Jonathan’s Space Report No. 478 2002 May 7
Shameless Plug
————–
Those of you who wonder what I really do for a living may wish
to take a look at
http://chandra.harvard.edu/press/02_releases/press_041902.html
or
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0204/24chandra
Shuttle and Station
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Gidzenko, Vittori and Shuttleworth reached the Station on Apr 27. Their
flight was the EP-3 visiting crew, flying ISS mission 4S going up on
spacecraft Soyuz TM-34 (vehicle 208) and down on Soyuz TM-33 (vehicle
207) – any of these designations is correct, but NASA commentators’ use
of “Soyuz 4” is just plain wrong (Soyuz 4 flew in 1969, and Soyuz TM-34
is a Russian mission, so NASA doesn’t have naming rights for it. A
typical example of dumbing down in an attempt to avoid confusion, which
in fact only generates more confusion. Anyone remember the Skylab
SL-2/flight 1 numbering fiasco?).
Soyuz TM-34 docked with the nadir port on the Zarya module at 0755 UTC on Apr
27. After a week aboard the station, the EP crew moved to the old Soyuz
TM-33 ship, now docked at Pirs. They undocked from Pirs at 0031:08 UTC on
May 5, leaving the EO-4 crew of Onufrienko, Walz and Bursch with the new
Soyuz TM-34 as their rescue vehicle. Soyuz TM-33 was scheduled to make
its deorbit burn at 0257 UTC.
Novosti reports that Soyuz TM33 landed successfully at 0352 UTC
25 km SE of Arkalyk. An ESA release quotes the time as 0355 UTC
and AP quotes 0351 UTC; An Energiya press release now confirms the
Novosti time.
JP Donnio points out to me that although flight-participant Shuttleworth
is described as a ‘tourist’ by the media, calling him this is “unfair.
He is a paying junior astronaut, who will be doing some real science for
his country. He spent 8 hard months training […] certainly less of a
tourist than some […] who had a free ride on the Shuttle.”
‘Privately funded astronaut’ would be a better description, as he
performed the sort of scientific experiments that payload specialists
have carried out in the past and was not just looking out the window.
(Personally, I would be quite happy to be merely a tourist. Anyone who
wants to sponsor me with $20M or so should feel free to get in touch.)
Recent Launches
—————
France’s SPOT-5 imaging satellite was launched by Ariane 42P at 0131:46
UTC on May 4. The Ariane 42P, with two PAP solid boosters, flew north
from Kourou. The third stage burn occurred off the east coast of North
America, with engine cutoff at 0150 UTC and stage separation at 0151
UTC. Venting of the remaining third stage propellant was seen by
observers in the US.
SPOT Image’s SPOT 5 was built by Astrium/Toulouse. It has a mass of 3000
kg including 150 kg of hydrazine orbit adjust fuel. The main instrument
is the HRVIR imaging camera payload including a 2.5-meter resolution
imager. A secondary experiment is the 5-band VEGETATION-2 instrument
with 1-km resolution.
The Idefix amateur radio payload consists of two small 6kg boxes
attached to the Ariane third stage. The payload is operated by
AMSAT-F, the French branch of the amateur radio organization.
(The first French satellite was nicknamed Asterix after the
famous comic book character; Idefix was Asterix and Obelix’s
pet dog.)
NASA’s Aqua remote sensing satellite went up on a Boeing Delta 7920-10L
a few hours later. The Delta launched south from Vandenberg at 0954:58 UTC
and reached a 185 x 707 km x 98.1 deg transfer orbit at 1006 UTC.
The second burn of the second stage at 1048:58 UTC put Aqua
in a 676 x 687 km x 98.2 deg orbit.
Aqua is the EOS-PM Earth Observing System satellite, joining EOS-AM/Terra.
The satellite was built by TRW and based on the new T-330/AB1200 bus.
It has a mass of 2934 kg including 102 kg of hydrazine.
Aqua’s payload consists of a number of remote sensing instruments:
CERES has two broadband visible-to-far-infrared radiometers which
measure the energy balance of the Earth’s atmosphere, as UV radiation
from the Sun is absorbed and reradiated by the surface, atmosphere and
clouds in the infrared. The CERES sensors measure flux in the 0.3-5 and
8-12 micron bands and overall flux in the 0.3-100 micron range.AIRS is an infrared (3.7-15 micron) spectrometer (and not
a microwave sounding unit as stated in the press kit) giving
temperature and humidity vertical profiles; it has a companion
0.4-1.0 micron 4-band optical photometer.AMSU-A1 and AMSU-A2 are a pair of 15-channel microwave (15-90 GHz) sounders
for temperature profiles.HSB is the Humidity Sounder for Brazil, a 4-channel microwave (150 and 183 GHz)
sounder which can get humidity profiles even under heavy cloud.AMSR-E is a Japanese microwave (6.9-89 GHz) scanning radiometer which uses the
microwave emission scattered from raindrops to determine rainfall rates,
as well as measuring sea surface winds and temperature.MODIS is an optical/infrared (0.4-14.5 micron) imaging spectrometer.
The CERES and MODIS instruments were also carred on the Terra satellite.
Phillip Clark has pointed out that the argument of perigee for
Kosmos-2388 is 287 degrees as typical for Molniya satellites instead of
the 317 degrees expected for an Oko satellite. This is a bit puzzling,
as Russian sources seemed to agree before launch that this was going to
be an Oko – it is just possible that it’s a Molniya that failed, but
more likely an Oko with a new orbital profile (or else a programming
error by the launch team!)
Did Apollo AS-202 Reach Orbit?
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Apollo mission 202, with CSM 011, is recorded in the history books
as a suborbital mission. However, my researches indicate that
it briefly achieved a marginal orbit! Admittedly, it was only
in this orbit for 6 minutes prior to reentry and the perigee was
within the atmosphere, but there are very few suborbital missions
with perigees above minus several thousand kilometers, so the
few marginal cases are rather interesting. (Yes, I do know that
the traditional NORAD rule for cataloging is a *completed* orbit,
but I don’t feel constrained to follow their choice.) For instance,
a typical Minuteman flight from Vandenberg to Kwajalein has an
orbit of roughly -4000 x 1300 km x 145 deg, a strongly negative
perigee nowhere near orbital.
AS-202 was the third Apollo/Saturn IB test flight, with no crew aboard.
In an early example of a NASA naming snafu, it was not named Apollo 2
(AS-201, 203 and 202 were followed by Apollo 4, with the name Apollo 1
reserved for the mission that was never launched because of the fatal
fire during ground testing; the names Apollo 2 and 3 were not used).
Data in document MSC-A-R-66-5, Postlaunch Report for Mission AS-202
(Apollo Spacecraft 011), indicate the following orbits were achieved:
(mostly derived by me from velocity and altitude data in the report, but
some confirmed by direct quotation of orbital parameters)
1966 Aug 25
(UTC)
1715:32 Launch by Saturn IB, Cape Kennedy
1725:30 CSM 011 separates from S-4B-202 at 222 km altitude,
both on a -2331 x 268 km x 31.8 deg orbit.
1729:17 CSM-011 completes SPS-1 burn at 338 km, putting it in a
-232 x 1143 km x 31.5 deg orbit.
1731 The S-4B-202 stage is blown up in a pressurization
test, like the S-4B-203 orbital mission the previous month.
1756:56 CSM-011 reaches 1143 km apogee over Johannesburg
1822:56 CSM-011 completes SPS-2 burn driving it down into the
atmosphere at 8.4 km/s from an altitude of 374 km over
the coast of Western Australia.
Its orbit is now 53 x 3762 km x 31.4 deg – a positive perigee.
1823:22 Two more brief SPS burns accelerate it further and
leave the orbit at 59 x 4082 km x 31.4 deg at 345 km and
descending.
1828:00 Entry at 122 km over New Guinea
at 8.69 km/s, 3.53 deg entry angle.
1830-1833 Skip up from 65 to 79 km, braking
1848:34 Splashdown south of Wake Island in the Pacific.
I know a few of you who will find this piece of trivia amusing. For
those of you not so familiar with orbital arcana, recall that the Earth
has an equatorial radius of 6378 km; I use orbital heights relative to
this radius, as if the Earth were a sphere (unlike standard Russian
practice which uses an oblate spheroid for the reference – this is a
small difference.) So a -2331 x 268 km orbit is one in which the
periapsis distance (as opposed to height) is 4047 km from the center of
the Earth and the apoapsis 6646 km from the center (just add 6378 to
each number); as Newton and Gauss showed (at least ignoring J2 and drag)
the CSM happily follows a Keplerian ellipse thinking the Earth is a
point mass and that 4047 km is a perfectly reasonable periapsis distance
– until it gets a rude awakening when it hits the Earth’s atmosphere.
Raising the perigee height to +59 km ensures a very shallow entry
angle to the atmosphere, similar to a returning Apollo spacecraft
but at lower speed.
Table of Recent Launches
———————–
Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.Apr 1 2207 Kosmos-2388 Molniya-M Plesetsk LC16/2 Early Warn 17A
Apr 8 2019 Atlantis STS-110) Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 18A
S0 ) Station piece
Apr 16 2302 NSS 7 Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comms 19A
Apr 25 0626 Soyuz TM-34 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 20A
May 4 0131 SPOT 5 ) Ariane 42P Kourou ELA2 Imaging 21A
Idefix ) Amateur radio 21B
May 4 0954 Aqua Delta 7920-10L Vandenberg SLC2W Rem.sensing 22A
Current Shuttle Processing Status
_________________________________
Orbiters Location Mission Launch DueOV-102 Columbia OPF STS-107 2002 Jul 19 Spacehab
OV-103 Discovery OPF Maintenance
OV-104 Atlantis OPF STS-112 2002 Aug 22 ISS 9A
OV-105 Endeavour LC39A STS-111 2002 May 30 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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