Jonathan’s Space Report No. 460 2001 Sep 3 Cambridge, MA

Shuttle and Station

Erratum: the description of the launch phase of STS-105 was
off by one hour in most of the quoted times. Here is the corrected
paragraph.

STS-105 was launched on Aug 10 at 2110 UTC. MECO (main engine cutoff)
was at 2118 UTC with separation of external tank ET-110 into a 58 x 234
km x 51.6 deg orbit. At 2148 UTC Discovery reached apogee and fired its
OMS engines to enter a 155 x 233 km x 51.6 deg orbit; another burn at
around 0100 UTC raised the orbit to 198 x 277 km. Meanwhile the External
Tank fell back towards the Pacific and reentered at its first perigee at
around 2240 UTC.

The Progress M1-6 tanker was undocked from the aft Zvezda port at 0601 UTC
on Aug 22 and deorbited sometime around 0900 UTC the same day.
Progress M-45, 7K-TGM No. 245 (the older generation type of Progress)
was launched on Aug 21 at 0924 UTC from Baykonur and docked at 0951 UTC
on Aug 23 at the newly vacant port.

Recent Launches

Japan’s NASDA space agency launched the first H-2A rocket from
Tanegashima on Aug 29. The Vehicle Evaluation Payload is a conical
ballast payload with monitoring instrumentation attached to the second
stage. It includes a doppler ranging experiment for orbit determination.
The LRE Laser Ranging Experiment satellite carries 126 laser
retroreflectors for geodesy and separatedn from the second stage at 0739
UTC into a 271 x 36214 km x 28 deg orbit. It has a mass of 86 kg and is
0.5 meters across.

The H-2A 202 version has two strap-on SRB-A solid boosters, shorter and
fatter than the SRBs used on the old H-2 rocket. The core stages are
uprated versions of the H-2 core, with the same 4.0 meter diameter and a
larger propellant load. Both stages use uprated Mitsubishi liquid
hydrogen/ liquid oxygen engines; the LE-7A on the first stage is roughly
comparable with the Ariane 5 main engine while the LE-5A on the second
stage is comparable with the RL-10 engine used on Centaur and Delta 3.

An Arianespace Ariane 44L was launched from Kourou on Aug 30. It carried
the Intelsat 902 communications satellite. The Intelsat international
telecoms organization is currently being privatized. To harp on my
current hobbyhorse (er… sorry about the mixed metaphor there) it will
be interesting to see whether it starts registering its satellites with
the UN, something Intelsat has been forgetting to do for 20 years. The
902 satellite has both C-band and Ku-band transponders and will be
stationed initially over the Indian Ocean giving coverage to Europe,
Africa, Asia and Australasia. The Loral FS-1300 satellite has a dry mass
of 1978 kg and carries a further 2745 kg of propellant at launch.

Table of Recent Launches

Date UT       Name            Launch Vehicle  Site            Mission    INTL.

                                                                          DES.

Jul 12 0904   Atlantis STS-104) Shuttle        Kennedy LC39B    Spaceship    28A

              Quest           )                                 Station module

Jul 12 2158   Artemis   )       Ariane 5G      Kourou ELA3      Expt. comms  29A

              BSAT-2b   )                                       Ku video     29B

Jul 20 0017   Molniya-3         Molniya-M      Plesetsk LC43/4  Comms        30A

Jul 23 0723   GOES 12           Atlas IIA      Canaveral SLC36A Weather      31A

Jul 31 0800   Koronas-F         Tsiklon-3      Plesetsk LC32    Astronomy    32A

Aug  6 0728   DSP 21            Titan 4B/IUS   Canaveral SLC40  Early Warn   33A

Aug  8 1613   Genesis           Delta 7326     Canaveral SLC17A Space probe  34A

Aug 10 2110   Discovery  )      Shuttle        Kennedy LC39     Spaceship    35A

              Leonardo   )

Aug 20 1830   Simplesat         –              Discovery, LEO   Astronomy    35B

Aug 21 0924   Progress M-45     Soyuz-U        Baykonur LC1     Cargo        36A

Aug 24 2034   Kosmos-2379       Proton-K/DM2M? Baykonur LC81R   Early Warn?  37A

Aug 29 0700   VEP-2   )         H-2A           Tanegashima      Technology   38B

              LRE     )                                         Geodesy      38A

Aug 30 0646   Intelsat 902      Ariane 44L     Kourou ELA2      C/Ku telecom 39A

Current Shuttle Processing Status

Orbiters               Location   Mission    Launch Due   

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

OV-103 Discovery       OPF Bay 2     Maintenance

OV-104 Atlantis        VAB           STS-110 2002 Feb 28  ISS 8A

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    |                                    |

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