Jonathan’s Space Report No. 455 2001 Jun 28
Shuttle and Station
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Atlantis is now on the launch pad, being prepared for a July launch
to the Station.
The payload bay of STS-104 contains the Airlock and two Spacelab
Pallets each with a pair of high pressure gas tanks for attaching
to the airlock exterior. I believe an IMAX camera is also
in the cargo bay although the press kit doesn’t mention it.
Total Orbiter launch mass is reported by the press kit as 117127 kg.
Current Station mass (including Soyuz and Progress) is 120470 kg.
Mass/kg
Bay 1-2 Orbiter Docking System/External Airlock 1800
3 EMU spacesuits? 360?
Bay 4-5? Spacelab Pallet (Fwd) O2-1/O2-2 oxygen tanks 2500
Bay 6-7? Spacelab Pallet (Aft) N2-1/N2-2 nitrogen tanks 2500
Bay 8-12? Station Joint Airlock 6064
Adapter beam with IMAX Cargo Bay Camera 238
Sill RMS arm 410
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Total 13872 kg?
STS-104 commander is Steven Lindsey, a member of the 1994 group who was
pilot on STS-87 and STS-95. Pilot is Charles Hobaugh, who becomes the
fourth pilot of the 1996 group to fly. Mission specialists are Janet
Kavandi (STS-91,STS-99) and spacewalkers Michael Gernhardt
(STS-69/83/94) and James Reilly (STS-89). They will install the Airlock
onto the Unity module, and then put the oxygen and nitrogen tanks onto
the airlock exterior.
Recent Launches
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A new report gives the Kosmos-2378 launch time as 1508 UTC, not 1512 UTC.
Astra 2C was launched on Jun 16 by International Launch Services on a
Krunichev Proton-K with an Energiya Blok DM3 upper stage. The Boeing
601HP satellite will broadcast Ku-band television programming to Europe
for SES (Societe Europeene des Satellites, Luxembourg). Dry mass of the
satellite is probably around 2000 kg.
International Launch Services carried out its second launch in a few
days on Jun 19, this time with Atlas IIAS serial AC-156 from Cape
Canaveral. The payload was the ICO-2 satellite for New ICO (formerly ICO
Global Communications), which will provide mobile communications and
data/internet services at S-band, supporting 4500 simultaneous calls.
The Boeing BSS-601M satellite is similar to the standard geostationary
601 model except that it omits the R-4D apogee engine and associated
fuel, and has a larger payload section. Launch mass is 2700 kg; dry mass
is probably around 2200-2400 kg with the remainder being stationkeeping
fuel. New ICO is based in London, so the satellite will presumably be
registered with the UN by the UK government.
The AC-156 launch vehicle’s Centaur stage reached a 167 x 10099 km x 44.6
deg transfer orbit 10 minutes after launch. A second burn 1.5hr later
put ICO-2 into a circular 10100 km orbit. The first ICO satellite
was launched in Mar 2000 but failed to reach orbit. The new satellite
will be used for testing out the ICO system before the remaining
satellites are launched. Unlike the Iridium and Globalstar constellations,
ICO uses a small number of large satellites.
The two 10 kg Saudi Arabian amateur satellites, Saudisat 1A/1B, were
launched by Dnepr in Sep 2000. Their amateur radio payloads,
Saudi-OSCAR-41 and Saudi-OSCAR-42, have apparently not yet entered
service (although reportedly have been checked out successfully).
Although not announced at the time of launch, these satellites have a
secondary commercial payload. Aprize Satellite of Fairfax, Virginia has
a 400 MHz UHF Aprizestar commercial satellite location payload on each
of the satellites, which will enter operation when Aprize completes
financing and developed of user equipment. They will be used as
pathfinders for a planned network of asset location satellites (for
instance, relaying data from transmitters on shipping containers). These
0.2m-cube, 10 kg satellites will be built by SpaceQuest (Aprize’s parent
company) in Fairfax, but the Saudi satellites were built by and are
owned by King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology. (The article in
this week’s Space News was a bit misleading, so I thought I would
clarify the situation – thanks to Aprize CEO D. Lorenzini for some of
this info).
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 1508 Kosmos-2378 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk LC132 Navsat 23A
Jun 9 0645 Intelsat 901 Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 C/Ku telecom 24A
Jun 16 0149 Astra 2C Proton-K/DM3 Baykonur LC81/23 Ku video 25A
Jun 19 0441 ICO-2 Atlas IIAS Canaveral SLC36B C/S phone/data 26A
Current Shuttle Processing Status
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Orbiters Location Mission Launch DueOV-102 Columbia VAB Bay 4 STS-109 2002 Jan 17 HST SM-3B
OV-103 Discovery VAB Bay 3 STS-105 2001 Aug? ISS 7A.1
OV-104 Atlantis LC39B STS-104 2001 Jul 12 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 |
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| Astrophysics | |
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