On Sun, 22 Oct 2000, Walter Nissen wrote: > John David Corby <jcorby@hurontario.net> writes: > > Launcher: SL-16 > SeeSat-L readers will recognize SL-16 as a description for some of the > brightest and most interesting visual objects. Actually, this is not the SL-16 ! Personally, I forget the old SL- designators because these days we have CIS names for their launch vehicles, even though they are made-up designators for commercial/public use only. The SL-16 refers specifically to the two-stage Zenit launch vehicle, the Zenit-2: Zenit-1, BTW, was the designator used for the strap-ons used on the Energiya shuttle launcher. The Sea Launch vehicle is the Zenit-3SL which takes the Zenit-2 and adds the commercial Blok DM fourth stage from the Proton-K vehicle, giving a three-stage Zenit. Problem is that the two stages of the "Zenit-2" are sub-orbital for the Sea Launch missions. All of their launch profiles call for the Blok DM-SL third stage to perform LEO injection and then a second (or more) burn to reach GTO. So, the orbital stage from the Zenit-3SL is not the orbital stage of the Zenit-2, it is a much smaller stage. Phillip Clark --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phillip S Clark 22 Winterbourne Close Molniya Space Consultancy Hastings Compiler/Publisher, Worldwide Satellite Launches E Sussex TN34 1XG U.K. Specialist in "space archeology" - the older and more obscure the more interesting it is ! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Oct 22 2000 - 09:43:25 PDT