Jonathan’s Space Report No. 593 2008 Mar 15
Shuttle and Station
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On Mar 11 Orbiter OV-105 Endeavour launched on Shuttle mission STS-123, Station flight 1J/A. I observed STS-123’s naked-eye ascent from the roof of the Harvard Observatory in Cambridge, MA as a bright rapidly moving object, vanishing at MECO, then, just as on previous occasions that I’ve seen it from here, reappearing with only slightly lower brightness with a roughly regular period for about 1 second every 6 or 7 seconds until it set – presumably I’m seeing RCS burns, but I’m a bit surprised that they are so bright.
Launch of STS-123 was at 0628:14 UTC. MECO put Endeavour in a 58 x 220 km orbit; OMS-2 came 38m 30s after launch and raised the orbit to roughly 220 x 233 km. On Mar 13 at 0220 UTC Endeavour reached a point 0.2 km below the Station and began its final approach; it docked with PMA-2 at 0349 UTC.
Astronaut Garrett Reisman has joined the Expedition 16 crew of Whitson and Malenchenko, replacing Leo Eyharts.
Added to the Station on this mission will be the Canadian Dextre robot manipulator (to go on the end of the Canadarm-2) and the Japanese Kibo ELM-PS, to be temporarily stowed on the zenith port of Harmony. Japan’s Kibo station module complex will eventually consist of the Kibo JEM-PM (Pressurized Module; the main lab), the Kibo JEM-EF (Exposed Facility, for external experiments), the ELM-PS (Experiment Logistics Module – Pressurized Section), which plays a role similar to the MPLM logistics modules, the ELM-ES (Experiment Logistics Module – Exposed Section) for supply of temporary experiments, a bit like the deployable ICC or SLP pallets, and the JEM-RMS Japanese robot arm. The ELM-PS was built by MHI (Mitsubishi Heavy Industry) at its Tobishima factory in Nagoya; it will be controlled from the Tsukuba facility of the Japanese space agency JAXA.
The Station arm grappled the Dextre pallet at around 0700 on Mar 13 and attached it to the Mobile Base System on the Station truss by around 0800. At 0113 UTC on Mar 14 the Quest airlock was depressurized, and Rick Linnehan (in EMU 3004) and Garrett Reisman (in EMU 3006) began a spacewalk to prepare the ELM-PS for installation and begin assembling Dextre from its component pieces. The airlock was repressurized to end the spacewalk at 0819 UTC.
STS-123 also carries a lot of small payloads. The MISSE 6 payload consists of two suitcase-like materials exposure trays, PEC 6a and PEC 6b, which will be attached to a lightweight adapter plane (LWAPA) to be fixed to the Columbus External Payload Facility. The PEC cases are on APC class sidewall carriers in the cargo bay, while the heavier LWAPA needs the heftier SPA beam (GAS beam) carrier. Three more SPA beams carry a spare Canadarm-2 Yaw Joint and a pair of DCSU (Direct Current Switching Unit) boxes, to be stowed on the Station ESP platform as spares. Another SPA beam carries RIGEX, a US Air Force Space Test Program payload which will evaluate inflatable materials inside a closed canister. More APC carriers host EVA cargo stowage (ECSH), SIP (standard interface panels, for what I’m not sure) and SPDU (the Station Power Distribution Unit to let the Shuttle run off Station electricity while docked).
Here is my version of the STS-123 payload bay manifest:
Name Bay location Mass (kg,guess)
Orbiter Docking System 1-2 1800
with EMU 3003, 3004 suits 260?
APC/SPDU 3 port 100?
SPA/Yaw Joint 3 stbd 336
ICAPC/MISSE PEC 6a 4 port 103
SPA/DCSU 1 4 stbd 363
ICAPC/MISSE PEC 6b 5 port 103
SPA/DCSU 2 5 stbd 363
APC/SIP 6 stbd ?
SLP-D1/Dextre 7-8 3485
APC/ECSH 9 port 100?
Kibo ELM-PS 10-12 8484
APC/SIP? 11 stbd? ?
SPA/MISSE LWAPA 13 port 244
SPA/RIGEX 13 stbd 315
RMS 202 Sill 410
OBSS IBA S/N 003 Sill 450?
----------------------------------------------------
Cargo total 16916 kg
The Dextre robot is carried up on a Spacelab Pallet (SLP), a flexible unpressurized cargo bay carrier built by British Aerospace (in their Stevenage plant, I think?) in the late 1970s. At least 11 different pallets seem to have flown, some at least 3 times, for a total of 32 missions to date including the current one.
Here is a list of pallet flights; I don’t have serial numbers for the more recent flights, and would be glad to receive them. (The ISS Cupola used to be planned for a pallet launch on STS-132, but I understand it is now to be launched directly attached to Node 3. Pallet MD003 is probably the same as F003, but I think E002 and E003 were separate builds of engineering models for the pallet system and are not the same as F002 and F003.)
Flt No. SLP S/N Cargo STS Mission 1 E002 OSTA-1 STS-2 2 E003 OSS-1 STS-3 3 F001 Spacelab 1 STS-9 4 F006 OSTA-3 STS 41-G 5 F007 HS-376R (Westar) STS 51-A 6 F008 HS-376R (Palapa) STS 51-A 7 F002 Spacelab 2 Fwd STS 51-F 8 F005 Spacelab 2 Mid STS 51-F 9 F003 Spacelab 2 Aft STS 51-F 10 F010 Spacelab Astro 1 Fwd STS-35 11 F002 Spacelab Astro 1 Aft STS-35 12 F004 Spacelab Atlas 1 Fwd STS-45 13 F005 Spacelab Atlas 1 Aft STS-45 14 F003 TSS-1 STS-46 15 F008 Spacelab Atlas 2 STS-56 16 ? HST SM-1 ORU Carrier STS-61 17 F006 Spacelab SRL-1 STS-59 18 F007 LITE STS-64 19 F006 Spacelab SRL-2 STS-68 20 F008 Spacelab Atlas 3 STS-66 21 F010 Spacelab Astro 2 Fwd STS-67 22 F002 Spacelab Astro 2 Aft STS-67 23 F003? TSS-1R STS-75 24 ? HST SM-2 ORU Carrier STS-82 25 ? HST SM-3A ORU Carrier STS-103 26 ? SRTM STS-99 27 MD003 ISS PMA-3 STS-92 28 ? ISS SSRMS STS-100 29 ? ISS Airlock O2/N2 Fwd STS-104 30 ? ISS Airlock O2/N2 Aft STS-104 31 ? HST SM-3B RA Carrier STS-109 32 ? ISS Dextre STS-123 33 (Planned) ? HST SM-4 ORU Carrier STS-125
Meanwhile, the Jules Verne ATV has resumed its rendezvous sequence, now that a propulsion anomaly has been resolved; by late on Mar 11 it was in a 275 x 291 km orbit. Dan Deak confirms from CSG sources that the EPS stage did indeed reenter following its deorbit burn at 0628 UTC on Mar 9. Two more burns were made on Mar 12 and raised the orbit to 302 x 316 km; a test of the collision avoidance manuever is planned on Mar 14.
AMC 14
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An International Launch Services/Khrunichev Proton-M was launched from Baykonur on Mar 14. The Proton third stage was suborbital; the Briz-M upper stage entered a 173 km parking orbit at 2337 UTC, but the second burn at 0017 UTC on Mar 15, meant to send it to an 890 x 35745 km x 49.1 deg transfer orbit, failed in some way, stranding the Lockheed Martin A2100AXS communications satellite payload, AMC 14 out of reach of geostationary orbit. The burn was planned as an extremely long duration one: 34 minutes. No further details are available at the moment.
AMC 14 was to be owned by SES Americom and leased by Echostar, replacing Echostar 3 at 61.5W. The satellite has a launch mass of 4140 kg, probably including around 2000 kg of MON-3 nitrogen tetroxide and MMH (monomethyl hydrazine) propellant.
Recent Proton failures include Arabsat 4A in 2006 Nov, a similar failure in which the long 30-minute second burn of the Briz ended prematurely; Arabsat was deliberately deorbited a month later to avoid an uncontrolled reentry. Another failure in 2007, JCSAT 11, was unrelated (stage 1/2 separation failure).
Prognoz 6
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The SO-M No. 506 solar particles observatory was launched in September 1977 and given the code name Prognoz 6. It and the Blok SO-L fourth stage of the 8K78M Molniya launch vehicle entered a 488 x 200000 km x 65.0 deg elliptical orbit. On 2008 Mar 6 Prognoz-6 was in a 26274 x 171974 km x 51.7 orbit; the Blok SO-L was never tracked, but has now finally been cataloged in a 33653 x 161978 x 48.1 deg orbit. I hope this indicates a new interest at Space Command in documenting the deep space population of objects, which is very poorly cataloged at present.
NROL-28
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United Launch Alliance launched a Lockheed Martin Atlas V 411 from Space Launch Complex 3-East at Vandenberg on Mar 13. The mission, which used vehicle AV-006, was a National Reconnaissance Office launch designated NROL-28 and placed a payload designated USA 200 in an elliptical 12-hour 63-degree inclination orbit. Observers in Beijing saw the venting of the Centaur after separation as a bright naked-eye transient ‘comet’.
Analysts believe that this launch is the second in a new series of satellites carrying combined signals intelligence and early warning payloads, and is similar to USA 184 launched on NROL-22 (a Delta 4) in 2006 Jun. USA 184 probably carried the SBIRS HEO-1 infrared missile early warning package and the NASA/Los Alamos TWINS-A magnetospheric research payload; I expect that HEO-2 and TWINS-B are aboard the new launch. This is believed to be the 12th highly elliptical orbit NRO signals intelligence mission since the launch of the first JUMPSEAT mission in 1971, although there is some uncertainty about the identity of flights 6 and 7:
Flight Designation Date LV Orbit km x km x deg
[First generation]
1 - 1971 Mar 21 Titan 23B/Agena 328 x 39264 x 63.2
2 - 1972 Feb 16 Titan 23B/Agena Failed to orbit
3 - 1973 Aug 21 Titan 23B/Agena 392 x 39132 x 63.3
4 - 1975 Mar 10 Titan 34B/Agena 295 x 39338 x 63.5
5 - 1978 Aug 5 Titan 34B/Agena 315 x 39053 x 62.5
6 - 1981 Apr 24 Titan 34B/Agena Orbital data unknown
7 USA 4 1984 Aug 28 Titan 34B/Agena 342 x 38347 x 63.6
[Second generation]
8 USA 103 1994 May 3 Titan 401A/Centaur 1551 x 38802 x 63.1
9 USA 112 1995 Jul 10 Titan 401A/Centaur 1575 x 38780 x 63.4
10 USA 136 1997 Nov 8 Titan 401A/Centaur 1960 x 38395 x 63.4
[Third generation]
11 USA 184 2006 Jun 28 Delta 4M+(4,2) 1139 x 39210 x 63.3
12 USA 200 2008 Mar 13 Atlas V 411 Orbit to be determined
Table of Recent (orbital) Launches
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Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
Jan 15 1149 Thuraya 3 Zenit-3SL Odyssey, Pacific Comms 01A
Jan 21 0345 Polaris (TecSAR) PSLV Sriharikota FLP Radar 02A
Jan 28 0018 Ekspress AM-33 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 03A
Feb 5 1303 Progress M-63 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 04A
Feb 7 1945 Atlantis (STS-122) Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 05A
Columbus ) Module -
Feb 11 1134 Thor 5 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur Comms 06A
Feb 23 0855 Kizuna H-IIA 2024 Tanegashima Comms 07A
Mar 9 0403 Jules Verne ATV Ariane 5ES Kourou ELA3 Cargo 08A
Mar 11 0628 Endeavour(STS-123) Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 09A
Mar 13 1002 USA 200 Atlas V 411 Vandenberg SLC3E Sigint 10A
Mar 14 2318 AMC 14 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 11A?
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