Official RSC Energia Press Release about the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis under the International Space Station program
Within the framework of further activities to
implement the large-scale International Space Station project,
at 16 hours 45 minutes 47 seconds Moscow Time (12:45:47 GMT),
Space Shuttle Atlantis was launched from a launch pad at Kennedy
Space Center, Fla, USA.
The Space Shuttle carries a crew of seven, including
five US astronauts (Terrence Wilcutt, Scott Altman, Edward Lu,
Richard Mastracchio, Daniel Burbank) and two Russian cosmonauts
(Yuri Malenchenko, Boris Morukov).
The Russian cosmonauts are specialists trained
for activities on the ISS Russian Segment that is being created
by S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, the prime
company for all of the Russia’s manned space programs, including
ISS, which is working in cooperation with a wide range of subcontractors
including more than 200 Russian companies and organizations,
as well as a number of firms and companies from abroad.
The objective of the mission designated as STS-106
under the Space Shuttle program is to dock with the 60-ton ISS
vehicle, as well as to provide logistics support for the next
phase of the space station construction. The docking of the
Space Shuttle Orbiter with the Space Station is scheduled for
September 10, 2000 (9:52 Moscow Time, 5:52 GMT).
The mission tasks include delivery to ISS of
equipment for planned outfitting of the Russian Service Module
(SM) Zvezda and consumables needed to support the crew of the
first long-duration mission to ISS scheduled to arrive at the
space station early in November. Besides, the plans include
activation of major systems of Zvezda module, unloading of Russian
logistics vehicle Progress M1-3 that docked with SM on August
9, 2000, and delivered to the space station 615 kg of outfitting
cargo, as well as 1.5 tons of propellant for refueling the module’s
combined propulsion system.
The delivered equipment will be stowed and installed
in the space station’s modules in accordance with the schedule.
The scheduled extravehicular activities include an inspection
of structural elements and a number of operations on the outer
surface of the modules. There are plans to use Space Shuttle
thrusters to reboost the ISS orbit in order to compensate for
its degradation caused by aerodynamic drag in the Earth’s upper
atmosphere.
This mission of the US Space Shuttle bears a
designation of 2A.2b in the ISS assembly schedule. The mission
of the International Space Station, which currently consists
of logistics vehicle Progress M1-3 and modules Zvezda-Zarya-Unity,
is controlled by the Lead Operational Control Team (LOCT) at
the Moscow Mission Control Center (MCC-M), Korolev, Moscow region.
The mission of the Space Shuttle Orbiter is controlled
from the US Mission Control Center (MCC-H), Houston, TX.
The personnel of both mission control centers
cooperate by exchanging data from radiomonitoring of orbits
and information about the on-board system status of the Orbiter
and the entire vehicle.
Space Shuttle Atlantis was put into a low Earth
orbit coplanar to the orbit of the Space Station.
According to the MCC-M data, International Space
Station is in an orbit with inclination of 51.6*. Maximum and
minimum altitudes are 381.7 and 353.3 km, respectively. The
orbital period is 91.6 minutes.
In the course of its flight to ISS, Atlantis
will raise its orbit and gradually approach the space station,
where, prior to the Shuttle launch, MCC-M performed all the
operations needed to check the readiness of the on-board systems,
including those that support the required space station attitude,
and rendezvous and docking with it.
