Jonathan’s Space Report No. 470 – 28 Dec 2001
A happy and safe 2002 to all space cadets around the world.
Shuttle and Station
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Raffaello was transferred back to the Shuttle payload bay on Dec 14.
Endeavour undocked from Station at 1728 UTC on Dec 15 and made
a half loop around the station before making a small separation
burn at 1822 UTC.
The Starshine-2 reflector satellite was ejected from the MACH-1 bridge
in Endeavour’s payload bay at 1502 UTC on Dec 16. It is part of an
educational project and will be tracked by school students around the
world.
Endeavour landed on runway 15 at Kennedy Space Center at 1755 UTC on Dec
17. The Expedition 3 crew of Culbertson, Dezhurov and Tyurin returned to
Earth aboard Endeavour, leaving the Expedition 4 crew of Yuriy
Onufrienko, Dan Bursch and Carl Walz in charge of the Station.
Recent Launches
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The REFLECTOR satellite launched from Baykonur on Dec 10 consists
of four triangular fins on a square base plus a deployable boom,
with an array of laser retroreflectors. The satellite is 1.4m
long and 0.5m wide but only 6 kg in mass; it was made by NII KP
in Russia under contract to the Air Force Research Lab at Kirtland
AFB, New Mexico. It will be used to calibrate laser imaging systems
and other optical sensors. (Thanks to Richard Rast for info).
Russia launched the Kosmos-2383 naval electronic intelligence satellite
on Dec 21. The two-stage 11K69 Tsiklon-2 rocket, derived from the R-36
ICBM, was launched at 0400 UTC and put the satellite in an orbit of
approximately 145 x 405 km x 65.0 deg at 0405 UTC. At apogee, the US-P
class satellite, built by KB Arsenal, ignited its own propulsion system
to increase velocity by about 70-80 m/s and circularize the orbit at 404
x 415 km x 65.0 deg. The Tsiklon-2 second stage remained in the low
perigee orbit and probably reentered over N America at sixth perigee
(1250 UTC) or seventh perigee (1420 UTC).
Another Tsiklon rocket, this time an 11K68 Tsiklon-3 with an S5M upper
stage, was orbited on Dec 28. It carried six small communications relay
satellites in a replacement launch for a failure almost exactly a year
earlier. Three of the satellites are part of the Russian Defense
Ministry’s Strela-3 program, and the other three are Rosaviakosmos
Gonets-D1s, the civilan variant of the same vehicle. The satellites are
built by the NPO PM company. The launch vehicle is built by the
Ukrainian Yuzhnoe firm.
According to a Rosaviakosmos release, the Tsiklon was launched at
0324:24 UTC and the second stage burn was complete at 0329:02. The S5M
stage separated and ignited at 0330 and shut down at 0332:00. At this
stage I estimate the vehicle would have been in a suborbital -550 x 1400
km trajectory. A second burn at apogee at 0406:15 UTC put the stage in a
1400 km orbit. The three Gonets satellites separated first, beginning at
0407:28 UTC; the last of the three Kosmos/Strela satellites was ejected
at 0408:33, and will have perigee about 15 km higher than the first of
the deployments.
On Dec 28, Mars Odyssey was in a 99 x 2951 km x 93 deg orbit around
Mars, continuing to aerobrake.
The Deep Space 1 probe was turned off on Dec 18, completing an
incredibly successful technology proving mission. DS1’s orbit is about
1.30 x 1.44AU x 0.22 deg. DS1’s ion drive technology will be used for
the Dawn asteroid orbiter mission which has just been selected for
NASA’s Discovery program. Editorial note: this is a very promising sign.
Historically, (and not just in the space game) institutional and
bureaucratic hurdles have meant that many technology development
initiatives don’t actually get folded in to production use, even when
successful. This suggests that the New Millenium Program may really
achieve its goal of feeding new tech into NASA’s operational bag of
tricks, something that is badly needed.
The FUSE ultraviolet observatory is currently in safemode following
reaction wheel problems.
Note: I know some of you look forward to my annual launch summary. In
recent years it’s been fun to get it out earlier and earlier; I had it
done on New Year’s Day last year so I’m not feeling the need to prove
anything at this point. This year, pressure of real work means that I’m
not going to be doing it any time soon – sorry! I will, however,
be putting my thirty-thousand-launch sounding rocket/missile launch
database on the web in the near future – stay tuned.
Table of Recent Launches
———————–
Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
Nov 26 1824 Progress M1-7 Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1 Cargo 51A
Nov 27 0035 DirecTV 4S Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 TV broadcast 52A
Dec 1 1804 Kosmos-2380 ) Proton-K/DM2 Baykonur Navsat 53A
Kosmos-2381 ) Navsat 53B
Kosmos-2382 ) Navsat 53C
Dec 5 2219 Endeavour ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 54A
Raffaello ) Cargo
Dec 7 1507 Jason 1 ) Delta 7920-10 Vandenberg SLC2W Science 55A
TIMED ) Science 55B
Dec 10 1719 Meteor-3M ) Zenit-2 Baykonur LC45 Weather 56A
Badr B ) Imaging 56
Maroc-Tubsat) Imaging 56
Kompas ) Science 56
Reflector ) Technology 56
Dec 16 1502 Starshine-2 – Endeavour, LEO Education 54B
Dec 21 0400 Kosmos-2383 Tsiklon-2 Baykonur LC90 Siginit 57A
Dec 28 0324 Kosmos-2384 ) Tsiklon-3 Plesetsk LC32 Comms relay 58
Kosmos-2385 ) Comms relay 58
Kosmos-2386 ) Comms relay 58
Gonets-D1 ) Comms relay 58
Gonets-D1 ) Comms relay 58
Gonets-D1 ) Comms relay 58
Current Shuttle Processing Status
_________________________________
Orbiters Location Mission Launch DueOV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-109 2002 Feb HST SM-3B
OV-103 Discovery VAB Maintenance
OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 2? STS-110 2002 Mar? ISS 8A
OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1? STS-111 2002 May ISS UF-2
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| Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 |
| Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | |
| Astrophysics | |
| 60 Garden St, MS6 | |
| Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@cfa.harvard.edu |
| USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu |
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