From: mcdowell@head-cfa.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell)
Subject: "Jonathan's Space Report, No. 128"
Followup-To: sci.space
Organization: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA,  USA
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 17:15:58 GMT

Jonathan's Space Report 

No. 128		1992 Sep 15
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Mir
----

The Soyuz TM-15 crew, Anatoli Solov'yov and Sergey Avdeev, continue in
orbit aboard the Mir complex. They are due to remain aboard the station
until January 1993. The crew made an EVA on Sep 3.

Shuttle
-------

Space Shuttle Endeavour was launched from Complex 39B at KSC at 1423.00
UTC on Sep 12 on the Spacelab-J mission. The seven member crew are
carrying out experiments aboard Spacelab Long Module 2 for NASDA, the
Japanese National Space Development Agency. Orbit of Endeavour on
Sep 12 was 298 x 311 km at 57 degrees.

Launches
---------

Navstar GPS 27 was launched at 0857 UTC on Sep 9 by Delta 7925 from Launch
Complex 17A at Cape Canaveral. It is the 28th Delta II launch; all 28 have
been successful.

An Ariane 4 was launched on Sep 10, but I don't have the details yet.
There have been 25 Ariane 4 launches, including one failure. The
payloads on the latest launch were Hispasat 1A and Satcom C3.
Satcom C3 is a GE3000 class comsat to be used by GE Americom to 
replace one of its older Satcom C-band relay comsats. Hispasat 1A
is the first Spanish domestic comsat; the Eurostar 2000 class 
Ku-band satellite will carry relay communications within the
Iberian peninsula and will relay TV to Spanish speakers in
the Americas; it also has 3 direct broadcast TV transponders
for TV transmissions to Spain, and some military X-band comms
transponders.

Two passive Pion tracking targets were released by the latest Resurs-F satellite
on Sep 1. Tracking of their orbital decay will allow studies of atmospheric
density and radar calibration.

Reentries
---------

Kosmos-2096, an ocean surveillance satellite launched in 1990,
reentered on Aug 30. It was maneouvered into a low perigee orbit
on Aug 1. This leaves Kosmos-2122 as the remaining
Russian ocean surveillance satellite operating.

The Chinese FSW-2 recoverable satellite reentered on Sep 1.

The 16th Resurs-F satellite landed in Kazakhstan on Sep 4
after a 16 day flight.

Erratum
--------

Yoshiro Yamada tells me that the correct transliteration of the name
of the NASDA payload specialist on STS-47 is Mamoru Mohri.

Current Shuttle Processing Status
____________________________________________

Orbiters               Location   Mission 
                                          
OV-102 Columbia        OPF Bay 1     STS-52
OV-103 Discovery       OPF Bay 3     STS-53
OV-104 Atlantis        OPF Bay 2     OMDP
OV-105 Endeavour       LEO           STS-47
                                          
ML/SRB/ET/OV stacks                       
                                          
ML1/STS-53             VAB Bay 3
ML2/		       LC39B
ML3/STS-52/ET	       VAB Bay 1


 .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
 |  Jonathan McDowell                 |  phone : (617) 495-7176                |
 |  Harvard-Smithsonian Center for    |                                        |
 |   Astrophysics                     |                                        |
 |  60 Garden St, MS4                 |                                        |
 |  Cambridge MA 02138                |  inter : mcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu      |
 |  USA                               |                                        |
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