Jonathan’s Space Report No. 479 2002 May 29 Cambridge, MA

Shuttle and Station

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The next launch is STS-111, which will swap the Expedition 4 and 5 crews
and deliver the MBS and some interior experiment racks. Orbiter 105
Endeavour will use solid motors RSRM-84 and external tank ET-113 to
reach orbit; it will dock with PMA-2 on the Station and carry out the
UF-2 utilization flight.

Here is my payload manifest estimate for STS-111 (congratulations to the
USA team for putting together a much better press kit this time around).

                                                        Mass/kg

Bay 1-2    Orbiter Docking System                        1800

           2 EMU spacesuits?                              240?

Bay 4      Mobile Base System (MBS)                      1600

Bay 6P     Adapter Beam / Wrist Roll Joint                150?

Bay 7-12   MPLM FM1 “Leonardo”                          10557

Bay 13P    ICAPC Beam / PGDF                               75

Bay 13S    Adapter Beam / SMDP                            200?

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Total                                                   14622?

The Mobile Base System is made by MD Robotics of Brampton, Ontario.
It will be attached to the Mobile Transporter and is used to mount
the SSRMS Canadarm-2 arm and heavy payloads.

The Leonardo module carries 8 Resupply Stowage Racks and 4 Resupply
Stowage Plaftorms, with equipment to be transferred to the station. It
0ityo carries two science racks: the MSG (Microgravity Science Glovebox)
and Express-3, which will be installed on Destiny. Leonardo, built by
Alenia Spazio in Torino, also flew on STS-102 and STS-105.

The PGDF (Power-Data Grapple Fixture) will be installed on the P6
truss. The WRJ (Wrist Roll Joint) will be swapped with the broken one
on the SSRMS arm.

The Service Module Debris Panels (SMDP) package contains 6 panels
which will be stowed on PMA-1 until a later spacewalk attaches
them to the Zvezda module to protect it from space debris hits.

The STS-111 crew are Ken ‘Taco’ Cockrell, Paul Lockhart, Franklin
Chang-Diaz, and Phillipe Perrin. The Ex-5 crew are Valery Korzun, Peggy
Whitson and Sergey Treshchev.

Recent Launches

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DirecTV-5 was launched on May 7 by Proton from Baykonur. The Krunichev
Proton placed the payload in low orbit, and the Energiya DM3 upper stage
then made two burns to put the DirecTV satellite in a 6568 x 35809 km x
17.7 deg transfer orbit. The Loral FS-1300 class satellite used its R-4D
apogee engine to reach geostationary orbit at 129W by May 19.
The DirecTV satellite broadcasting company is a subsidiary of GM/Hughes.

DirecTV satellites in orbit:

             Launch       Type     GEO location

 DirecTV-1   1993 Dec 18  BSS-601  110W

 DirecTV-2   1994 Aug  3  BSS-601  101W

 DirecTV-3   1995 Jun  8  BSS-601  101W

 DirecTV-6   1997 Mar  8  FS-1300  119W

 DirecTV-1R  1999 Oct 10  BSS-601  101W

 DirecTV-4S  2001 Nov 27  BSS-601  101W

 DirecTV-5   2002 May  7  FS-1300  129W

(Note: DirecTV-6 was formerly Tempo-2)

Fengyun 1D andm›5ryang 1 were launched on May 15 from Taiyuan. The
Chinese CZ-4B launch vehicle took off at 0150 UTC and the second stage
separated six minutes later on a suborbital trajectory. After a brief
coast up to 860 km the third stage fired at around 0200 UTC to
circularize the orbit. FY-1D, a 950 kg weather satellite with a
10-channel radiometer, separated from the stack followed by a small
adapter. Then the HY-1 (Haiyang-1) marine observation satellite
separated; the 360 kg HY-1 is based on the SJ-5 bus and carries an IR
radiometer and CCD imager for oceanographic studies. Both satellites
entered an 851 x 871 km x 98.8 deg orbit; the final stage was left in a
slightly lower 812 x 883 km orbit. Between May 21 and May 26, FY-1D
seems to have lowered its orbit to 793 x 799 km using on-board
propulsion; this behaviour has not been seen in previous FY satellites.

Fengyun weather satellites:

           Launch date    Orbit

   FY-1A   1988 Sep  6    874 x 895 x 98.9

   FY-1B   1990 Sep  3    875 x 898 x 99.0

   FY-1C   1999 May 10    845 x 867 x 98.7

   FY-1D   2002 May 15    851 x 871 x 98.8; 792 x 792 x 98.8

   FY-2A   1997 Jun 10    35783 x 35795 x 1.9 GEO  85E

   FY-2B   2000 Jun 25    35780 x 35793 x 0.6 GEO 104E

Note: the index letters ‘A’, ‘B’ etc are the standard Chinese
translations of Chinese designations which are, of course, not
precisely ‘letters’. For instance, Shi Jian-2B was (according to one
source of mine) really Shi Jian Er Hao Yi which is more like SJ-2/2.
If any Chinese-speaking readers
can give me Pinyin transliterations of what the FY satellites are
actually called, I’d appreciate it.

Israel launched the ‘Ofeq-5 imaging satellite at 1525 UTC on May 28. The
three-stage Shaviyt rocket took off from Palmachim Air Force Base and
flew westward to put the satellite in a retrograde orbit. The AUS-51
third stage solid motor entered a 262 x 774 km x 143.5 deg orbit and
separated from the ‘Ofeq satellite. Both coasted up to apogee at around
1620 UTC when ‘Ofeq made a burn to increase its velocity by 33 m/s,
raising the orbit to 369 x 771 km x 143.5 deg. (Note:
www.haaretzdaily.com gave a time of 1330 UTC but this is inconsistent
with tracking data).

‘Ofeq-5 has a mass of about 300 kg, and is 2.3m high and 1.2m dia.
It was built by IAI/MBT for the Israeli Space Agency and carries
an imaging reconnaissance camera.

‘Ofeq-4, which was also EROS-A (a prototype for a civilian remote
sensing satellite) failed to orbit in Jan 1998.

Re JSR 478: My Quebecois friends inform me that the venting of the
SPOT-5 Ariane third stage was also observed from other places, not just
the US.

Table of Recent Launches

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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

May  7 1700   DirecTV-5         Proton-K/DM3   Baykonur LC81    Comms        23A

May 15 0150   FY-1D )           Chang Zheng 4B Taiyuan          Weather      24A

              HY-1  )                                           Rem.sensing  24B

May 28 1525   ‘Ofeq-5           Shaviyt        Palmachim        Imaging      25A

Current Shuttle Processing Status

_________________________________

Orbiters               Location   Mission    Launch Due   

OV-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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