Jonathan's Space Report<br />No. 502 2003 Jun 17, Cambridge, MA<br />-------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Shuttle and Station<br />--------------------<br /><br />The Expedition 7 crew, Yuriy Malenchenko and Edward Lu, are on board the<br />Space Station. Soyuz TMA-2 is docked to the nadir Zarya port and acts as<br />the crew return vehicle. Progress vehicle 247 (M-47, flight ISS-10P) is<br />docked at Zvezda's rear port. Progress vehicle 259 was launched on Jun 8<br />on flight ISS-11P and became Progress M1-10. It docked with the nadir<br />port on Pirs at 1115 UTC on Jun 11. Launch mass was 7270 kg.<br /><br /><br />Recent Launches<br />---------------<br /><br />International Launch Services launched a Krunichev Proton-K with a<br />Briz-M upper stage on Jun 6. The Proton carried the AMC-9 satellite for<br />SES Americom and the Briz-M into a suborbital path. The first Briz-M<br />burn acheived a low parking orbit of around 180 x 180 km x 51.6 deg. A<br />second burn reached 275 x 5000 x 50.3 deg; a third burn increased the<br />orbit until the DTB fuel tank was depleted and jettisoned in a 296 x<br />15061 km x 49.6 deg orbit. The fourth burn achieved a standard GTO of<br />375 x 35786 km x 49 deg, and a final burn released AMC-9 (Americom-9)<br />into an intermediate geostationary transfer orbit of 6445 x 35674 km x<br />17.2 deg. The Briz-M stage has not yet been cataloged. AMC-9 will use<br />its own engine to go the rest of the way to geostationary, and by Jun 10<br />was in a 31848 x 35689 km x 0.8 deg orbit.<br /><br />AMC-9 is an Alcatel Spacebus 3000B3 with C and Ku band communications<br />payloads and will provide services in North America from 72W. Launch<br />mass was 4100 kg; dry mass probably around 2000 kg. The Americom series<br />continues the original US domestic communications satellites, the RCA<br />Americom 'Satcom' series first launched in 1975. Americom has been<br />through several owners, and is now a subsidiary of the Luxembourg-based<br />Societe Europeene des Satellites (SES) which was originally formed to<br />run the Astra network.<br /><br />A Boeing Sea Launch Zenit-3SL was launched from the Odyssey platform<br />floating at 154W 0N on Jun 10. The payload is a Boeing GEM spacecraft<br />(modified BSS-702) for Thuraya Satellite (Abu Dhabi), which features a<br />large (12m) antenna for L-band mobile communications. The Thuraya-2<br />satellite has a launch mass of 5177 kg. The Yuzhnoe Zenit second stage<br />was placed on a suborbital -2155 x 187 km trajectory, and the first<br />Energiya Blok DM-SL burn reached a 180 x 1390 km x 6.3 deg transfer<br />orbit. A second burn put Thuraya in a 1200 x 35786 km x 6.3 deg orbit.<br /><br /><br />The first of NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers was launched on Jun 10.<br />The Boeing Delta 7925 reached a 170 km parking orbit; the second<br />stage made a second burn to a 163 x 4762 km x 28.5 deg orbit<br />and separated from the PAM-D third stage. Its Star 48 solid<br />motor fired to put the Rover on an escape trajectory, separating<br />at 1835 UTC. The Rover will enter a 1.042 x 1.550 AU x 0.26 deg<br />orbit around the Sun.<br /><br />The spacecraft launched on Jun 10 is MER-2 "Spirit", Mars Exploration<br />Rover 2, on the MER-A mission. The first flight article, MER-1<br />"Opportunity", completed checkout later and has been assigned to the<br />MER-B mission to be launched later on the first flight of the Delta<br />7925H rocket into a 1.01 x 1.53 AU x 1.04 deg solar orbit. MER-A<br />consists of the 174 kg Spirit rover, the 365 kg MER-2 lander, the 198 kg<br />backshell and 90 kg heatshield which encapsulate lander and rover during<br />Mars atmosphere entry, and the 183 kg Cruise stage which carries 52 kg<br />of propellant, for a total launch mass of 1062 kg. The MER rovers were<br />built by JPL.<br /><br />Corrected mass breakdown for Mars Express (thanks Martin Ransom): Mars<br />Express has a mass of 637 kg dry including science payload and Beagle<br />separation device together with 480 kg of propellant and the 69 kg<br />Beagle 2 lander for a total of 1186 kg. In addition to this a 37 kg<br />adapter remained attached to Fregat. Mars Express is in a 1.014 x 1.531<br />AU x 0.2 deg orbit around the Sun, following a course correction on Jun<br />5 and leaving the Earth's nominal sphere of influence on Jun 6.<br />NASA's OIG (and possibly USAF Space Command) have issued a decay<br />notice for satellites 27816/27817, Mars Express and its Fregat rocket -<br />this is of course a mistake (or at least inconsistent with previous<br />treatment of spacecraft in solar orbit).<br /><br />Arianespace launched Ariane 515G from Kourou on Jun 11 to place BSAT-2c<br />and Optus and Defence C1 into geostationary transfer orbit. The upper<br />spacecraft, Optus and Defence C1, is an Australian satellite jointly<br />owned by Singtel Optus Pty and the Australian Dept. of Defense. Previous<br />satellites in the series were simply named Optus and didn't carry the<br />extra defence comms payload. Prime contractor is Mitsubishi, using a<br />Loral FS-1300 bus with a UHF, X-band and Ka-band communications payload.<br />BSAT-2c, which was launched in the lower position below the SYLDA<br />adapter, is an Orbital Sciences Star-1 bus for Broadcasting Satellite<br />System Corp. BSAT-2c fired its solid apogee motor on Jun 16<br />to enter geosynchronous drift orbit.<br /><br /><br />Table of Recent Launches<br />-----------------------<br /><br />Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.<br /> DES.<br /><br />May 8 1128 GSAT-2 GSLV Sriharikota Comms 18A<br />May 9 0429 Hayabusa M-V Kagoshima Probe 19A<br />May 13 2210 Hellas Sat 2 Atlas V 401 Canaveral SLC41 Comms 20A<br />May 24 1634 Beidou CZ-3A Xichang Navigation 21A<br />Jun 2 1745 Mars Express Soyuz-FG/Fregat Baykonur LC31 Probe 22A<br />Jun 4 1923 Kosmos-2398 Kosmos-3M Plesetsk Navigation 23A<br />Jun 6 2215 AMC-9 Proton-K/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 24A<br />Jun 8 1034 Progress M1-10 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 25A<br />Jun 10 1356 Thuraya 2 Zenit-3SL Odyssey, Pacific Phone comms 26A<br />Jun 10 1758 MER-A Spirit Delta 7925 Canaveral SLC17A Mars probe 27A<br />Jun 11 2238 BSAT-2c ) Ariane 5G Kourou ELA3 Comms 28A<br /> Optus/D C1 ) Comms 28B<br /><br /><br />.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.<br />| Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 |<br />| Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | |<br /><br />| Astrophysics | |<br />| 60 Garden St, MS6 | |<br />| Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@cfa.harvard.edu |<br />| USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu |<br />| |<br />| JSR: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html |<br />| Back issues: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/back |<br />| Subscribe/unsub: mail majordomo@head-cfa.harvard.edu, (un)subscribe jsr | <br />'-------------------------------------------------------------------------'