Jonathan’s Space Report No. 467 2001 Nov 14

Shuttle and Station

The EP-2 crew – Afanas’ev, Haignere and Kozeev – undocked Soyuz TM-32
from the Pirs module at 0138:30 UTC on Oct 31. Deorbit burn was at 0404
UTC, with landing 180 km SE of Dzhezkazgan at 0459:26 UTC. This leaves
the Ex-3 crew of Culbertston, Dezhurov and Tyurin with a fresh Soyuz
transport ship, Soyuz TM-33, docked with the Zarya module.

On Nov 12 Culbertson and Dezhurov made a spacewalk from the Pirs module.
It was depressurized past 50 mbar around 2127 UTC, and the hatch was
opened at 2141 UTC. The astronauts completed external connections for
the Pirs module and finished setting up the Kurs rendezvous system. The
hatch was closed at 0245 UTC on Nov 13 and repressurization
began at around 0250 UTC for a duration of about 5 hr 23min.

Preparations are continuing for the launch of STS-108, with
Endeavour now at pad 39B.

Red Planet – Erratum

I can’t believe I did this – thanks to alert reader Mike Grabois who
pointed out my use of ‘perigee’ and ‘apogee’ when I meant to type the
generic terms ‘periapsis’ and ‘apoapsis’. In the 1960s-70s the
planet-specific terms – in this case I believe `periares’, `apoares’ –
had a brief popularity, although the difficulty of coming up with new
terms for each new body (how about `perieroticon’ for NEAR about Eros?)
has led to the generic terms winning out for the most part. Exceptions
are perihelion/aphelion which is well-hallowed in use for the Sun;
perijove and apojove which seem to be in common use for Galileo at
Jupiter; in astronomy, periastron/apastron and
perigalacticon/apogalacticon are sometimes seen for stars and galaxies
respectively.

Recent Launches

No new orbital launches this week. A suborbital STARS missile defense
target(Polaris with Orbus-1 upper stage) was destroyed during launch
from Kodiak on Nov 9. A successful Minuteman 3 operational test flew
from Vandenberg to Kwajalein on Nov 7. A Topol’ was launched from
Plesetsk to Kamchatka on Nov 1.

Mars Odyssey continues aerobraking and now has a periapsis of 110 km.
Genesis is now arriving at the Earth-Sun L1 point. A malfunctioning
thermal radiator is causing some concern for the health of the
sample return capsule’s critical battery, which is overheating,
but Genesis is expected to begin collecting solar wind samples
on schedule.

Table of Recent Launches

Date UT       Name            Launch Vehicle  Site            Mission    INTL.

                                                                          DES.

Sep  7 1939   Picosat 7/8       –              Sindri, LEO      Technology  00-42C

Sep  8 1525   USA 160       )   Atlas IIAS     Vandenberg SLC3E Sigint       40A

              NRO satellite )                                                40C

Sep 14 2335   Pirs           )  Soyuz-U        Baykonur LC1     Station module

              Progress M-SO1 )                                  Cargo        41A

Sep 21 1849   Orbview-4  )      Taurus 2110    Vandenberg 576E  Imaging      F01

              QuikTOMS   )                                      Environment  F01

              SBD        )                                      Technology   F01

              Celestis-4 )                                      Burial       F01

Sep 25 2321   Atlantic Bird 2   Ariane 44P     Kourou ELA2      Ku telecom   42A

Sep 30 0240   Starshine 3  )    Athena-1       Kodiak           Science      43A

              Picosat      )                                    Technology   43B

              PCSat        )                                    UHF/VHF comm 43C

              Sapphire     )                                    Technology   43D

Oct  5 2120   USA 161           Titan 4B       Vandenberg SLC4E Imaging      44A

Oct  6 1645   Raduga-1          Proton-K/DM2?  Baykonur         C telecom    45A

Oct 11 0232   USA 162           Atlas IIAS     Canaveral SLC36B Data relay?  46A

Oct 18 1851   QuickBird         Delta 7320     Vandenberg SLC2W Imaging      47A

Oct 21 0859   Soyuz TM-33       Soyuz-U        Baykonur LC1     Spaceship    48A

Oct 22 0453   TES      )        PSLV           Sriharikota      Imaging?     49A

              BIRD     )                                        Imaging      49C

              PROBA    )                                        Imaging/tech 49B

Oct 25 1134   Molniya-3         Molniya-M      Plesetsk LC43/3  Comms        50A

Current Shuttle Processing Status

Orbiters               Location   Mission    Launch Due   

OV-102 Columbia        OPF Bay 3     STS-109 2002 Feb 14  HST SM-3B

OV-103 Discovery       OPF Bay 1?    Maintenance

OV-104 Atlantis        OPF Bay 2?    STS-110 2002 Mar 21  ISS 8A

OV-105 Endeavour       LC39B         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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