Jonathan’s Space Report No. 482 2002 Jun 25
Shuttle and Station
——————–
The STS-111 (Station Utilization Flight-2) mission is now complete,
and Expedition 5 crew members Valeriy Korzun, Peggy Whitson and
Sergei Treshchev remain aboard the Station.
Some details on STS-111 in this issue are repeated from JSR 481, with
updated values. (I was on travel during part of the mission, and details
here are based on press reports, coverage by www.spaceflightnow.com, and
information kindly provided by Eddie Lyons.)
Endeavour docked with the Station at 1625 UTC on Jun 7. The Leonardo
MPLM module was attached to the Station on June 8.On Jun 9, Chang-Diaz
and Perrin made a spacewalk from the Quest airlock. It was depressurized
at around 1522 UTC and the hatch was opened at 1524 UTC. The suits went
to battery power at 1527 UTC. The astronauts installed the PGDF grapple
fixture on the P6 truss, stowed some space debris shields on the PMA-1
adapter, and prepared the Mobile Base System (MBS) in the Shuttle cargo
bay. The hatch was closed at 2234 UTC and the airlock began
repressurization at 2242 UTC. MBS was unberthed sometime around 2220 UTC
and docked to the Mobile Transporter at 1304 UTC on Jun 10. On Jun 11 at
about 1515 UTC the Quest was depressurized again, with Chang-Diaz and
Perrin opening the hatch around the same time and going to battery power
at 1520 UTC. During this spacewalk the astronauts completed setting up
the MBS system. The hatch was closed at 2016 UTC and Quest was
repressurized at 2020 UTC.
The third EVA was on Jun 13, again from the Quest airlock. Depress was
at 1512 UTC with hatch open probably at 1514 and battery power at 1516.
The astronauts replaced the wrist roll joint on the station’s Canadarm-2
SSRMS robot arm; the old joint was stowed in Endeavour’s cargo bay for
return to Earth. The hatch was closed at 2229 UTC and the airlock was
repressurized at 2233 UTC. At around 1918 UTC on Jun 14 the Shuttle RMS
unberthed the Leonardo logistics module from Unity and put it back in
the cargo bay, berthing it at 2011 UTC. On Jun 15 the hatches between
Shuttle and Station were closed at 1223 UTC, with the Ex-5 crew now
aboard Station and the Ex-4 crew on the Shuttle for the trip home.
Endeavour undocked at 1432 UTC, leaving the Station in a 389 x 399 km x
51.6 deg orbit following three reboost burns. After two days of bad
weather, Endeavour was diverted to Edwards AFB in California, with a
deorbit burn at 1650 UTC on Jun 19 lowering its orbit from 347 x 387 km
to 34 x 386 km. The Shuttle nominally entered the atmosphere around 1726
UTC and landed on runway 22 at Edwards at 1747 UTC.
The next Shuttle mission is probably STS-107, which will fly an
independent research mission carrying out microgravity experiments.
However, launches are currently suspended pending investigation of
cracks found in Orbiter fuel lines.
Recent Launches
—————
A Krunichev Proton-K put a Russian domestic communications satellite in
orbit on Jun 10. Ekspress A No. 4 was built by NPO PM and Alcatel for GP
Kosmicheskaya Svyaz’, the Russian satcom operator, which calls the
satellite Ekspress A1R. According to an Energiya press release, the
Proton’s parking orbit was off-nominal but the Energiya 11S861-01 Blok
DM-2M upper stage corrected for this and delivered the payload to the
correct orbit. Parking orbit was about 180 x 185 km x 51.6 deg; transfer
orbit after the first DM-2M burn was 328 x 36133 km x 47.4 deg; orbit at
spacecraft separation was 36102 x 36171 km x 0.2 deg. Two SOZ ullage
motors were left in the transfer orbit.
Two Iridium replacement satellites, SV97 and SV98, were launched on Jun
20 at 0933 UTC by a Krunichev Rokot vehicle from Plesetsk. The mobile
telephone satellites are owned by Iridium Satellite LLC, the successor
to bankrupt Iridium LLC. The Rokot consists of the two-stage UR-100NU
ballistic missile with a Briz-KM upper stage based on the S5.92 engine
(originally flown on space probes like Fobos).
Based on previous Rokot launches, the probable profile is that the
second UR-100NU stage burnt out and separated at 5 min after launch,
followed by a roughly 9 min Briz first burn to a transfer orbit of
roughly (120-200) x 660 km; at apogee the Briz then restarted at around
1040 UTC over the South Atlantic to enter a 658 x 669 km x 86.6 deg
orbit and deployed the two Iridium satellites. At roughly 1130 UTC Briz
then made a third burn to a 232 x 662 km x 86.6 deg disposal orbit from
where it will reenter quickly. However, I don’t have any firm
information on the transfer orbit phase.
Here is a list of the Briz upper stage launches to date:
Date Launch vehicle Upper Stage Payload Notes
1990 Nov 20 Rokot Briz-K – Suborbital test
1991 Dec 20 Rokot Briz-K Grand Prix Suborbital test
1994 Dec 26 Rokot Briz-K Radio-ROSTO
1999 Jul 5 Proton-K Briz-M No. 1L Raduga Launch failure
2000 May 16 Rokot Briz-KM IKA 1/2
2000 Jun 6 Proton-K Briz-M No. 2L Gorizont
2001 Apr 7 Proton-M Briz-M No. 3L Ekran-M
2002 Mar 17 Rokot Briz-KM GRACE 1/2
2002 Jun 20 Rokot Briz-KM Iridium 97/98
The Galaxy 3C satellite was launched to geostationary transfer orbit by
a Sea Launch Zenit-3SL. The rocket took off at 2239:30 UTC on Jun 15
from the Odyssey floating launch platform at its standard 154W 0N
location. The Zenit second stage and the DM third stage with payload
entered a -2160 x 195 km suborbital trajectory at 2248:10. At about 2252
UTC the DM stage entered a 180 x 393 km x 0 deg parking orbit. A second
burn of the DM at 2324 to 2330 UTC put Galaxy 3C in a 358 x 41440 km x
0.02 deg transfer orbit This is a record low inclination for a
geostationary transfer orbit. The satellite’s R-4D apogee engine will
put the Boeing BSS-702 satellite in geostationary orbit. The satellite
is the first 702 model to use extra solar panels instead of the solar
concentrators which ran into fogging problems on the earlier 702
flights.
The Intelsat 905 satellite uses a new version of the venerable General
Dynamics R-4D bipropellant engine, the R-4D-15 HiPAT (High Performance
Apogee Thruster) with a thrust of 445N. The first two HiPATs were built
by Marquardt/Van Nuys, but new ones are built at GD’s Redmond site.
By Jun 15, I-905 was in a 35642 x 35793 km x 0.1 deg geostationary
drift orbit at 26 deg W.
Lockheed Martin launched Titan 23G-14, a refurbished Titan II missile,
from Vandenberg on Jun 24 at 1823 UTC. The two-stage Titan put the NOAA
M satellite on a suborbital trajectory of about -2500 x 820 km x 98 deg.
at 1829 UTC. At 1837 UTC the NOAA M propulsion module fired its
ATK/Thiokol Star 37XFP solid motor for the orbit insertion burn,
followed by a hydrazine trim burn to put the satellite in an 807 x 822
km x 98.8 deg operational orbit. NOAA M becomes NOAA 17 on entering
service with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as
the primary morning weather satellite, supplementing the NOAA 16 afternoon
satellite. Built by Lockheed Martin, NOAA M carries weather imagers and
microwave and infrared sounders, as well as a SARSAT search-and-rescue
package. It has an on-orbit mass of 1475 kg.
Thanks to Igor Lissov for confirming the Kosmos-2389 launch time
of 1814:41 UTC.
Table of Recent Launches
———————–
Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
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 )
Jun 10 0114 Ekspress A1R Proton-K/DM2M? Baykonur LC200 Comms 29A
Jun 15 2239 Galaxy 3C Zenit-3SL Odyssey, POR Comms 30A
Jun 20 0933 Iridium SV97 ) Rokot/Briz-KM Plesetsk LC133 Comms 31A
Iridium SV98 ) Comms 31B
Jun 24 1823 NOAA 17 Titan 23G Vandenberg SLC4W Weather 32A
Current Shuttle Processing Status
_________________________________
Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due
OV-102 Columbia OPF STS-107 2002 Aug? Spacehab
OV-103 Discovery OPF Maintenance
OV-104 Atlantis OPF STS-112 2002 Aug? ISS 9A
OV-105 Endeavour Edwards STS-113 2002 Oct? ISS 11A
.————————————————————————-.
| 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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