Jonathan’s Space Report No. 480 2002 Jun 6

Readers in the vicinity of Garching bei Munchen are invited to
contact me at the Virtual Observatories meeting on Jun 11-14.

Major new online resource: Launch Vehicle Database

After several years of preparation, the initial release of the

JSR Launch Vehicle Database

is now online (please excuse the raw HTML if you see it on the line above!)

The database (it’s just a set of text files, not a database in the
modern sense) contains basic details of about 30000 rocket launches and
aims to contain all known orbital and suborbital space launches (apogees
more than 80 km) as well as a number of lower apogee rocket launches
deemed to be of interest. Corrections and additions are, as always,
welcome; I expect to update the files every few months.

I strongly refute the suggestion by one early visitor to this resource
that I have `way too much time on my hands’. Nevertheless, I believe
this to be the first reasonably comprehensive compilation of suborbital
space launches either online or in print, although Joe King, Keith
Scala, Gunter Krebs (www.skyrocket.de), Jean-Jacques Serra
(http://www.univ-perp.fr/fuseurop), Joel Powell, Carl Rigg and Pete
Alway (http://members.aol.com/satrnpress/saturn.htm), among others, also
have extensive lists and made important contributions.

Shuttle and Station

Orbiter OV-105 Endeavour was launched at 2122:49 UTC on 2002 Jun 5.
At 2131 UTC it reached a 58 x 224 km x 51.6 deg orbit (as quoted
by the NASA PAO) and separated from the External Tank. It coasted
to apogee at 2201 UTC and carried out the OMS-2 burn to raise the
orbit to 158 x 235 km.

Endeavour is flying Shuttle mission STS-111, Station mission UF-2, to
deliver the Expedition 5 crew to the Station and return the Ex-4 crew.

Erratum

In earlier JSRs I reported the Mar 21 launch of Progress M1-8 as being
with the new Soyuz-FG launch vehicle, based on Russian reports. The
latest issue of Novosti Kosmonavtiki magazine makes it clear that M1-8
actually used the older Soyuz-U, 11A511U No. 678. Thus, the only
Soyuz-FG launches to date have been Progress M1-6 and M1-7.
The -FG is very similar to the -U, with some uprated engines.

Recent Launches

Kosmos-2389 was launched from Plesetsk on May 28 at roughly its
scheduled time of 1815 UTC. It is a Parus-class navigation satellite.
The Kosmos-3M rocket entered a transfer orbit of about 150 x 1000 km x
83 deg at about 1823 UTC; a second burn at apogee around 1905 UTC
circularized the orbit at 950 x 1016 km. The satellite is in Plane 4,
probably replacing Kosmos-2336; it is between the planes of Kosmos-2366
and Kosmos-2361.

I was a little confused earlier by the objects in the recent Chinese
launch. Mike McCants reports that 2002-24B, in the 851 x 873 km orbit,
is the FY-1D weather satellite, and the object that maneuvered to the
lower 792 km orbit is the HY-1 oceanography research satellite which is
confirmed to have orbit adjust capability by Chinese sources.

I am informed that

FY-1D = Feng Yun Yi Ding

HY-1 = Hai Yang Yi

(Yi is 1, Ding is used as an equivalent of D, with A = Jia, B = Yi, C = Beng –
recall that there’s no alphabet per se in Chinese!).

Feng Yun means ‘Wind and Cloud’, Hai Yang means ‘Ocean’.

Intelsat 905 was launched on Jun 5 into geostationary transfer orbit by
an Arianespace Ariane 44L. The satellite has a mass of 1984 kg with 2739
kg of propellant and was built by Loral for the recently privatized
Intelsat company. It will be stationed over the Atlantic.

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 2044   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   Feng Yun 1D )     Chang Zheng 4B Taiyuan          Weather      24B

              Hai Yang 1  )                                     Rem.sensing  24A

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

May 28 1815?  Kosmos-2389       Kosmos-3M      Plesetsk         Navigation   26A

Jun  5 0644   Intelsat 905      Ariane 44L     Kourou ELA2      Comms.       27A

Jun  5 2122   Endeavour )       Shuttle        Kennedy LC39A    Spaceship    28A

              Leonardo  )                                       Module

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       LEO           STS-111 2002 Jun  5  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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