September-October 1982:milestones

April 1982

16 NASA announces that Sally Ride will fly aboard the seventh Shuttle orbital mission in April next year as a mission specialist. Bob Crippen and John Young, who flew the first orbital mission, will command STS-7 and STS-9, respectively. Dick Truly of STS-2 will command STS-8.

19 Salyut 7 is launched into a 219x278 km orbit. On 13 May the Soyuz T-5 craft with cosmonauts Anatoli Berezovoi and Valentin Lebedev is launched and docks with the new space station on 14 May. A three man crew with a French cosmonaut is expected to fly in June. On 15 May the orbit is 343X360 km.

22 Engineers manage to free the jammed C-band antenna of the Indian Insat 1 communications/meteorological satellite by firing a 22 N thruster. The first attempt failed.

26 COS-B, EISA’s gamma-ray astronomical satellite, is switched off after operating for almost seven years. Its design life was two years.

May 1982

11 A Big Bird spy satellite is launched by Titan 3D from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

12 ESA announces that the launch of Ariane L5, carrying Marecs-B and Sirio 2, has been delayed until 10 September. Marecs 1, launched last December, has suffered electrostatic problems in orbit and modifications are being made to the second craft. Exosat will now fly aboard Ariane L6 in November.

17 The Soyuz T-5 cosmonauts release the 62 lb Iskara 2 amateur communications satellite from Salyut 7. It will be controlled by students from command centres in Moscow and Kaluga.