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Editorial

I have updated my edited version of the United Nations Registry of space objects, available from my space home page http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/space.html.

Shuttle and Mir

NASA has decided to go ahead with mission STS-83R, the MSL-1 reflight, on July 1. The same crew will fly the mission. The solid rocket boosters originally scheduled for STS-85 (BI-88/RSRM-62) are being stacked instead for STS-83R on mobile launch platform 1 in the VAB's high bay 1. Meanwhile, preparations continue for the launch of Atlantis on mission STS-84 to Mir in May, and that orbiter has been connected to the external tank and solid rocket boosters. Atlantis will deliver a replacement oxygen generator to Mir. The Mir complex raised its orbit by 5 km on 15 Apr at 1200 UTC, using Progress M-34's engine. The Mir crew continue to carry out repairs on their life support system.

Recent Launches

Arianespace's Ariane 44LP rocket placed two communications satellites into orbit on Apr 16. Thaicom 3 is an Aerospatiale Spacebus 3000 satellite with 25 C-band and 14 Ku-band transponders, owned by Shinawatra Satellite Public Co. of Bangkok, Thailand. It will be used for communications in Asia and direct TV coverage in Thailand. The satellite has a mass of 2650 kg at launch, 1179 kg dry, with a 26.3m solar panel wingspan. The second payload is BSAT-1a, a Ku-band direct TV broadcasting satellite using the Hughes HS-376 bus. It is operated by Broadcasting Satellite System Corp. of Tokyo, a consortium of Japanese broadcasters including NHK, which will replace the earlier TSCJ (Telecomms Sat Corp of Japan) as the DBS operating organization. BSAT-1a is a successor to the BSE, BS-2a/b, BS-3a/b (Yuri) satellite series of NASDA and the BS-2X, 3H, 3N series of NHK.

    Japanese BS series direct TV broadcasting satellites 
  -------------------------------------------------------
  Satellite       Launch       Rocket      Owner       Bus
  BSE (Yuri)      1978 Apr 7   Delta 2914  NASDA       Toshiba/GE Satcom
  BS-2a (Yuri-2a) 1984 Jan 23  N-2         NASDA/TSCJ  Toshiba/GE Satcom
  BS-2b (Yuri-2b) 1986 Feb 12  N-2         NASDA/TSCJ  Toshiba/GE Satcom
  BS-2X           1990 Feb 22* Ariane 44L  NHK         GE S-3000
  BS-3a (Yuri-3a) 1990 Aug 28  H-1         NASDA/TSCJ  GE S-3000
  BS-3H           1991 Apr 18* Atlas I     NHK         GE S-3000
  BS-3b (Yuri-3b) 1991 Aug 25  H-1         NASDA/TSCJ  GE S-3000
  BS-3N           1994 Jul  8  Ariane 44L  NHK/JSB     MMAS S-3000
  BSAT-1a         1997 Apr 16  Ariane 44LP BSAT        Hughes HS-376
  * Note: BS-2X and BS-3H failed to reach orbit.

Kosmos-2341 was launched on Apr 17. It is a navigation satellite built by NPO-PM of Krasnoyarsk-26. The AO Polyot Kosmos-3M launch vehicle's S3M upper stage made two burns to deliver the payload to a 977 x 1014 km x 82.9 deg orbit. The FAISAT satellite originally scheduled for this mission was removed prior to launch.

Orbital Sciences Corp. launched a Pegasus XL rocket on Apr 21, placing the Minisat-01 satellite in orbit for the Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aerospacial (INTA), the Spanish space agency. Minisat-01 is the first of a series of Minisat-0 technology satellites, which will precede planned Minisat-1 observation satellites and Minisat-2 comsats. Minisat-01 is a 209 kg satellite built by the Spanish CASA company. It carries the EURD extreme ultraviolet spectrograph to study the interstellar medium, the LEGRI experiment to study gamma ray bursts, and the CPLM experiment to study microaccelerations in liquids.

The Pegasus XL rocket was attached to OSC's L-1011 Stargazer launch aircraft at Torrejon AFB, Madrid earlier this month. On Apr 19 the L-1011 carried the Pegasus to Gando AFB on the eastern tip of the island of Gran Canaria, at approximately 27.5N 15.2W. It took off again at 1100 UTC on Apr 21, flying to 11.9 km altitude over the drop zone at 27.0N 15.33W, over the Atlantic Ocean between Gran Canaria and the Western Sahara coast. The Pegasus XL was released at 1159 UTC and five seconds later the winged first stage ignited to begin the ascent to orbit. The second stage burnt out at 1202 UTC and the vehicle coasted until 1207 UTC when the second stage separated and the third stage ignited for a one minute burn. At 1209 UTC the third stage and Minisat-01 separated, with Minisat in a 562 x 581 km orbit with an inclination of 151.0 degrees (i.e. 29 degrees but going westward). This is an all-time record high inclination orbit, beating the 1966 record of 144.7 deg set by the USAF research satellite OV1-5.

Some press reports said that this Pegasus launch was the first satellite launch from Western Europe, a claim that suggests certain people need to look at a map. It's true that the mission was staged via Madrid and some operations were managed from there, but the takeoff was from Gando and I understand that launch control was at Maspalomas on the southern tip of Gran Canaria. It's also true that Gran Canaria is Spanish territory (just as Kourou is French territory), but that doesn't make it part of Europe. So I think it's more accurate to say that this was a launch from Western Africa (and not the first, as the French launched from southern Algeria in 1965-1967. The Italian launch site off the coast of East Africa saw its first orbital launch in 1967).

The Pegasus third stage for this mission consistes of an Orion 38 rocket motor and the Celestis satellite. The Celestis is a set of capsules containing the cremated ashes of 24 people, and inaugurates a new form of burial provided by the U.S. company Celestis, Inc. Celestis is in a 554 x 582 km x 151.0 deg orbit.

Table of Recent Launches

Date UT       Name            Launch Vehicle  Site            Mission    INTL.
                                                                          DES.

Mar  1 0107   Intelsat 801     Ariane 44P     Kourou ELA2     Comsat      09A
Mar  4 0200   Zeya             Start-1        Svobodniy LC5   Comsat      10A
Mar  8 0601   Tempo 2          Atlas IIA      Canaveral LC36A Comsat      11A
Apr  4 1647   DMSP 5D-2 S-14   Titan 23G      Vandenberg SLC4W Weather    12A
Apr  4 1920   Columbia/STS-83) Shuttle        Kennedy LC39A   Spaceship   13A
              MSL-1 Spacelab )
Apr  6 1604   Progress M-34    Soyuz-U        Baykonur        Cargo       14A
Apr  9 0900?  Kosmos-2340      Molniya-M      Plesetsk        EarlyWarn   15A
Apr 16 2309   Thaicom 3  )     Ariane 44LP    Kourou ELA2     Comsat      16A
              BSAT 1a    )                                                16B
Apr 17 1303   Kosmos-2341      Kosmos-3M      Plesetsk LC132/1 Navsat     17A
Apr 21 1159   Minisat-01 )     Pegasus XL     L-1011, Gando   Technology  18A
              Celestis   )                                    Burial      18B

Current Shuttle Processing Status

Orbiters               Location   Mission    Launch Due
                                           
OV-102 Columbia        OPF Bay 1     STS-83R Jul  1
OV-103 Discovery       OPF Bay 2     STS-85  Aug  7
OV-104 Atlantis        VAB Bay 3     STS-84  May 15
OV-105 Endeavour       OPF Bay 3     STS-86  Sep 25

                                          
ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks                       
                  
ML1/RSRM-62                 VAB Bay 1      STS-83R
ML2/RSRM-60/ET-85/OV-104    VAB Bay 3      STS-84
ML3/