Jonathan’s Space Report No. 441 19 Dec 2000

Shuttle and Stations

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The STS-97 mission has been completed successfully, and Station Alpha
has a new set of solar panels. The Station was observed by several
dozen of us from the roof of the Harvard Observatory as it passed
over at 0006 UTC on Dec 16, an impressive sight at about mag -1.

Astronauts Noriega and Tanner on Dec 7 performed EVA-3 to fix the
tension in the SAW-2B solar array on the Station. Airlock depress was at
1609 UTC, hatch open at 1610 UTC and battery power at 1613 UTC. The
astronauts left the airlock a few minutes later, probably about 1620
UTC. After fixing the solar array they installed the FPPU device to
measure plasma conditions near the top of P6 and performed a few other
minor tasks. They returned to the airlock at around 2110 UTC, closing
the hatch at 2119 and repressurizing at 2122 for a duration of 5:14
(depress), 5:09 (Hatch open/close) or 5:10 (NASA rule).

The Endeavour crew then entered the station at 1436 UTC on Dec 8,
delivering supplies to Alpha’s Expedition One crew. Hatches
were closed again at 1551 UTC Dec 9, and Endeavour undocked at 1913 UTC
the same day. After one flyaround of the station, Endeavour fired
its engines to depart the vicinity at 2017 UTC Dec 9.

The deorbit burn was at 2158 UTC on Dec 11, changing the
orbit from 351 x 365 km to 27 x 365 km, with landing
at Runway 15 of Kennedy Space Center at 2303 UTC.

The next Shuttle flight is STS-98. Orbiter 104 Atlantis will deliver the
Destiny lab module to the Station. Atlantis has been mated to external
tank ET-106 and solid boosters RSRM-77. The stack is on Mobile Launch
Platform MLP-2 in high bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building. Rollout
of STS-98 to the pad is being delayed because some wiring in the SRBs
needs repair. During the STS-97 launch, the SRB separation system had
problems when one explosive separation cartridge failed to fire; a
backup system saved the mission.

Current Launches

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No new launches since Dec 6; an Ariane 5G is scheduled for Dec 20.
(the “5G” designation is used for the generic Ariane 5 to distinguish
it from the uprated versions which will be introduced soon).

The UTC launch dates for EROS A1 and USA 155 are Dec 5 and Dec 6
respectively; sorry about the typo last issue.

Object 26614, originally cataloged as 2000-72G from the Ariane-5 PAS-1R
launch, has been recataloged as 1978-26HU; I assume 72G turned out
to be spurious or unconfirmed. 72F, cataloged as “Ariane 5 deb (SYLDA)”
is actually the conical ACU 1663SP adapter that separated PAS 1R from

AMSAT’s SBS adapter.

Table of Recent Launches

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Date UT       Name            Launch Vehicle  Site            Mission    INTL.

                                                                          DES.

Nov 10 1714   GPS SVN 41        Delta 7925     Canaveral SLC17A Navsat     71A

Nov 16 0107   PAS 1R   )        Ariane 5G      Kourou ELA3      Commsat    72A

              AMSAT-Oscar-40)                                   Commsat    72B

              STRV-1c  )                                        Tech       72C

              STRV-1d  )                                        Tech       72D

Nov 16 0132   Progress M1-4     Soyuz-U        Baykonur LC1     Cargo      73A

Nov 20 2300   QuickBird 1       Kosmos-3M      Plesetsk LC132   Imaging    74A

Nov 21 1824   EO-1  )           Delta 7320     Vandenberg SLC2W Imaging    75A

              SAC-C )                                           Imaging    75B

              Munin )                                           Science    75C

Nov 21 2356   Anik F-1          Ariane 44L     Kourou ELA2      Commsat    76A

Nov 30 1959   Sirius 3          Proton-K/DM3   Baykonur LC81L   Commsat    77A

Dec  1 0306   Endeavour)        Space Shuttle  Kennedy LC39     Spaceship  78A

              ITS P6   )                                       Station seg.

Dec  5 1232   EROS A1           Start-1        Svobodniy        Imaging    79A

Dec  6 0247   USA 155           Atlas 2AS      Canaveral SLC36A Commsat?   80A

Current Shuttle Processing Status

_________________________________

Orbiters               Location   Mission    Launch Due   

OV-102 Columbia        Palmdale      OMDP

OV-103 Discovery       OPF Bay 1     STS-102 2001 Mar  1  ISS 5A.1

OV-104 Atlantis        VAB Bay 3     STS-98  2001 Jan 18  ISS 5A

OV-105 Endeavour       OPF Bay 2     STS-100 2001 Apr 19  ISS 6A

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

|  Harvard-Smithsonian Center for    |                                    |

|   Astrophysics                     |                                    |

|  60 Garden St, MS6                 |                                    |

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|                                                                         |

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