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Aviation History
1990
1990 - 2837.PDF
0 PERATIONS: S PACEFLIGHT Shuttle clear to launch Ulysses BY TIM FURNISS Space Shuttle Discovery has been cleared for its launch from the Kennedy Space Centre on the STS 41 Ulysses deploy ment mission, despite a leak from an ammonia boiler in the spacecraft's coolant system which is losing 1% of Freon gas a day. The launch is scheduled for 5 October at the earliest. NASA says the leak is a minor problem, particularly as the STS 41 mission will last just four days. Correcting the leak would eat into the very tight launch window which ends on 23 Oc tober or result in the mission's cancellation for 13 months. The European Space Agency- NASA Ulysses solar polar or- biter was safely installed in Discovery's payload bay on 8 September and the flight crew completed a terminal count down demonstration test and emergency egress practice on 12 September. The agency is under intense pressure to launch Discovery on time, particularly after yet an other hydrogen leak which cancelled sister ship Columbia's planned STS 35/Astro 1 launch on 6 September. This leak did not emanate from the external tank discon nect line as previous leaks have, but from the main engine com partment eight hours before the planned launch. Engineers re placed the hydrogen recircula tion pump package in the or- biter's main engines but consid ered the chances of finding no further leaks when propellant is being loaded as only 50:50. D Arianespace wins Brazilsat launches Ariane's backlog builds Arianespace has been awarded a $97 million con tract from Brazil's Embratel to launch Brasilsat SI and S2 in 1995-96. The Hughes-built sat ellites are the 36th and 37th satellites on Ariane's outstand ing launch schedule, represent ing a four-year workload worth $2.9 billion. The latest Ariane launch, V38, went without a hitch on 30 August, placing the first Eu- telsat II and Britain's Skynet 4C into orbit. Once on station in geostationary orbit, Eutelsat II- Fl will be operated by a control centre in Paris and ground sta tions in France and Portugal, supplied by the UK's Logica Communications as part of an £8 million Eutelsat II ground segment contract. Logica's telemetry, command and ranging (TCR) system, pro vided to main subcontractor Al catel Espace, will control up to six Eutelsat II satellites from the satellite control centre in Paris, while TCR ground stations at Rambouillet, France, and Sintra, Portugal, will handle three. D No 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 Date Aug1 Aug 2 Aug 4 Aug 8 Aug 13 Aug 15 Aug 16 Aug 17 Aug 24 Aug 28 Aug 29 Aug 29 Aug 30 Aug 31 August satellite launch log Spacecraft SoyuzTMIO GPS 8 Navstar Cosmos 2089 Cosmos 2090/95 Molniya 1 Progress M4 Resurs F Marcopolo 2 Cosmos 2096 BS3a Cosmos 2097 Cosmos 2098 Eutelsat II Skynet 4C Cosmos 2099 Type Ferry Navsat Recon Tacsats Comsat Tanker Rem sens Comsat Eorsat Comsat Early warn Mil navsat Comsat Mil comms Recon Launcher Soyuz Delta Soyuz Tsyklon Molniya Soyuz Soyuz Delta Tsyklon H-l Molniya Cosmos Ariane Soyuz Launch site Baikonur Canaveral Plesetsk Plesetsk Plesetsk Baikonur Plesetsk Canaveral Baikonur Tanegashima Plesetsk Plesetsk Kourou Plesetsk Booster explodes killing one man ATitan IV booster segment exploded at Edwards AFB in California on 7 September, killing one man and injuring nine people. The lower segment of a motor, planned to be part of a seven-segment United Tech nologies solid-propellant booster used on the Titan IV launcher, ignited accidentally when it was dropped from a crane at the US Air Force Astro nautics Laboratory. The acci dent was described as an "igni tion rather than an explosion". Once ignited, the so lid propel lant had to be left to burn out. The accident is not expected to delay plans to launch a Titan IV from Cape Canaveral on 17 September and the first launch of a vehicle from Vandenberg AFB later this year. Forty-one Titans have been or are being constructed with options for nine more. Power loss hits Japan's BS-3a The Japanese three-channel direct broadcasting satellite, BS3a, launched from Tane gashima on an H-I on 28 Au gust, is working on 0.3kW less electrical power after a solar power system malfunction. Each of BS3a's two solar pan els, which are designed to pro duce 1.4kW of power, comprise four unfurled surface areas. Only three on each panel appear to be operating as a result of a power systems failure. The sat ellite is based on a GE Astro Satcom bus built by Japan's NEC, but the panels and power system were supplied by the US company. D NEWS IN BRIEF LONG MARCH LAUNCH China launched its second Long March 4 booster from Taiyuan on 3 September, car rying the Feng Yun 2 weather satellite. FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 19 - 25 September, 1990 17
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