canaveral on Aug 3.
The AC-107 Centaur stage and the Hughes HS-601 satellite payload were
delivered into a 211 x 39459 km x 26.9 deg geostationary transfer orbit.
The satellite, named DBS-2, is a direct broadcast TV satellite jointly
owned by DirecTV (a subsidiary of Hughes) and USSB (United States
Satellite Broadcasting, a subsidiary of Hubbard Broadcasting). Its
ARC490N liquid fuel apogee engine will be fired several times to raise
the orbit to a circular geostationary one. [Thanks to special correspondent
Joel Runes for his report from the launch site.]
This was the second launch of the Atlas IIA configuration (the IIAS has
also flown once). All Atlas II class flights have been successful:
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Flight Date Payload Type of Atlas
AC-102 1991 Dec 7 Aerospatiale Spacebus 100 "Eutelsat II F-3" Atlas II
AC-101 1992 Feb 11 MM Astro Space DSCS III F-5 Atlas II
AC-105 1992 Mar 14 MM Astro Space Series 5000 "Intelsat K" Atlas IIA
AC-103 1992 Jul 2 MM Astro Space DSCS III F-6 Atlas II
AC-104 1993 Jul 19 MM Astro Space DSCS III F-7 Atlas II
AC-106 1993 Nov 28 MM Astro Space DSCS III F-8 Atlas II
AC-108 1993 Dec 16 MM Astro Space Series 7000 "Telstar 401" Atlas IIAS
AC-107 1994 Aug 3 Hughes HS-601 "DBS 2" Atlas IIA
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(MM = Martin Marietta)
Orbital Sciences Corporation also had a successful launch earlier the
same day. NASA's NB-52 carrier aircraft took off from Edwards AFB around
1325 UTC and dropped a standard Pegasus over the Point Arguello Warning
Area at 1439 UTC on Aug 3 and the three stage solid rocket successfully
inserted the APEX satellite into the intended orbit. APEX (Advanced
Photovoltaic and Electronics Experiments) is an OSC Pegastar bus and
carries a variety of advanced solar cell experiments for the US Air
Force: Photovoltaic Array and Space Power Plus Diagnostics (PASP-Plus),
Ferroelectric Experiment (FERRO), and Cosmic Ray Upset Experiment
(CRUX). Versions of CRUX have previously flown as Shuttle GAS can
experiments. The APEX satellite is part of the USAF Space Test Program
and also has the designation P90-6. The intended orbit was 360 x 2000 km
x 70 deg, and the actual one was 365 x 2551 km x 69.9 deg. The
elliptical orbit gives high plasma densities at perigee and high
radiation levels at apogee; the USAF reports that the orbit achieved is
excellent for the mission. [Thanks to V. Arruda of USAF for info]. In
June, the first launch of an advanced Pegasus XL from the L-1011
Stargazer carrier plane ended in failure; the cause has been identified
as aerodynamic problems due to faulty hydro simulations (no wind tunnel
testing was done). The Pegasus XL will probably be cleared for flight
later in the year.
Kosmos-2284, launched Jul 29, is an imaging satellite. Based on its
orbit, it is presumably the 17th in the 'Kometa' series of topographic
mapping satellites, based on the Yantar' spy satellite design. Vladimir
Agapov reports that the Kometa satellite imagery is commercially
distributed by AO Sovinformsputnik. The last Kometa satellite,
Kosmos-2243, was damaged during launch in Apr 1993. Typical mission
length is 44 days. The first Kometa satellite was Kosmos-1246, in 1981.
All the Kometa satellites are launched by Soyuz-U from Baykonur.
Kosmos-2285 was launched Aug 2 by the light Kosmos-3M launch vehicle.
Kosmos-3M, built by PO Polyot of Omsk, is derived from the R-14 (NATO
designation SS-5) IRBM built originally by the Yangel design bureau.
Kosmos-2285 was inserted in a 974 x 1013 km x 74.0 deg orbit, which is
quite unusual. The altitude range is that used by Parus-class navigation
satellites, but the inclination has not been used by those satellites
since the early 1970s. The most likely missions for Kosmos-2285 are
radar calibration or geodesy.
I have confirmed that the Apstar 1 satellite was launched
using the CZ-3 (Long March 3) and not the more advanced CZ-3A,
and that the launch time was 1055 UT on Jul 21 (Chen Baosheng, CGWIC,
personal communication). On Aug 7, Apstar 1 was in a 35646 x 35920 km
x 0.04 deg orbit stationary over 138.4 deg E. Some other recent
geostationary satellites are also now on station: PAS 2 at 165.4W;
BS-3N at 122.0E, and Kosmos-2282 at 24.1W. Elements for UHF F/O F3
have not been released.
Erratum
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Progress M-23 was undocked at 0847 UTC and not 0947 UTC on Jul 2.
Apologies for the error which was caused by confusion between
Moscow decree time and Moscow daylight time. (Thanks Sven for catching this.)
Recent Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
Jun 7 0720 Kosmos-2281 Soyuz-U Plesetsk LC16 Recon 32A
Jun 14 1605 Foton No. 9 Soyuz-U Plesetsk LC43 Materials 33A
Jun 17 0707 Intelsat 702 ) Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Comsat 34A
STRV 1 ) Technology 34B
STRV 2 ) Technology 34C
Jun 24 1350 UHF F/O F3 Atlas I Centaur Canaveral LC36B Comsat 35A
Jun 27 2115 STEP 1 Pegasus XL Point Arguello Science FTO
Jul 1 1224 Soyuz TM-19 Soyuz-U2 Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 36A
Jul 3 0800 FSW-2 Chang Zheng 2 Jiuquan Remote sens 37A
Jul 6 2358 Kosmos-2282 Proton/DM2 Baykonur LC81 EarlyWarn 38A
Jul 8 1643 Columbia ) Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 39A
Spacelab IML-2)
Jul 8 2305 PAS 2 ) Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 40A
BS-3N ) Comsat 40B
Jul 14 0513 Nadezhda Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC133 Navsat 41A
Jul 20 1735 Kosmos-2283 Soyuz-U Plesetsk LC43 Recon 42A
Jul 21 1055 APStar 1 Chang Zheng 3 Xichang Comsat 43A
Jul 29 0929 Kosmos-2284 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC31 Recon 44A
Aug 2 2000 Kosmos-2285 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 ? 45A
Aug 3 1439 P90-6 APEX Pegasus/NB-52 Point Arguello Technology 46A
Aug 3 2357 DBS 2 Atlas IIA Canaveral LC36A Comsat 47A
Reentries
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Jul 9 Soyuz TM-18 Landed in Kazakhstan
Jul 18 FSW-2 Landed in China
Jul 23 Columbia Landed at KSC
Current Shuttle Processing Status
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Orbiters Location Mission
OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 1 OMDP
OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-64
OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-66
OV-105 Endeavour LC39A STS-68
ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks
ML1/RSRM-40/ET-65/OV-105 LC39A STS-68
ML2/RSRM-41/ET-66 VAB Bay 1 STS-64
ML3/
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| Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 |
| Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | |
| Astrophysics | |
| 60 Garden St, MS4 | |
| Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu |
| USA | |
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