Jonathan’s Space Report No. 454

Shuttle and Station

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Dr. Patricia Hilliard Robertson, a NASA astronaut in training, died in a
Houston hospital early on May 25 (UTC) after a May 22 plane crash in
Manvel, Texas. Dr. Robertson, 38, was a passenger in the small private
plane.

On Jun 8, Station astronauts Yuriy Usachyov and James Voss carried out
depressurized work in the Zvezda transfer section, using Orlan-M
spacesuits, while Susan Helms remained in the pressurized Zarya module
(the Soyuz transfer ship is docked to Zarya). The Zvezda transfer
airlock was depressurized at 1404 UTC and the astronauts went to battery
power at 1419 UTC. Then the 1-meter diameter flat hatch cover was
removed from the nadir docking port, opening the transfer compartment to
vacuum at 1420 UTC (NASA TV reported this happened at 1421 UTC). The
Zvezda docking cone, removed from the axial port after docking with
Zarya last year, was then installed in the open hatch at around 1432 UTC
and sealed in place at 1440 UTC, closing off the compartment again. The
compartment was repressurized starting at 1458 UTC. Operation duration
was 54 min (depress/repress), 20 min (hatch open/close, Russian rule), 0
min (egress/ingress – no actual external spacewalk was performed) or 39
min (usual NASA rule). Although NASA usually counts EVAs from `suits to
battery power’ until repress, this time they are using the Russian rule
of hatch open to hatch close, cheating Jim Voss out of 19 min of EVA
scorecard that he would normally be credited with.

The STS-104 mission is facing delays due to problems with the Station’s
Canadarm-2 robot arm (SSRMS). The SSRMS’s Arm Contoller Unit and its
Shoulder Pitch Joint showed malfunctions in their backup systems. The
Airlock (STS-104’s main payload) can’t be installed without the SSRMS,
and although the arm can be used in its current state, there are
concerns that there isn’t enough redundancy in case of failure. There is
a chance STS-104 might be slipped to later in the year, with a
spacewalk on STS-105 being used to repair the arm. A working SSRMS is
needed for all future Station assembly. The problems are likely to
further slip this year’s Shuttle schedule, which recently saw the next
Hubble mission move to early 2002.

Recent Launches

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Kosmos-2377 was launched on May 29 into a 165 x 358 km x 67.1 deg orbit,
typical of the Yantar’ class reconnaissance satellite. This generation
of Yantar’, possibly called Kobal’t, carries a large recoverable capsule
containing the camera system and film, as well as two small film
capsules returned during the mission. The satellite will probably
remain in space for around 120 days with a landing around Sep 26.

Kosmos-2378 was launched on Jun 8 into a 963 x 1010 km x 82.9 deg orbit.
It is probably a Parus class navigation satellite. The Kosmos-3M
launch vehicle went up from Plesetsk and entered a roughly 150 x 1000 km
transfer orbit; the second stage ignited again for a short 11s burn
to put the Parus in its final orbit. This is the first Kosmos-3M
flight since a failure in November 2000.

Intelsat 901 was launched on Jun 9 by Arianespace. The first of the
Intelsat 9 series, it will provide telecommunications services in the
Atlantic Ocean Region for Intelsat. The intergovernmental International
Telecommunications Satellite Organization, ITSO (INTELSAT),
headquartered in Washington, D.C, is in the process of transferring its
satellites to the privatized Intelsat LLC company.

Intelsat 901 is an FS-1300HL, an improved version of the
long-standing Space Systems/Loral (originally Aeronutronic Ford) FS-1300
platform. The satellite has C-band beams for the Atlantic region and a
Ku-band spot beam for Europe, and (probably) an R-4D liquid apogee engine, and
has a dry mass of 1972 kg and a launch mass of 4723 kg. It
provides Intenet, video and telephone services. It will be stationed at
18W. The satellite was launched by an Ariane 44L from Kourou into
geostationary transfer orbit, together with the H-10-3 cryogenic third
stage rocket.

Table of Recent Launches

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Date UT       Name            Launch Vehicle  Site            Mission    INTL.

                                                                          DES.

May  8 2210   XM-1 Roll         Zenit-3SL      Odyssey, Pacific S-band radio 18A

May 15 0111   PAS 10            Proton-K/DM3   Baykonur LC81/23 C/Ku video   19A

May 18 1745   GeoLITE           Delta 7925     Canaveral SLC17B Laser/UHF    20A

May 20 2233   Progress M1-6     Soyuz-FG       Baykonur LC1     Cargo        21A

May 29 1755   Kosmos-2377       Soyuz-U        Plesetsk LC43/4  Recon        22A

Jun  8 1512   Kosmos-2378       Kosmos-3M      Plesetsk LC132   Navsat       23A

Jun  9 0645   Intelsat 901      Ariane 44L     Kourou ELA2      C/Ku telecom 24A

Current Shuttle Processing Status

_________________________________

Orbiters               Location   Mission    Launch Due   

OV-102 Columbia        VAB Bay 4     STS-109 2002 Jan 17  HST SM-3B

OV-103 Discovery       OPF Bay 2     STS-105 2001 Aug  5? ISS 7A.1

OV-104 Atlantis        VAB Bay 1     STS-104 2001 Jul  7? ISS 7A

OV-105 Endeavour       OPF Bay 1     STS-108 2001 Nov 29  ISS UF-1

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|  Jonathan McDowell                 |  phone : (617) 495-7176            |

|  Harvard-Smithsonian Center for    |                                    |

|   Astrophysics                     |                                    |

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