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Aviation History
1996
1996 - 2167.PDF
SPACEFLIGHT Another Chinese launch fails TIM FURNISS/LONDON CHINA GREAT WALL In dustry (CGWIC) failed to place the Hughes HS-376 China- Sat 7 communications satellite into the correct geostationary-transfer orbit (GTO) after launch aboard a Long March 3 fromXichangon 18 August. China Telecommunications Broadcast Satellite's 24-transpon- der spacecraft was stranded in orbit, with an apogee lower than intended, after the second burn of the third stage of the LM3 stopped 48s earlier than planned. The ve locity shortfall, estimated at 475m/s by the Molniya Space Consultancy in London, results in an apogee 18,800km short. It was the third time in its nine flights since 1984 that the LM3's third stage has malfunctioned. The LM3 had launched the Hughes-built Apstar lAinto GTO on 3 July, restoring some confi dence to the Chinese commercial- launcher business following the catastrophic loss of the Intelsat 708 satellite 20s after launch on 14 February. CGWIC lost four launch contracts after this failure of the maiden flight of the LM3B (Flight International, 8-14 May). An LM3A model is due to launch the national DFH 3 com munications satellite into GTO in October, followed by the ApStar 2A and Chinastar aboard LM3Bs in 1997.Thecommercial launch of the Mabuhay satellite on an LM3 C version, in 1997, has been placed in doubt by a pricing disagreement. Six LM2Cs are due to place Iridium communications satellites into low-Earth orbit under a com mercial contract with Motorola. • France's Cerise is first official debris victim THE FRENCH Cerise elec tronic-intelligence-technol ogy research satellite has become the first officially registered victim of space-debris impact. In late July, a briefcase-sized fragment from an exploded Ariane 1 third stage, launched in 1986 in a similar polar orbit, collided with the Surrey Satellite Technology- built spacecraft's Sm (16ft) atti tude-control boom at an estimated speed of 27,000kt (50,000km/h). The craft was destabilised, but Surrey Satellites believes fiat it can be brought under control. The 50kg craft was launched on 7 July, 1995, with the French Helios re connaissance satellite. The explosion of the Ariane third stage resulted in one of the worst cases of debris creation. A total of 489 pieces was catalogued. The Ariane 1 had placed the Spot 1 remote-sensing satellite into Sun- synchronous orbit and it is suspect ed that, because the stage was in continual sunlight, it overheated, overpressurised and its residual propellants exploded. Similar events with Delta upper stages have been recorded (Flight Inter national, 23-29 August, 1995). • Fourth Japanese H2 sends the Adeos into polar orbit J APAN'S ADVANCED Earth- observing satellite, the Adeos, and an amateur radio satellite, were successfully launched into 800km circular polar orbits by the fourth H2 booster from Tanegashima on 17 August. The 3,500kg Adeos has a suite of five national and two NASA instru ments, and one French instrument. It is the largest craft built byjapan, measuring 4 x 4 x 7m. The satellite is to acquire data on global warming, depletion of the ozone layer, decrease in the topical rain forests and climatic changes. The launch is the fourth success in four flights on the H2, which had its maiden launch in 1994. The next flight, carrying the communi cations and broadcasting engineer ing-test satellite, the Comets, has been scheduled for January/ February 1997. • More Aerojet second-stage engines for the Delta 2 McDONNELL DOUGLAS HAS awarded Aerojet a follow-on contract to supply a further 40 AJ10-118K second-stage engines for the Delta 2. The restartable, nitrogen tetroxide-Aerozine-50, hyper- golic engine has a total burn time of 432 s and a thrust of 43kN (9,7501b). The two- stage Delta 2 has been booked for 13 mis sions carrying the Iridium and Globalstar communications satellites. A three-stage version has been committed to up to 36 US Air Force launches of Block 2R Navstar global-positioning satellites. Russia sends back up crew to the Mir space station THE SOYUZ TM24 was launched on a Soyuz U boost er from the Baikonur Cosmo drome on 17 August, carrying a crew of three people to the Mir 1 space station. The crew consists of the first French woman in space, Claudie Andre Deshays, flying the 16-day, $13 million, Cassiopiae science mission; and Valeri Korzun and Alexander Kaleri,the first back-up crew to fly since the Soyuz 11 mis sion in 1971. They replaced Gennadi Manakov and Pavel Vino- gradev when a pre-launch health check on Manakov at Baikonur revealed a heart anomaly. He was hospitalised. Rather than replace the entire crew, which is normal policy, Deshays was selected over the back-up French crewman Leopold Eyharts. Mir residents Yuri Onufrienko and Yuri Usachev will return to Earth with Deshays on 2 Sep tember, leaving Korzun and Kaleri with NASA astronaut Shannon Lucid, who is scheduled to be replaced by John Blaha after the delayed launch of STS79/ Atlantis on 12 September. • NASA has selected Wendy Lawrence and David Wolf to fly long-duration missions aboard the Mir in 1997/8. They will be launched aboard STS86 and 89. Lawrence had earlier been dropped from Russian training because she was too short to fly on the Soyuz, if there had been a need to make an emergency return. The Soyuz is being modified. • The crew of the first Space Shuttle mission to begin assembly of the International Space Station has been selected. The STS88/ Endeavour, which will be launched in December 1997, will be com manded by Robert Cabana. The Endeavour will join the Node 1 and mating adaptors to the Russian1 Functional Energy Block module, which is scheduled to be launched on a Proton booster in November 1997. Spacewalks are scheduled to be performed by Jim Newman and Jerry Ross, flying his sixth mission. • FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 28 August - 3 September 1996 19
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