Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from holmes.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Mon, 20 Mar 89 09:00:00 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Mon, 20 Mar 89 08:59:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #299 SPACE Digest Volume 9 : Issue 299 Today's Topics: NASA Prediction Bulletins: Space Shuttle USSR's Phobos II makes orbital adjustment at Mars USSR's Progress 41 docks with Mir NASA Prediction Bulletins: Space Shuttle space news from Jan 9 AW&ST ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Mar 89 01:04:03 GMT From: tkelso@blackbird.afit.af.mil (TS Kelso) Subject: NASA Prediction Bulletins: Space Shuttle The most current orbital elements from the NASA Prediction Bulletins are carried on the Celestial RCP/M, (513) 427-0674, and are updated several times weekly. Documentation and tracking software are also available on this system. As a service to the satellite user community, the most current elements for the current shuttle mission are provided below. The Celestial RCP/M may be accessed 24 hours/day at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud using 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity. STS-29 1 19882U 89021 A 89075.63222967 .00000000 00000-0 00000-0 0 00153 2 19882 028.4619 204.9202 0024308 220.5990 139.3286 15.84275610000486 -- Dr TS Kelso Asst Professor of Space Operations tkelso@blackbird.afit.af.mil Air Force Institute of Technology ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Mar 89 23:34:39 EST From: Glenn Chapman To: XB.N31@forsythe.stanford.edu, space-editors-new@andrew.cmu.edu, yaron@astro.as.utexas.edu Subject: USSR's Phobos II makes orbital adjustment at Mars On Mar. 15th the USSR announced that the Phobos II probe's orbit was adjusted to make a closer match to the orbit of the Martian moon. This does not appear to be the final burn, which will occur shortly before rendezvous, but just an smaller adjustment. Current passes (Feb. 19 and Feb. 28th) yielded closest approaches of 300 - 440 Km (188 - 275 mi), not as near as the 100 - 150 Km (63 - 94 mi) the Russians have been desiring. After the final matching (about the end of this month) the Soviets will eject the main retro engine section, and last approach will be done using hydrazine thrusters. Timing for these burns will probably be set by the next set of pictures which should quantify the orbits of both probe and Phobos much better. To date the only pictures that I have seen printed of Phobos were in the New Scientist (Mar. 4). That article also described the next Soviet Mars mission, slated now for 1994. This will use the Proton booster (20 Tonnes to orbit), rather than the much newer Energiya (100 Tonnes to orbit) due to the reliability of the Proton (standard conservative Soviet design - Energiya has only flown twice). The main bus of the probe will be similar to that of the current Phobos probes, but with two main orbital instrument sections. The first, massing 160 Kg (352 lbs), will observe the Mars itself, while the second, 40 Kg (88 lbs) will inspect the solar wind around the planet. Lander sections will contain one or two balloon systems (probably French/Soviet designs), which will use solar heating to lift off the surface and fly during the day, then land at night as they cool for ground measurements. There will also be a couple of penetrators which will be implanted in the soil. While the article does not state it all previous discussions have noted that there will be two such probes launched to the planet. Considering the loss of Phobos I that conservative approach will probably be continued by the Soviets. The Phobos mission now within weeks of its most critical period - can the Russians pull it off? Nothing that I have seen in the past few weeks says they will not. Glenn Chapman MIT Lincoln Lab ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Mar 89 22:49:19 EST From: Glenn Chapman To: XB.N31@forsythe.stanford.edu, space-editors-new@andrew.cmu.edu, yaron@astro.as.utexas.edu Subject: USSR's Progress 41 docks with Mir The Soviets announced the docking of the Progress 41 tanker with the Mir/Kvant space station Mar. 19th, after its launch on Mar. 17. This will bring about 1 tonne of supplies and 1.3 tonnes of fuel/air/water to Mir. This is the 17th supply craft, and the 26th vehicle to dock to Mir. A comparison of how much Mir has been used over the older Salyut 6 and 7 space stations is that those previous systems had only had 12 Progress craft each dock with them. Also note that Progress 40 left Mir on Mar. 5th. This is a somewhat longer time during which no Progress was attached to Mir than expected, especially if they are going to get another cargo craft up before the mid April crew switch off. This in turn is indicative of no expansion module being launched before that switchoff, as had been originally planned. Rumors to that effect have been circulating for several weeks. On board the station Dr. Valrey Polyakov has just exceeded 202 days in orbit, putting him in 14th place in zero G experience. More interesting is on the 14th the short wave stated that he had just given the crew a complete physical. In the 19th report again Alexander Volkov and Sergei Krikalev (Soyuz TM-7, up for 113 days) were mentioned as the crew, which will be coming down. However, Polyakov was talked about separately. This is giving yet more indications that Dr. Polyakov may not be landing in April. In addition the replacement cosmonauts are now described as "another long duration crew", a term which has not been used for the Soyuz TM-7 team. The term appears to be applied to cosmonauts exceeding 1/2 year in space now. Thus the new mission may be another space endurance record mission, again confirming the good results of the year long mission of Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov in 1988. When a nation has an operating space station it has the flexibility to change mission plans in orbit quickly. The US, Europe and Japan will only have that capability only when they have their own home in orbit. Glenn Chapman MIT Lincoln Lab ------------------------------ Date: 17 Mar 89 23:10:18 GMT From: tkelso@blackbird.afit.af.mil (TS Kelso) Subject: NASA Prediction Bulletins: Space Shuttle The most current orbital elements from the NASA Prediction Bulletins are carried on the Celestial RCP/M, (513) 427-0674, and are updated several times weekly. Documentation and tracking software are also available on this system. As a service to the satellite user community, the most current elements for the current shuttle mission are provided below. The Celestial RCP/M may be accessed 24 hours/day at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud using 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity. STS-29 1 19882U 89 21 A 89 75.88416932 -.00173436 00000-0 -74311-3 0 174 2 19882 28.4395 203.0386 0024478 222.6431 137.2274 15.84213241 522 -- Dr TS Kelso Asst Professor of Space Operations tkelso@blackbird.afit.af.mil Air Force Institute of Technology ------------------------------ Date: 20 Mar 89 04:33:08 GMT From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net (Henry Spencer) Subject: space news from Jan 9 AW&ST Cosmic Background Explorer, slated for Delta launch this summer, has now been loaded with liquid helium in preparation for launch. NOAA and CNES begin formal negotiations aimed at possible merger of Landsat and Spot systems. National Academies of Sciences and Engineering report to Bush says the space station should be undertaken after, not before, long-term goals (e.g. return to the Moon, manned flight to Mars) are selected... which should be a high priority. Soviets plan two consecutive medium-duration missions to Mir, pending full analysis of data from the year-long mission. The current crew will be up until April or May, followed by a two-man crew which will stay up until October or so. Speaking of the one-year crew... Soviets say: "We're one step closer to Mars... Our initial observations of Titov and Manarov show they are in great shape..." Soviet Mars-mission planning is moving ahead. One approach would be launch of living quarters on one Energia, followed by the Mars lander and the Earth return module on another, followed by fuel and nuclear- electric propulsion systems on several more. The total crew would be four, with two going down to the surface. AW&ST visit to Baikonur sees second Soviet shuttle orbiter nearing completion, as well as test models of it. Two test models had a pair of unusual pods, resembling jet-engine nacelles but not in the same place as the jet pods used on the atmospheric-flight-test model (which also had the mystery pods). The Soviets refuse to explain. Soviets comment that six people is really too many for Mir -- when it had that many recently (the two one-year cosmonauts, two visitors, Dr. Poliakov, and Chretien), it had trouble with temperature and humidity buildup. They say this will be remedied when the long-awaited expansion modules are added. Glavkosmos signs definitive marketing agreement with Space Commerce Corp. of Houston [this is Art Dula's bunch], giving the latter exclusive US marketing rights for Soviet space services, hardware, and data. SCC has been marketing Soviet launch services for some time, but will now also handle Mir payload space, payloads on unmanned recoverables, Soviet comsats, data from navigation and ocean-sensing satellites, images taken from Mir, and Soviet space-program technical literature. In the past, customers like Payload Systems Inc. (which is flying payloads aboard Mir) have dealt direct with Glavcosmos. SCC is also arranging inspection trips to Baikonur for businessmen interested in Soviet launch services; there is considerable interest in public tours. Trials of telephone service from trans-Atlantic airliners, using Inmarsat satellites, will start soon. Two British Airways 747s will be the trial aircraft; the price will be about $10/minute. Experiments are also underway to evaluate automatic position reporting for aircraft via satellites, which could greatly simplify oceanic air-traffic control. Position reporting is easy to do because it needs little bandwidth and cheap antennas (voice is harder, with current satellites). The major obstacles to satellite-based oceanic traffic control are not technical but political: traditionally, responsibility for traffic control over oceans rests with the nearest country, to get the best use out of limited communications range, and a more efficient scheme using satellites and a few consolidated control centers would mean loss of revenue, employment, and prestige for some countries. First Pegasus launch (scheduled for July) will probably carry a Glomar experimental message-relay satellite for DoD and a pair of gas-release canisters for NASA ionospheric research. Launch will be into polar orbit from off Vandenberg. The original payload plan was a cluster of small store/dump comsats, but they have been postponed due to the slight element of risk in using the first launch of a new booster. This will be the second Glomar (an earlier one went up on a shuttle in 1985); they are aimed at demonstrating feasibility of using small satellites to relay data from (and commands to) small military sensors. A particular application is data relay from antisubmarine-warfare sensors scattered on the Arctic ice, to help track Soviet submarines under it. NASA jumped at the chance to use the rest of the Pegasus payload for gas-release tests, several of which had to be dropped from the NASA/DoD CRRES satellite when it was shifted from the shuttle to an expendable. This will replace one of two planned Scout launches with canisters, which would have cost more and taken longer. -- Welcome to Mars! Your | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology passport and visa, comrade? | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V9 #299 *******************