Jonathan's Space Report No. 418 2000 Jan 19 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Obituary -------- Geoff Perry, the world renowned founder of the Kettering Group, died suddenly in Cornwall on Jan 18 at the age of 72. Geoff, formerly a physics teacher at Kettering Grammar School, taught his students to track short wave radio signals from Soviet satellites, and eventually established a world-wide network of experts who figured out what was going on in the Soviet space program. He and his team came to public prominence in 1966 with their independent discovery of the Plesetsk launch site. I'm glad that Geoff lived long enough to see the declassification of the former Soviet missions and discover that the `answers in the back of the book' agreed for the most part with his own sleuthing, but I'll miss his insight and comprehensive knowledge. Errata ------ Some errata: I am glad to report the Rokot launch vehicle at Plesetsk was not damaged in the December accident, and neither was the payload. Only the fairing was ejected and written off. Krunichev will therefore most likely be able to launch the vehicle this spring. However, the new plan is to launch two dummy satellites and use the uprated Briz-KM upper stage; see below. In JSR417 I listed KOMPSAT as a KAIST (Korea Adv. Inst of Space Tech.) project, which was a mistake - I got it right in JSR 416, it is a KARI (Korea Aerospace Research Inst.) mission. KARI, in Taejon, also flies Korea's sounding rockets and will develop the Korean satellite launch vehicle. Galileo ------- Galileo safely completed the Europa-26 encounter on Jan 3. At 1800 UTC on Jan 3 Galileo passed 343 km from Europa; at 0333 on Jan 4 it flew 343000 km from Jupiter's cloud tops; at 0656 on Jan 4 it flew 214000 km from Io. The Galileo Europa Mission ends on Jan 31, to be followed by the Galileo Millenium Mission which is likely to be approved in the next few weeks. Rokot ----- In penance for spreading the incorrect Rokot rumour, and since we're short on launches this week, I'll present some details of the Rokot launch vehicle. The first ICBM designed by the Chelomei bureau (the ancestor of the Krunichev company), the UR-100 rocket (article 8K84) was first tested on 1965 Apr 19. The UR series of Universal Rockets also included the larger UR-200 missile, tested in 1963 but then cancelled, and the UR-500 which became today's Proton space launch vehicle. The UR-100 was 1.6m in diameter; its replacement UR-100N (article 15A30) was a larger 2.5m diameter rocket which could fit in the same silo. The UR-100N was test flown for the first time on 1973 Apr 9 (although some sources suggest 1972). As part of a general upgrade of Soviet missiles, the UR-100NUTTKh version (the UTTKh abbreviation means `tactical-technical upgrade') was test-flown starting on 1977 Oct 26. The UR-100N and UR-100NUTTKh rockets have now made about 145 flights with only 3 failures. They are known to NATO as the SS-19 (the original UR-100 was the SS-11) The hydrazine/nitrogen tetroxide fuelled UR-100NUTTKh has two main stages and a post-boost stage all using engines from KB Khivavtomatiki; four RD-0233 on stage 1, one RD-0235 (and four small RD-0236 verniers) on stage 2, and one RD-0237 on the post-boost stage. The Rokot launch vehicle is based on refurbished UR-100NUTTKh missiles with a Briz upper stage replacing the post-boost stage. Rokot (which means `roar') is marketed in the West by EUROCKOT Launch Services, a joint venture between DaimlerChrysler Aerospace and Krunichev. (They put a 'c' in 'Rockot', probably to make it sound more like 'rocket'). The original 14S12 Briz-K is conical in shape, probably matching the size of the old post-boost stage. It uses the KB KhimMash S5.92 engine that was flown on the Fobos probes' ADU stage and will also be part of the new Fregat upper stage from Lavochkin. The S5.92 has a thrust of 20kN. Future launches of Rokot will use the 14S45 Briz-KM which is a repackaged Briz-K, cylindrical in shape and with a larger payload adapter and fairing. A 14S43 Briz-M has also been developed which is a Briz-KM with an extra torus fuel tank, for use as a Proton upper stage, but its first chance at a test flight was lost when the Proton carrier vehicle crashed last summer. There have been three test flights of the Rokot so far. The first two were deliberate suborbital flights of which few details are available; the apogee was around 900 km, and the Briz stage was fired several times, but it's not clear what the maximum velocity reached was, and so I don't know how close the flights were to reaching orbit. The third flight was an orbital test flight which placed a small 70 kg test satellite (Radio-ROSTO) in a 1881 x 2163 km x 65 deg orbit. The Briz stage disintegrated a few hours later generating dozens of pieces of cataloged orbital debris; I'm guessing this problem has been fixed in the new Briz-KM, probably with a depletion burn. As far as I am aware, all launches so far of the UR-100 and UR-100N series rockets have been from the Baykonur spaceport. The forthcoming test launch of Rokot will be from complex 133 at Plesetsk, where Krunichev has taken over an old Kosmos pad. The new pad verification test launch is now expected to carry a pair of dummy satellites; suggests they will be simulated Iridium satellites, since the bankrupt Iridium still has the first commercial booking of Rokot later this year (A similar pair of dummy Iridium payloads was used on the first test launch of the Chinese CZ-2C/SD). The UR-100NUTTKh second stage places the payload stack in a -2727 x 256 km suborbital trajectory. The first Briz-KM burn 5 min after launch will put the stack in a 200 x 700 km transfer orbit, and the second Briz burn 64 min after launch circularizes the orbit at apogee. Table of Recent Launches ----------------------- Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Dec 3 1623 Helios 1B ) Ariane 40 Kourou ELA2 Imaging 64A Clementine ) Sigint 64B Dec 3 1951 Mars Polar Lander MPL Cruise Stage Lander 01D? Dec 3 1951 Scott Probe ) MPL Cruise Stage Lander 01E? Amundsen Probe) Lander 01F? Dec 4 1853 Orbcomm FM30 ) Pegasus XL/HAPS Wallops Comsat 65A Orbcomm FM31 ) Comsat 65B Orbcomm FM32 ) Comsat 65C Orbcomm FM33 ) Comsat 65D Orbcomm FM34 ) Comsat 65E Orbcomm FM35 ) Comsat 65F Orbcomm FM36 ) Comsat 65G Dec 10 1432 XMM Ariane 5 Kourou ELA3 Astronomy 66A Dec 11 1940 SACI-2 VLS Alcantara Research F05 Dec 12 1738 DMSP 5D-3 F-15 Titan 23G Vandenberg SLC4W Weather 67A Dec 18 1857 Terra Atlas 2AS Vandenberg SLC3E Rem.Sens. 68A Dec 20 0050 Discovery Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39B Spaceship 69A Dec 21 0712 KOMPSAT ) Taurus Vandenberg 576E Imaging 70A ACRIMSAT ) Science 70B Celestis-03) Burial 70C Dec 22 0050 Galaxy 11 Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comsat 71A Dec 26 0800 Kosmos-2367 Tsiklon-2 Baykonur LC90 Recon 72A Dec 27 1913 Kosmos-2368 Molniya-M Plesetsk LC16 Early Warn 73A Current Shuttle Processing Status _________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia Palmdale OMDP OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 1 STS-92 2000 Jun? ISS 3A OV-104 Atlantis OPF Bay 3 STS-101 2000 Mar 16 ISS 2A.2 OV-105 Endeavour LC39A STS-99 2000 Jan 31? SRTM MLP1/ MLP2/ LC39B MLP3/RSRM-71/ET-92/OV-105 LC39A .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS6 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : | | USA | | | | | JSR: | | Back issues: | | Subscribe/unsub: mail, (un)subscribe jsr | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'